EMAIL GUIDELINES

Most University employees would agree that email has changed the way in which we communicate and conduct business. As a business tool, email is used to rapidly exchange information, collaborate on projects, and make announcements. Many campus units utilize email to transmit reports, meeting minutes, drafts of policies, official memorandums, and other information without realizing that their email correspondence is a public record, according to the North Carolina Public Records Law (G.S. 132). If an email message is determined to be a record, then it must be maintained within a recordkeeping system and should be either retained or deleted according to the provisions of an approved Records Retention and Disposition Schedule.

"Managing the Digital University Desktop" was a National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant funded project to study computer file management practices in academic units and administrative offices here at UNC-Chapel Hill and at Duke University. Data from a preliminary survey and 150 in-depth interviews of faculty and staff on both campuses guided the development of web-based tools and best practice guidelines for the management of email and other electronic records. The first management tools produced by the project are in the form of email FAQs.

The University's Email Retention Guidelines (5 November 1999) are still in effect.

Other guidelines:

• NC Email Retention Checklist;
• E-mail As a Public Record in North Carolina: Guidelines For Its Retention and Disposition

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