When I was RM at UCSC we centralized FOI requests and Subpoenas in the
Chancellor's Office under the Assistant Chancellor. It was still up to
the departments to dig for the information and affirm that they were
completely responsive and route the material to the Chancellor's Office.

This was mostly to (not in any order here):
1. Prevent staff un-knowledgeable in the rules of protecting personal
information from giving out protected personal information. 
1a. It liberated the front-line staff from awkward conflicts and
unnecessary work when they could say to the requesting public "it is our
practice not to accept requests at this office, please make all requests
through the Chancellor's Office, please contact them at...."
2. to ensure that the Campus replied to all requests in a consistent
manner
3. to track the timetable for responding and ensure that we met the
deadlines for responding
4. provide one point of contact for the requestor and one point of
contact for answering the request within the campus.
5. California's Public Records Act requires that institutional public
record officers act as reference librarians. If someone asked for
"Everything on dorm construction" we couldn't just say the request was
too broad and ignore it, we had to work with the requestor to help them
to ask for the information they wanted. We felt (as pseudo-librarians
and central records keepers) that we were better prepared to do this
than the dozens of department employees with 0 reference skills.
6. to measure, and then put a budget figure on, the cost of responding
to requests.
7. As residents of the Chancellor's Office we could speak as a campus
wide authority in a way that showed that the campus took FOIA seriously.
(Our Asst Chancellor was officially the office of record for FOIA
requests and responses.) 
8. As residents of the Chancellor's office we had an above the silo view
that allowed us to see where information was throughout the entire
campus. This allowed us to be completely responsive as a campus. 

It seems that UCSC may have modified this process and it is no longer
available on the www, but the subpoena process is similar and you may
wish to review the following web page: 
http://iam.ucsc.edu/IP-Staff/Memo%20to%20Campus.htm


Chuck Piotrowski
CVPS
www.cvps.com
This computer runs on Cow Power!


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Chris Graves
Sent: Tuesday, August 15, 2006 10:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] FOI request process

Hi, I am a recent graduate who will be working at a Canadian
university in a new records management program. The job arose as the
result of recent legislation requiring university compliance with
provinical privacy policies (rather than their own internal policies).

It would be great to get in touch with anyone currently working toward
the same ends. I am interested in challenges encountered in a
decentralized academic environment, as well as workarounds.

Ideally, I would like to centralize the request process. But how to
ensure that phone, in-person, and online requests get streamlined to
the right center?

On the other hand, a different model is to work with liasion officers
in the various departments. But this would not centralize the request
process--just reinforce the decentralized nature.

Which do you think is preferable in an academic environment? Central
requests (one-stop shopping for the university) or decentralized
requests (individual offices handle it as best they can unless
stumped)?

Also, I'd appreciate any online resource suggestions that deal with
FOI records management.

-Chris

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