Lenoir-Rhyne College Web Site Policies and Procedures

Every program and service offered by Lenoir-Rhyne is provided with an opportunity to promote the institution and its goals to the wider community. When such information is published on the web, that wider community grows to include audiences from around the world.

Lenoir-Rhyne publishes a great deal of "official" information. However, because of limited budgets and the targeted audiences who receive these publications, it cannot always showcase the wealth of talent, creativity and individuality of its faculty, staff and students. Web pages can offer an opportunity for members of the L-R community to showcase their creativity and individuality.

Because the web presents information to such a wide-ranging audience, it is important that the web pages associated with the college present accurate information in a professional manner and in ways that support the college's mission.

Policies

Many of Lenoir-Rhyne's web pages are intended for external audiences and will be produced using college resources. These pages will bear the name and logo of the college. Therefore, the goals of this web policy are to establish consistency and accuracy as well as providing an electronic identity for Lenoir-Rhyne College. With these goals in mind, the following policies seek to:

• Assure accuracy, currency and completeness of information published about L-R.

• Avoid unnecessary duplication of information and, even more importantly, avoid contradictory or erroneous information

• Recommend responsibilities for publishers of a variety of "official" college web pages

• Propose guidelines and suggestions for the presentation of material developed by college computer users

• Advise page managers as to the organization of information on their pages and how their pages relate to other pages on the "College Web"

The following policies will guide the college community in developing and maintaining the web pages.

General Policies:

1. Lenoir-Rhyne College maintains a home page at the address: www.lrc.edu. The primary purpose of the page is to serve as a gateway to Lenoir-Rhyne College on the World Wide Web and guide browsers to information they seek about the college. The L-R Home Page will lead to further levels of pages, which include links to all academic and administrative units.

2. The Technology Committee has authority over the L-R Home Page and subsequent levels of college pages. The Home Page will follow style, format and design guidelines as established by the office of Public Relations as they apply. The Web Oversite Committee will be maintained as a subcommittee of the Technology Committee. General oversight of the College's web home pages, web servers and policies governing the use of these network facilities will be the responsibility of the Web Oversite Committee. Committee members include the following members: a faculty member and a staff member appointed by the Technology Committee, the chair of the Technology Committee, a representative from the Public Relations Office, representative from Athletics, the Webmaster, and the Director of Information (IT). It is the job of the Webmaster to maintain a register of all published entities on the web servers.

3. Use of disk space on a Lenoir-Rhyne College server and linking to college pages are privileges, not rights. They can be revoked by the college.

4. Page managers shall make the information on their L-R web pages as complete as possible so that the pages may become primary sources of information about the college for students, faculty and staff as well as the wider public.

5. The point of entry to official L-R web pages will be the L-R home page.

6. A combination of a home page and associated subsidiary pages that together form a logical grouping is referred to as a "subweb." An example of a subweb would be an Evening College home page and associated pages that contain information about evening courses and registration information.

7. Each subweb shall have a page manager: one person who is responsible for the information on the page. The page manager will make accurate and timely updates. The page manager's name and e-mail address shall appear on the subweb’s home page along with the date the page was last updated.

Note: The page manager is also the person responsible for the subweb of the unit.

The Web Oversite Committee will oversee the management of all web pages and has authority to replace page managers if necessary. When a page manager must be absent from the college for an extended period of time, a temporary page manager will be appointed until the designated page manager returns.

8. All official L-R information shall be posted on reliable and regularly backed-up client servers. Servers will be in operation 24-hours, seven days a week.

9. The Web Oversite Committee, with the guidance of the vice presidents of units and offices, will identify those responsible for various "official college data," such as current enrollment and tuition figures; student, faculty/staff and alumni databases; course requirements/descriptions, etc.

10. The individuals identified as responsible for this data (page managers) will also be responsible for the same information on L-R web pages, to which other campus web publishers can point hotlinks. The page manager will be responsible for ensuring that all college data is accurate, current and complete.

11. For official college data, individual web pages shall link to centralized data pages, which reduce the possibility of incorrect and/or contradictory information being posted at various points on the L-R web site.

12. Faculty and staff members interested in including official college information on their web pages must not post duplicate information. Instead, they shall contact the appropriate page manager for the URL address of the appropriate official "data page" and create a link to that page.

13. Access to the college web server will be granted only after the faculty or staff member has completed a L-R web training class. This training may be waived by permission of the webmaster or Web Oversite Committee.

Personal Pages Policies

1. Personal pages for individuals - including all faculty and staff - are the sole responsibility of the individual authors and are not considered college publications. Individuals will not be allowed to use official college symbols (or facsimiles thereof) on their personal pages.

2. Personnel responsible for academic programs, administrative units and research projects manage the content and maintenance of their own pages.

3. Faculty may have web pages for instructional/course materials and for class projects. The pages must be managed by the page manager designated for the unit or the individual faculty member, if he or she has taken the L-R web training class.

4. Student organizations with web pages linked from the college home page must be recognized by the Office of Student Affairs. Student organizations may create off-site web pages, or have web pages managed by the page manager for the Office of Student Affairs. If the web pages are hosted on LRC servers, the content may be created by students, but access to the server will only be granted to the page manager for the Office of Student Affairs. Student organization web pages hosted on College servers may consist of HTML and image files (including Flash), but no server-side scripting or databases. If the web page is hosted off-site, the page will be linked from LRC with the following disclaimer:

NOTICE: This link goes to web pages developed and maintained by a student organization. These web pages do not in any way constitute official College content. The views expressed are strictly those of the page authors and are provided for your information. Questions or comments on the contents of these web pages should be directed to the information provider identified on the pages.

5. Faculty and staff organizations with web pages linked from the college home page must be associated with the college. The appropriate campus groups and administrators will consult the Web Oversight Committee to determine whether or not a link shall be made.

6. Web logs (Blogs), Wikis, or other web content presentation technology that is hosted on the LRC web servers will follow the same policies as outlined above. If any of web pages are hosted off-site, a disclaimer re-direct page should be used that will alert the user that they are leaving the Lenoir-Rhyne web site, and that the content on the Blog, etc. does not in any way constitute official College content. However, off-site Blogs that are used for strictly academic purposes may omit the disclaimer page.

Guidelines for Content and Presentation

General Guidelines

Official L-R web pages may be created by an administrative or academic unit of the college. Units may create and organize their pages providing they:

1. Are accurate, current, complete and appropriate for online us.

2. Maintain their page(s) in a timely manner.

3. Comply with style guidelines as established by the Web Oversite Committee.

The following rules shall guide the development of college community web pages:

1. The first page in the page group shall contain:

a) Revision information, i.e., date last updated

b) Full name of the page manager

c) E-mail address of page manager or person to contact with questions

d) A link to the main L-R home page

2. Page managers shall keep in mind the technical limitations of web-browsers when adding graphics. Not all computer users will have the latest hardware, software, memory or a sound card. Authors shall be certain the material they present on their pages is accurate and complete even when loaded without graphics or sound.

3. Subsidiary pages shall contain:

a) A link back to the parent page

b) A link to the L-R home page or other appropriate "official" group page

4. The L-R logo shall be included in the L-R home page and on each unit's first page. An official logo (at several resolutions) will be made available through the Public Relations Office or the Information Technology Office.

5. All web page authors and page managers shall consider several audiences. They include:

a) Internal (all faculty, staff and students)

b) Alumni

c) External (lay community, local "officials," other academics, potential students, the general community of Internet users)

Specific Guidelines

1. Contributors are expected to avoid language and images that are not suitable for L-R Publications. The Webmaster will periodically review pages and may ask that questionable pages be revised to omit offensive material. In the event of a disagreement between the Webmaster and a contributor as to what is appropriate, the contributor may ask for a review by the Web Oversite Committee.

2. Web pages may not display any materials owned by others without the express permission of the owner. Current intellectual property protection on the web is quite broad and does not require that the owner explicitly state that material is Copyright protected. Examples are cartoons, articles, photographs, songs, software and graphics scanned in from published works or other web pages. However, it is the policy of the college to provide appropriate references to the material. We pages may not have copyrighted digital images or videos without permission. Everyone has a right of privacy that includes the right to restrict the use of his/her image. Exceptions to this rule are public figures.

3. The college's name and logo may not be used in ways that imply endorsement of organizations, their products or services. Furthermore, any use of the college logo/s must adhere to the style guidelines for web pages. Logo guidelines can be obtained from the college Public Relations Office.

4. Web pages cannot be used for private financial gain or compensation not relevant to the mission of the college or in violation of the college's ethics policies.

5. Web pages cannot be used to intimidate or single out individuals or groups for degradation or harassment in violation of federal or state law, the Lenoir-Rhyne Rules and Regulations or other college policies.

6. Web pages cannot be used to provide materials whose nature or volume compromises the ability of the server to serve other users' documents.

7. Web pages cannot be used to engage in any illegal activity.

8. Links to web sites outside the L-RC domain for the purpose of online utilities (e.g., guestbooks, bulletin boards, mailing lists) must be approved by the Web Oversite Committee.

Violations

1. If the quality of the pages does not meet the standards of the college as stated in General and Specific Guidelines, the pages will be deleted or modified by the webmaster to bring them up to standard.

