This document provides instructions for a semester project involving performing a records inventory for Security Transport Professionals, Inc (STP). The student must select one of STP's three functional areas to focus on: narcotics/drugs, top secret materials, or toxic/dangerous materials. For the selected area, the student must identify relevant record types, develop a survey to collect information from departments, and create initial interview questions. Finally, the student must draft a record retention schedule that considers legal requirements and includes methods for record destruction.

1. SEMESTER PROJECT
Please review the description of the organization that is the
subject of your semester project. The description of that
organization, Security Transport Professionals, Incorporated,
(STP) is described in the instructions for Phase I that you have
already completed.
1. This phase will involve performing a records inventory. The
organization is far too large to undertake a records inventory for
the entire company. You will need to make a determination of
which program or division or functional area whether that be (a)
the narcotic/drugs that you ship/store, (b) the top secret
materials that you ship/store, or (c) the toxic or dangerous
materials that you ship/store to include in its records inventory.
Once you have made that determination, decide which of the
managers/personnel previously identified that you will need to
contact/interview and work with in order to complete the
records inventory for the functional area that your group has
selected. It will most likely include more than one of the
personnel/departments listed above. As project manager you
have decided to collect information using a two-step approach
where you first send out survey questions and then once you
have received the responses you will follow up by conducting
interviews.
(a) State whether you intend to focus on the narcotic/drug area,
top secret materials for the government, or toxic or dangerous
materials/chemicals.
(b) Identify which of the above department(s)/areas/units that
you will need to survey and subsequently interview, depending

2. on which one of the three functional areas you have decided to
focus your attention on.
(c) For the functional area that you have selected you want to be
able to speak intelligently to the knowledge personnel within
that department and ask appropriate and relevant questions.
Therefore, you need to do some preparation and brainstorming
before making contact with the departments/units that you have
identified as essential. To that end, identify (using diagram,
table, hierarchy chart, taxonomy, or other form that is most
descriptive) the “record types” that you expect are created and
maintained in each of the departments/areas/units that you have
decided to focus on. Use descriptive names for each record type
and tell the type of information that would be retained in each
record type. This can be as specific as creating a taxonomy for
the record if you should decide to do so (see Appendix A in
your text book), or you may conduct research and determine
what other structure would be appropriate in order to convey
this information. The most effective way to convey this
information to me would be in the form of a table that identifies
the Record Type, Responsible Department, and the Event that
triggers the creation of each record type. [For example, if we
were dealing with a health care provider (WHICH WE ARE
NOT, I am only using this unrelated example to give you an
idea of what I want you to do), an example of a record type that
your doctor’s office might keep would be an Insurance Record
that would include things like information about the Insurer,
information about the patient, information about the insured if
different from the patient, information about the plan options
and conditions of coverage, information about the insured
history of using this insurance in the past and the prior payment
record.] [Another example: You will find a record type used on
page 172 of your text book to describe a workers’ compensation
insurance company’s accident/injury report as part of its record
retention schedule.]

3. (d) Develop a Records Inventory Survey Form that you are
going to use in surveying the departmental unit(s) you have
identified above. The purpose for your survey is to be able to
identify the kinds of records (contracts, financial reports,
memorandum, invoices, etc.), which department owns the
records, which departments access the records, what application
creates the record, where the record is stored physically and
logically, date created, last changed, whether it is a vital record,
and whether there are other forms of the record. You want to be
able to use this information to make decisions related to
retention and disposal of the records. Explain who will receive
the survey and why. The survey will be sent about one month
prior to the follow up interviews. This will allow for two (2)
weeks to complete and return the survey and two weeks to
tabulate and review it, and to tweak your interview questions,
depending on the results of the survey. Explain the rationale
for the questions that you included in your survey.
(e) Develop an initial set of interview questions that you plan to
use as a follow up to the initial survey that you drafted in (d)
above.
(f) Based upon the records you have identified above, develop a
record retention schedule and for the record types. Include in
this the method of destruction when the record is marked for
destruction. Explain whether you are going to use event-based
retention for any of your record types and if so why, and
identify the triggering event. For this question, you need to
discuss the legal requirements and compliance considerations.
THE RESEARCH PAPER: While your research paper will
undoubtedly include a number of tables, diagrams, lists and
other illustrations, the paper is to be written in narrative form.
The illustrations may be included in appendix at the end of the
paper, or may imbedded in the body. But please don’t forget
that the paper itself is written in narrative form. Include

4. citations to your research.
The paper should be written in narrative form using the APA
format. Please use ample subsections or subheading as
appropriate. Your paper should have a 1-in margin on top,
bottom, left and right margins. The paper should be double
spaced. Use a cover page with a title, and the name of each
team member who contributed to your project/paper. Each page
should have a page number in the bottom right margin. The
paper should also include a table of contents, which includes
subject headings, subheadings or subtopics, references or
sources, and illustrations as well as page numbers for each.
For each major area or section of your paper explain identify
the options you have considered, where applicable. Discuss the
alternatives you considered, giving pros and cons of each, and
provide information from the research you conducted that
assisted you in arriving at your conclusion as to why one
alternative was selected over another. You MUST cite the
sources for your research any time you make reference to your
research, whether that be through direct quotations or in
summary. Your work should include no fewer than five (5)
sources. While there is no minimum or maximum length for
your paper ,excluding illustrations.
SEMESTER PROJECT Description
Introduction to the Company:
Security Transport Professionals Incorporated (STP), has its
home office located in Lexington, Kentucky and in addition has
more than 3,000 employees located in each of its branch offices
located in Houston, Texas and San Diego, California.
STP is primarily a nationwide freight hauler. Its customer are

