CQP Foundation Level
Documentation and Records Management for Quality glossary
Every term this guide defines, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it. Open it when a word in a question is unfamiliar, and test yourself on it in the last week: cover the definition and say it in one sentence.
14 terms from the free first chapter
A
- Archive
Records selected for permanent preservation because of their enduring value, transferred to an archival institution. In Kenya, public archives are held by the Kenya National Archives and Documentation Service.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Authenticity
It can be proven to be what it purports to be, created by the person purporting to have created it, at the purported time.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
D
- Disposition
The final action taken on a record at the end of its retention period: destruction, transfer to an archive, or permanent retention.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Document
Recorded information and the medium on which it is contained. In a quality system a document says what should happen: a policy, a procedure, a work instruction, a specification, a drawing, a form before it is filled in.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Document control
The set of controls ensuring that the current version is the one in use: approval before issue, review and re-approval, identification of changes and revision status, availability at the point of use, legibility, and prevention of the unintended use of obsolete documents.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Documentation
The set of documents an organisation maintains, together with the system that creates, approves, issues, revises and withdraws them.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Documented information
The term KS ISO 9001:2015 uses in clause 7.5 to cover both documents and records, precisely because the two are controlled differently. The standard speaks of documented information to be maintained (documents) and documented information to be retained (records).
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
I
- Integrity
It is complete and unaltered, and any permitted annotation or addition is itself identified and traceable.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
R
- Record
Information created, received and maintained as evidence and as an asset by an organisation or person, in pursuance of legal obligations or in the transaction of business. The definition is from ISO 15489, and the operative word is evidence.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Records management
The field of management responsible for the efficient and systematic control of the creation, receipt, maintenance, use and disposition of records, including the processes for capturing and maintaining evidence of and information about business activities and transactions in the form of records.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Reliability
Its contents can be trusted as a full and accurate representation of the transaction, because it was created at or near the time by someone with direct knowledge.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
U
- Usability
It can be located, retrieved, presented and interpreted within the period it is needed.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
V
- Version and revision
A document changes over its life, so each issue carries a revision identifier and a date. Only one revision is current at any moment, and superseded revisions are withdrawn or marked obsolete.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
- Vital records
The small proportion of records without which the organisation could not resume operations after a disaster: title deeds, contracts, insurance policies, the shareholder register, the current customer database.
Taught in Introduction to documents and records
The full glossary adds every term from the other 9 chapters, A to Z, each with the chapter that teaches it.