2. Besides the deletion of the web page, violators may also be subject to the college rules and regulations concerning these violations.

Procedures

1. Due to disk space limitations, not all individuals will be allowed to create web pages at this time. The order of priority will be: academic and administrative units, campus organizations; individuals.

2. Other procedures will be identified later as web policies are developed.

Communications

Web browsers or users with technical questions may e-mail the college by contacting webmaster@lrc.edu.

Policies for Page Managers

Every program and service offered by Lenoir-Rhyne provides an opportunity to promote the institution and its goals in the wider community. When such information is published on the Web, that wider community grows to include audiences from around the world.

The College expects that there will be Web pages at L-R, which are "unofficial." L-R publishes a great deal of "official" information. However, because of limited budgets and the targeted audiences who receive these publications, they cannot always showcase the wealth of talent, creativity and individuality of our faculty, staff, and students. Web pages can offer an opportunity for members of our community to showcase their creativity and individuality.

Because the Web will present information to such a wide-ranging audience, it is important that Web pages associated with Lenoir-Rhyne present accurate information in a professional manner and in ways that benefit the College's mission.

General Policies

1. The Technology Committee has authority over the L-R Home Page and subsequent levels of college pages. The Home Page is treated as an official "publication of the college and follows style, format, and design guidelines as established by the Office of Public Relations as they apply to other campus publications. General oversight of the College's web home pages, Web Servers, and policies governing the use of these network facilities are the responsibility of the Web Oversite Committee, consisting of the following members of the College: a faculty member and a staff member appointed by the Technology Committee, the Chair of the Technology Committee, the representative from Public Relations, representative for Athletics, the Webmaster and Director of Information Technology).

2. Use of disk space on a Lenoir-Rhyne College server and linking to college pages are privileges and not rights, and can be revoked by the College.

3. Page managers shall aim to make information presented on L-R web pages as complete as possible, so that Web pages can become a primary source of information about the College for students, faculty and staff; as well as the wider public.

4. There shall be one primary point of entry to official L-R Web pages - the L-R home page and associated pages. These pages shall point to all official L-R home pages.

5. A combination of a home page and associated subsidiary pages that together form a logical grouping, is referred to as a “subweb.” An example of such a group would be an academic program home page and associated pages containing information about the program.

6. Each individual web page shall have a page manager - one person who is responsible for the information on the page and for making accurate and timely updates. Note: This page manager is also the person designated as responsible for the page group of the unit and should include name and e-mail address on the home page along with the date the pages were last updated. The Web Oversite Committee oversees the management of all web pages and has authority to replace page managers if necessary. When the current page manager will be absent from the College for an extended period of time, a temporary page manager will be appointed until the page manager returns to campus.

7. Official college data will reside in centralized, modular page groups which other individual pages can point link to reduce the possibility of incorrect and/or contradictory information being posted at various sites on the L-R Web.

8. Page managers interested in including official college data on their Web pages shall not post duplicate information. Instead, they shall create a link to that page.

Personal Pages Policies

1. Personal pages for individuals--including all faculty and staff--are the sole responsibility of the individual authors and are not considered college publications. Individuals will not be allowed to use the two official college symbols (or facsimiles thereof) on their personal pages logo or the college seal. To have a link from a college page, it is submitted to the page manager of the appropriate pages, or the faculty or staff member may post the page themselves if he or she has completed a L-R web training class.

2. Personal pages must contain the following message; "The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. Contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by Lenoir-Rhyne College." Links to non-L-R pages shall signify that Lenoir-Rhyne College is not responsible for the content, format or control of those sites.

3. When faculty, staff, and student organizations set up web pages on a college server, they are responsible for both the content and appearance of the page. All pages must adhere to Lenoir-Rhyne Computer Use Policies as well as all federal, state and local laws.

Subweb Policies

1. All "official" L-R subwebs shall be registered with the Web Oversite Committee and contain an indication that they are official. In order to be registered, there must be one person designated as responsible for the web page or subweb. When registering official pages it is understood that the Webmaster can check pages for accuracy of content and adherence to Web policy guidelines.

2. Web pages linked from the College's home page are the responsibility of the page manager.

3. Academic programs, administrative units, and research projects are responsible for the content and maintenance of their own Web pages.

4. Faculty may have Web pages for instructional/course materials and for class projects and must be managed by the page manager for the unit or they may manage the page themselves if they have successfully completed the L-R web training class.

5. Student organizations with Web pages linked from the College home page must be recognized by the Student Affairs office.