5. comprised of major market retailers particularly in the medical
and pharmaceutical industry, the federal government, and
several state governments. STP operates a fleet of trucks and
private cargo planes that it uses to move “goods” belonging to
its customers from one destination to another across the
continental United States. Its fleet of truck carriers are located
in Lexington, Kentucky with it planes located in Louisville,
Kentucky.
STP carries and transports highly controlled, narcotics and
scheduled prescription drugs, toxic, radioactive, nuclear, and
top secret materials from one facility belonging to its customer
to another. The method of transport depends on the type of
cargo being hauled. In addition to hauling/forwarding its
customers products/goods, STP is required from time to time to
store its customer goods for brief periods of time. Two years
ago STP began contracting with a number of subcontractors
hereafter referred to as either “limited joint partners (LJPs)” or
“independent subcontractor alliances (ISAs)” for the purpose of
expanding its freight forwarding, storage, and delivery service.
Due to the confidential nature of the freight that it transports,
STP vets its employees, as well as any subcontractors (LJPs and
ISAs) that it engages.
STP’s business objectives and goals include the confidential,
safe and secure movement of its customer goods, from the
customer/distributor to its client, or from one of its customer’s
locations to another of the customer’s locations in a timely and
efficient manner using costeffective methods. Alternatively,
STP may transfer this responsibility to one of its limited joint
partners (LJPs) or independent subcontractor alliances (ISAs),
if it is more cost-effective and the income differential is within
acceptable limits. There are 3 LJPs with which STP had entered
into contracts. LJPs are corporate organizations in the same
industry that offer essentially the same services as STP, and
who are generally competitors of STP. However, when the job

6. requires resources that exceed those of STP or its competitor,
the two will enter into an agreement to jointly undertake the
contract together, and will together provide the same full range
of services, with both entering into the same contract or joint
venture with the customer.
Independent subcontractor alliances (ISAs) differ from Limited
Joint Partners (LJPs) in that a ISA is not a direct competitor of
STP. Rather, the ISA is a company that offers a subset of
services to STP, or contracts with STP to provide it with
necessary resources to perform the particular job at hand. For
example, an ISA may be a warehousing company that provides
only storage facilities for STP. Alternatively, an ISA may be a
company that is engaged in service and repairs for STP’s trucks
and planes, and/or provide sterilization and cleaning services
for STP’s trucks and planes upon completion of a job, where
STP had transported hazardous or toxic materials, requiring
specific types of sterilization or cleaning services for its
transport vehicles. There are other types of ISA that STP
engages and contracts with. With regard to ISAs, STP is the
only organization that will contract with its customer or who
will be identified to the customer. It will then enter into its own
separate subcontractor contract with its ISA, and the ISA is not
identified to STP’s customer. There is no definitive number of
ISAs that contract with STP. The specific ISAs used (if any)
will vary depending on the geographic location or area of the
country involved and the availability and cost of the ISA
available to service the area.
STP is also under pressure from several of its competitors in the
industry. The competitive market is driving STP to improve its
routes, delivery methods, fleet vehicles, and other facets of its
business to increase profits (a strategic goal) and to reduce
costs. The company realizes that its information technology
infrastructure has been neglected for some time and that many
operating locations are running on outdated hardware and

7. software. On several occasions last year, STP suffered no less
than four network compromises through one of its LJP Internet
sites that led to the disclosure of sensitive and strategic
information on contracts and mergers.
The chief information officer (CIO) made a strategic
presentation to the board of directors and executive management
to first assess the aging infrastructure and then, develop a
multi-year phased approach to have all sites (except for LJP and
ISA) on the same hardware and software platforms.
Information about the assessment indicates that the current state
core infrastructure (switches, routers, firewalls, servers, and so
on) must be capable of withstanding 10-15% growth every year
for the next seven years with a three-to-four-year phased
technology refresh cycle.
There is a hodgepodge of servers, switches, routers, and internal
hardware firewalls. Nearly all of the infrastructure is woefully
out-of-date in terms of patches and upgrades. This operational
neglect has unduly increased the risk to the network, in terms of
confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Since this will be a
multi-year technology upgrade project, something must be done
to reduce STP’s exposure to vulnerabilities to increase the
overall security profile and reduce the risk profile.
Now that the funding has been approved for the infrastructure
assessment, the CIO has decided that it might be a good idea to
implement an Information Governance Program into the
organization, assuming he can sell the corporation on its
benefits. To that end, the CIO has hired you as IG Project
Manager to assist in initial preparatory stages.
STP Job Roles:In addition to the CIO, below is a list of
individuals at STP to whom you have been introduced. The CIO
has informed you that you can call upon any or all of the
individuals who hold these job roles/titles for assistance and

8. may name any of them to be on your project team. You may
also call upon any of the heads of the various business units for
assistance, as well as a designated contact person for each of
STP’s LJPs and ISAs.
· Chief Executive Officer (CEO)*
· Chief Information Officer (CIO)*
· Chief Financial Officer (CFO)*
· Executive VP of Marketing*
· VP of Human Resources
· In-house Counsel
· In-house Financial Analyst and Risk Manager
· Senior Records Manager
· Senior IT Manager
· IT Security Expert
· Overland Transport Manager
· Airway Transport Manager
· Overland Transport Manager
· Airway Transport Manager
· Southern Region General Manager (Houston, Florida)
· Western Region General Manager (San Diego, California)
· Information Security Specialist
* This individual is also a member of STP’s Board of Directors