Records and Documentation Management
Records and Documentation Management
This domain tests the records life cycle: creation, maintenance and use, and disposition. Authority sits in 44 U.S.C. chapters 31 and 33 and 36 CFR chapter XII, which govern how federal records are scheduled, kept, and destroyed.
Core rules and concepts
- What counts as a record. Any format that documents a government transaction - email, chat, text, photograph, calendar entry - regardless of whether it is paper or electronic.
- Disposition authority. Records are destroyed only under a NARA-approved schedule: a General Records Schedule or an agency-specific schedule. Unauthorized destruction or removal is punishable under 18 U.S.C. 2071 and 44 U.S.C. 3106.
- File plan. Each office maintains a file plan mapping its records to schedule items, with cutoffs and retention periods.
- Transfer. Permanent records go to NARA; temporary records go to a Federal Records Center at the end of their retention in the office.
- Access laws. FOIA (5 U.S.C. 552) requires a response within 20 working days; the Privacy Act (5 U.S.C. 552a) governs access to and amendment of records in a system of records.
- Litigation hold. A hold or records freeze suspends normal disposition until released in writing by counsel.
Worked example
An employee retires and her email account contains messages negotiating a contract modification. The supervisor plans to delete the account on the departure date. Correct action: the messages document a transaction and are federal records; they must be captured into the agency recordkeeping system (or the account preserved) before deletion, and the retention schedule for contract files applies, not the employee's convenience. The reasoning: records belong to the agency, not the person, and departure is a known high-risk moment for loss.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating email and chat as personal rather than record material.
- Applying retention from memory instead of the approved schedule.
- Continuing to destroy records after a litigation hold is issued.
- Assuming a scanned image is automatically an acceptable substitute without meeting 36 CFR 1236.