IARA County/Local Records Management - Virtual Meetings

Hello Clerks and staff,

The pandemic makes meeting virtually a necessity for many offices, committees, and agencies. IARA acknowledges that this has been a stressful year and understands that everyone has had to find new ways of making their jobs work, especially with meetings by hosting them virtually. IARA is here to help you with that!

If you are recording a virtual meeting of the County Commission of Public Records with the purpose of taking minutes afterwards, make sure to review GEN 10-02. It is necessary to have a quorum (minimum of 4) even though it is a virtual/recorded meeting. You will need to do a verbal roll call to determine who is on the call. And when it comes to a vote, if the vote is unanimous there is no need for a roll call per vote but, if there is a dissenting vote each member needs to be polled by name. 

IARA uses Microsoft Teams for its meetings online but you could apply this guidance to any type of virtual meeting platform. Below are some basic steps to ensure a successful online meeting/recording:

1) Login 5-10 minutes before the meeting to troubleshoot any issues attendees are having. 

2) On the hour, begin recording the meeting. In IARA's case we record only for minute meeting taking purposes, just like we would with an in-person meeting. 

3) Since virtual OCPR is new to IARA, we are retaining the recordings until the end of this year just as an extra safeguard.

4) After each meeting, once the minutes are finished, IARA removes all documents from the Team so there is a clean slate for the next meeting. We treat all documents in the Team as copies and not original records and retain the originals elsewhere.

5) Be clear that you are recording - Teams does it for you by putting a notification at the top of the screen but also try to say, "Starting the recording now" so people have a chance to stop small chat if they don't want it recorded. 

6) Pick a naming convention for the recordings so you can keep them straight. IARA uses MEETING NAME, MONTH, DAY, YEAR

7) Stop recording only after the final meeting attendee has signed off - that way it is very clear that you captured all content. 

8) If you are recording for purposes other than taking minutes, be sure to check retention schedules and retain that content in accordance with any relevant record series.

9) Ensure you understand how to delete a recording - remember the meeting organizer may not always be the person recording so ensure the person recording understands their responsibilities, understands when to delete, and understands how to delete. For example, when you record a video in MS Teams the recording is actually held in the MS Stream account of the person recording. When the recording is deleted from MS Stream it will still be held in the recycle bin for 30 days. So it's a good idea to make sure the person recording understands the ins and outs of the software they are using. 

If you have any questions or concerns with planning a meeting virtually, recording online meetings, using Microsoft Teams, etc. please let IARA know and we will be happy to do what we can.

 

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• county_general.pdf