"A record acquired by the office of attorney general from a governmental agency or a nonpublic entity is exempt if the attorney general determines: 

1. The record is necessary to monitor or enforce compliance with a law or order or to further a civil investigation or litigation by the state; 
2. The record is treated as confidential or privileged by the provider of the records; and 
3. The provider of the records has not agreed to waive the privilege relating to or confidentiality of the record." 

Information subject to a litigation hold should not be disposed of until the hold is canceled or removed. 

If you are notified of pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation, ongoing audit or open records request, there may be an impact to the management and/or disposal of your records; please immediately contact the attorney assigned to NDSU. 

Records disposal for each fiscal year is to be completed, and Unit Records Coordinators are to record their unit's disposal data at Record Disposal Online Form, by Nov. 30 of that year. 

Information about the annual records disposal will be communicated to the NDSU community through this website and other electronic announcements. 

Records disposal is the responsibility of all NDSU faculty, staff and students who manage records; the process is facilitated by the Unit Records Coordinators. 

NDSU forms from the campus community are compiled by the Unit Records Coordinators, who then record their unit's disposal data electronically. In turn, NDSU's Records Management leadership submits a cumulative university disposal report to the ND Information Technology Department. 

Guidance for URCs for the recording of their unit’s disposal data: 

1. To record the disposal data of each record series, go to Record Disposal Online Form. 
2. Your email address, primary phone number and primary department are auto-filled. If you serve as a URC for one or more additional departments, please delete the name of the primary department shown and replace it with the department for which you are recording disposal data. 
3. In the box labeled, “NDUS or NDSU Series?” click on the down arrow and indicate whether the record series is from the NDUS-general or the NDSU-specific Records Retention Schedule. 
4. Enter the Record Control Number in the next box. Upon doing so, the fields labeled, “Record Series Title” and “Disposition” will be auto-filled. Please make sure they match the information you have for these fields, to ensure that you are using the correct Record Control Number. 
5. If the “Record Series Title” and “Disposition” fields do not auto-fill, it means your Record Control Number is either from the other Records Retention Schedule, or it is incorrect. If the former, please repeat step 5 selecting the correct Records Retention Schedule name. If the latter, you will need to find the correct Record Control Number using the process outlined at https://kb.ndsu.edu/99046
6. Enter the volume of the records being disposed of in the next field(s). Please note that you will need to indicate the volume in either inches or Megabytes. 
7. Be sure to double-check your data, to ensure you’ve entered it correctly, as you will not be able to make any changes after you’ve submitted it. If, however, you determine later that something was entered incorrectly, please contact NDSU’s Records Management leadership at NDSU.RecordsManagement@ndsu.edu 
8. If you have additional disposal data, click on “Submit & New RCN,” and repeat the process for the next record series. 
9. If you have no more disposal data to record, click on “Submit and Close.” 
10. You will receive a system-generated email confirming the recording of your disposal data for each record series. You can keep these emails for reference if you wish; they are considered convenience copies, not records – the official records are what you submitted, and ND ITD is the Office of Record Retention. If you want to also keep additional details on the disposal you recorded for a particular record series, you can forward the corresponding email to yourself adding those details to the body of the email; if you do so, the result is a record, and you are the Office of Record Retention. 

Exceptions must be documented and submitted to the Records Management leadership at NDSU.RecordsManagement@ndsu.edu. 

Guidance for completing the NDSU Disposal Form for Employees: 

Records with a disposal method of "shred" often contain confidential information and must be disposed of properly.  Paper or microform records must be shredded in an office shredder or through a shredding service.  If you have large volumes of documents to shred please contact the NDSU Purchasing Office for options (there will be a charge).  Other media should also be disposed of so as to destroy any data.  For electronic media this may mean that the device has to be physically destroyed or completely overwritten with data at the end of its life.