6. Faculty and staff organizations with Web pages linked from the College home page must be associated with the College. The appropriate campus groups and administrators will work in consultation with the campus Web Oversite Committee in determining whether a link shall be made to the campus website.

Guidelines for Content and Presentation

General Guidelines

1. Top-level pages shall contain:

a) Revision information, i.e., date last revised/updated

b) Full name of the page manager (person responsible for page maintenance)

c) E-mail address of page manager or person to contact with questions

d) A link to the main L-R home page

2. Author of top-level pages shall keep in mind the technical limitations of some Web browsers when adding graphics. Not all computer users venturing into the L-R Website will have the latest hardware, software, memory or a sound card. Authors shall be certain that the material they present on their pages is accurate and complete even when loaded without graphics or sound.

3. Subsidiary pages shall contain.

a) A link back to the calling page (the page of the original link)

b) A link to the main L-R home page

c) A link to the home page of the subweb.

4. The L-R logo shall be included in the main L-R home and top-level pages. An official version of the logo (at several resolutions) will be made available from the Webmaster and shall be used exclusively.

5. If a web page contains Official information, others shall be encouraged to point to the information rather than duplicating portions and to ensure consistency.

6. All page managers shall consider several audiences including:

a. Internal (faculty, staff, and students – both full-time and part-time)

b. Alumni

c. External (lay, community, local “officials”, other academics, potential students

10. Contributors are expected to avoid language and images that are not suitable for publications of the institution. The will periodically review pages and may ask that questionable pages be revised/modified to omit offensive material. In the event of a disagreement between the Webmaster and a page manager as to what is appropriate, the contributor may ask for a review by the Web Oversite Committee.

11. Web pages may not display any materials owned by others without the express permission of the owner. Current intellectual property protection on the web is quite broad and does not require that the owner explicitly state that material is Copyright protected. Examples are cartoons, articles, photographs, songs, software and graphics scanned in from published works or other web pages. However, it is the policy of the college to provide appropriate references to the material. We pages may not have copyrighted digital images or videos without permission. Everyone has a right of privacy that includes the right to restrict the use of his/her image. Exceptions to this rule are public figures.

12. The College's name and logo may not be used in ways that imply endorsement of organizations, their products, or services. Furthermore, any use of the college logos must adhere to the style guidelines for Web pages.

13. Web pages cannot be used for private financial gain or compensation not relevant to the mission of the College or otherwise in violation of the College's ethics policies.

14. Web pages cannot be used to intimidate or single out individuals or groups for degradation or harassment in violation of federal or state law, the Lenoir-Rhyne Rules and Regulations, and other college policies.

15. Web pages cannot be used to provide materials whose nature or volume compromises the ability of the server to serve other users' documents.

16. Web pages cannot be used to engage in any illegal activity.

Specific Guidelines

Common Requirements

1. Menu Bar at left side or top of page or L-R Logo

2. Link to the college catalog at their unit

3. Link to L-R main page

4. Description of unit, program, faculty (with email addresses)

5. Link to course material

Flexible Elements

1. Images, backgrounds

2. (The parts of the general web policies that apply)

Policies

1. Non-duplication of information found on other L-R web pages

2. Use spellchecker

3. No long pages - use a series of short pages

4. Put all important material on first full page

5. Course material must be dynamic and must change:

a) List all current semester courses

b) Syllabi for all courses

6. Academic program pages should link to the appropriate section of the college catalog rather than duplicate information

7. Link to the exam schedule rather than duplicate information

8. Link to the academic calendar rather than duplicate information

Training

1. The IT Department will provide web training for faculty and staff whom have been designated as page managers, using current approved software. IT will install web software on page managers’ computers after the training is completed.

2. It is up to the page manager to keep their web design skills current. Ongoing training will be provided by IT for any page manager who needs to refresh their skills.

Software

Only approved web software shall be used to access the L-R web site. This software will be installed by the IT department on the page manager’s computer.

Sound and Video Files

Large sound and video files should not be loaded on an individual web page or sub web. These files should be served from the college’s streaming server. A page manager should contact the webmaster to arrange for a streaming file.

Violations

1. If the quality of the pages does not meet the standards of the college, the pages will be deleted from the Web or modified by the webmaster. Conditions for deletion include, but are not limited to:

a) The information is out of date.

b) The file is causing significant performance problems for the Web Server.

c) The file is in violation of the law or college policies as stated above. Attempts will be made to notify the owner of the file and correct the problem.

2. Besides the deletion of the web page, violators may also be subject to the college rules and regulations concerning these violations.

Web visitors may e-mail the college by contacting webmaster@lrc.edu.

Technical questions shall be addressed to IT, which will monitor webmaster@lrc.edu.

policy updated Nov. 2006