花季传媒 WEB CONTENT POLICIES AND GUIDELINES

Introduction and purpose

The purpose of this policy is to provide contributors to 花季传媒.edu with tools, best practices and requirements to enable you to build strong, user-friendly content for the website’s primary audience (prospective students/families) and secondary audience (current students) about your departments and programs that also aligns with the 花季传媒 brand themes and web templates. Using information from this guide, site creators and editors can improve the structure of their content and focus information for greatest impact for their web visitors, with additional guidelines for search engine optimization (which places your web content more advantageously in search results so that visitors will see your content) and information about how content is “read” on web pages. Our goal is to make it as clear and simple as possible for you to produce content and/or update information that meets your office or departmental goals.

Who is responsible for or “owns” the 花季传媒 website and web pages?

Ultimately, the University is responsible for all website content, which is why it is important to follow standards and policies to provide as seamless an experience as possible for visitors.

Because individuals in each department are subject experts with the most knowledge of how their area functions and what information needs to be shared, offices and departments that have 花季传媒 website content maintain their own content and ensure that it is regularly updated and accurate, old content is removed, and broken links are corrected. The Division of Communications and Marketing (C&M) provides access and training in the University’s “Bigtree” Content Management System for those staff or faculty designated by colleges, schools, centers, divisions and departments as site stewards authorized to update and edit their web content.

C&M is responsible for design, development and maintenance of all major, top tier, university-level pages that are primarily intended for recruiting, as well as pages providing information for prospective students, families, employees, and alumni. C&M works collaboratively with all areas of campus to:

We encourage anyone who experiences a problem with any site – such as a broken link or dated content – to let us know so that we can act promptly to correct the problem or notify the area’s web contributor/author.

Six core requirements/policies for all institutional web pages

These requirements pertain to official 花季传媒 departmental pages only, not individual faculty websites maintained by faculty members). Note that Information Services has oversight over 花季传媒’s electronic communications and acceptable use policy, which can be found here: /handbooks/employee-guide/ecau/

  1. Protect confidential and proprietary information: Do not post confidential or proprietary information about 花季传媒, students, employees, or alumni. Web contributors, as with all employees, must follow all applicable federal requirements such as FERPA and HIPAA, NCAA regulations, and University privacy and confidentiality policies. Employees who share confidential information do so at the risk of disciplinary action or termination.
  2. Respect copyright and fair use: When posting, be mindful of the copyright and intellectual property rights of others and of the University. Direct questions about fair use or copyrighted material to the copyright and intellectual property manager in University Libraries at rowlending@depauw.edu .
  3. Establish a designated website steward/contributor: All institutional pages or accounts must have an full-time appointed individual (preferably an employee who can provide continuity and minimize the need for transition and new training) who is identified and trained (by C&M) to be responsible for web page content within their office, area, or department. If appropriate, this individual may manage a team of staff members or students who also contribute content, driven by direction of the designated contributor and as approved by the divisional or departmental supervisor.
  4. Review and update content at least once per year (or prior to the start of each term for content that is specific to that term). All offices, areas, and departments at 花季传媒 must ensure accuracy, compliance, and functionality by reviewing their site prior to the start of each academic year to ensure there is no misinformation, outdated or irrelevant content, or broken or misdirected links. C&M, as charged by the Office of the President, reserves the right to remove content or pages that contain erroneous information, inaccessible content or information that violates federal or University requirements; we will always notify the web steward/contributor or area supervisor when content has been or needs to be removed and will assist with republishing content once the issues are corrected.

    Unless targeted toward prospective students or employees, content related to a specific event or period of time should be taken down from a site no later than 30 days after the event or time period has ended. This requirement is essential because content on your web pages that is tied to a specific date or connected to a one-time or infrequent special event (such as an inauguration, celebration, lecture, etc.) quickly becomes irrelevant (i.e., an old syllabus, dated catalog, special academic or co-curricular program, student or faculty presentations from years prior) can confuse visitors to your site, lower the credibility of your site (and, hence, your department or program); and, because it is searchable, can interfere with visitors seeing your highest priority information and most relevant content. Remember that the primary audience is prospective students and families, and secondarily current students, hence the importance of relevant, updated content. Often this type of content can often be archived offline and searchable for internal users for future reference or historical use; C&M can help you determine the best location for this type of information. NOTE: News articles, although dated, are an example of an exception to the best practice to remove dated content monthly; in general, news can remain relevant for up to two years, especially major news or articles that are more evergreen.

    Anytime textual content is updated, double check links! It’s easy to update text and overlook pre-existing links that may no longer go to the right information – especially when they connect to pages outside of your own site that may have changed – or to forget to double check content validity on pages where links aren’t broken. Although C&M has systems and software that search for broken links, and that information is reviewed weekly, those systems don’t know if a working link goes to the wrong destination. A best practice is for a divisional or department head to require the web steward/contributor for that area to set aside time on the calendar prior to the start of each term to go through your pages, click on all links to ensure they link to the correct information, refresh any photos, review text, and report on findings.

  5. Follow University style and identity standards and appropriately use the University logo and marks. As with print publications, all official web pages that use 花季传媒.edu must adhere to standards for font, colors, logos, and other elements of style; in most cases, because C&M has designed templates that make it easier for web stewards to update content, following these standards will not be difficult. This includes any graphics or photos created and placed on your site or pages. If you have a question about approved marks or usage, you can refer to the Brand Toolkit or contact C&M at communicate@花季传媒.edu. 
  6. Adhere to Section 508 and ADA compliance for sites that are intended to provide information to externally facing audiences (for in-class accessibility requirements connected to technology use, contact Information Services). If you work within a University web template, the content management system templates has many built in compliance tools (such as prompts for alternate text tags for photos) and features to make adding or updating content (i.e., basic text, photos) simpler. C&M also trains web stewards/contributors on compliance measures and audits sites for compliance. Note that most PDFs are NOT compliant and an alternative format such as a webpage or shareable Google doc should be used when possible, especially for essential or critically important information. Compliance requirements change frequently and additional information can be found here:.

Guidelines, best practices and resources for web stewards/contributors

Site size: 

Use as few web pages as possible for your department or area: for effective web management and maintenance, and a better user experience, the fewer pages on your department or area’s website the better! The more diffuse your content is and the more links your pages have, the more confusing your site is for the visitor and the more difficult it is for you to maintain. Unnecessary pages should be removed and content made as concentrated and as evergreen as possible. Remember: It is generally better to provide no information than to have extensive information, links and pages that cannot be efficiently maintained or updated.

Navigation:

Headings and Subheadings:

Headings and subheadings are provided for your use within the CMS content editor in formatting content appropriately.

Paragraphs:

All normal content should be in paragraph form. Be sure to highlight and ensure your text is formatted with Paragraph rather than pulling in the formatting from Word or elsewhere.

Bulleted/Numbered Lists:

These are encouraged to break up information into easily scanned sections.

Video:  

Video hosting on BigTree is possible through 花季传媒 accounts only. If you would like to insert a video on a page, be sure the video is uploaded on the 花季传媒 YouTube or Wistia accounts. C&M is able to help format videos for best quality and size.

Text/Writing:

Sidebars/sidelets/widgets:

Photos and Galleries:

Additional Resources: