Institution web guidelines

[Paul Acquaro]

Greetings fellow developers,

 

I post this question at the risk that it seems like it must have been asked before:

I am looking into what type of guidelines and policies that you follow at your institutions in regards to official college academic and administrative sites. At my college we have a set of principals that guide us in making distinctions between who must utilize templates and the CMS as well as required types of content that must be on the sites, however, I am curious to find out what others are doing. It would be great if you have a policy posted to perhaps post the link in reply or even write it a brief description.

 

Thanks for your consideration,

Paul

[Chris Wiegman]

As I wasn't part of the committee here I won't comment on our rules. Here's what we have to abide by: http://webstandards.siuc.edu/

[Larry Hackman]

I am interested in this too, particularly as concerns style guides. I can search Google for a number of school's style guides, but it'd be nice to get people's thoughts on their thought process in creating this. Thanks.

[Paul Gilzow]

Web policies: http://webcom.missouri.edu/policy/web-policy.php

Style policies: http://publications.missouri.edu/editorial/style.html

[Steve]

http://www.brockport.edu/policy/

Wish it got more into official social media guidelines.  We recently significantly changed the requirements for Academic department sites.

 

[Paul Acquaro]

Hi,

 

Thanks for all the great replies so far. I've collected a couple links too from some other sources ...

• Cornell - www.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.cornellcollege.edu/information-technology/policies/technology-policies/cornell-www.shtml
• Yale - http://www.yale.edu/its/policy/web.html
• Harvard - http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/administrative-offices/information-tech...

 

Social Media guidelines are interesting as well - it seems to me that is almost a branding issue.

 

- Paul

[Paul Gilzow]

We have a social media policy, but it's still in draft format (and has been for almost a year), so it isnt available right now.  Seems that legal and the various interested parties cant come to an agreement on what is and isnt allowed.  By the time they finally get it all figured out, "social media" will be an antiquated thing.

[Paul Acquaro]

I wonder if "policy" is the wrong approach to social media ... encourage, promote, provide hooks on your site, but let it grow organically.

[Paul Gilzow]

i think part of the sticking point is athletics.  there are rules and regulations on what can and cant be publicized when it comes to student athletes, and thats from ANY official department, not just the athletic department.  We had a situation here where a non-athletic department tweeted something about a student athlete that violated NCAA rules.  the offending department doesnt know anything about NCAA rules (and why would they) so they had no idea they were in violation, but the school took a hit on it. i think we were fined. 

 

It's stuff like this that makes the whole social media thing much more complicated when it comes to universities.

[Steve]

When it comes to social media, I think the first struggle is to ask what kind of policy you're looking for... acceptable PERSONAL use of social media, or OFFICIAL use (in the name of the department/college/etc).  And then for the latter, are you offering best practices, or policies?  What is your target?  Ensuring ongoing organizational control (X moved department or leaves institution)... avoiding orphan official accounts ...  We seem so far away from thinking about these things, let alone supporting them.

[Mark Greenfield]

<shameless self-promotion>

I recently wrote a blog post called Implementing Web Standards in Higher Ed which highlights some of the issues surrounding web standards, policies and guidelines. While none of this is easy, it must be done to move forward. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

</shameless self-promotion>

[Paul Acquaro]

I think this is a nice way to approach discussing branding, thanks for sharing.

Although it isn't necessary for every University of Denver Web page to look exactly the same, visitors to the site benefit from consistency. They expect sites that convey the institution's identity and that present information clearly and carefully.