Web Site Requirements and Editorial Guidelines

Site Requirements

Official vs. Personal Web Pages

It is important that visitors to The College of St. Scholastica Web site be able to distinguish clearly between an official publication from an office or department and an unofficial publication from an individual member of the community. The standards included in this document are intended to make that distinction clear - as well as to promote a consistent, efficient, and attractive interface for those seeking information on The College of St. Scholastica Web site.

Definition: Official pages of the College include all pages stored on the College's Web server except those created for individual faculty, staff, students or student organization all of which are all considered personal pages. There may be some exceptions to this rule that will be considered on case-by-case basis.

Requirements for Official Web pages on The College of St. Scholastica Web server:

• Each page must use the College's standard footer and header to signal users that they are visiting an official page of The College.
• Each Web site must have at least one site manager
• Every page must include a text "mailto:" link to the site manager or designated departmental contact. The designated contact is expected to reply to e-mail inquires generated by their pages and address queries from the Web Team related to their pages.
• Site Managers are responsible for making sure that the information on the Web pages the oversee is as accurate and up-to-date as possible and for removing or revising inaccurate information.
• The College requires that the text on its Web pages adhere to the College's editorial and style guidelines and be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. Site managers are encouraged to have their pages reviewed by another party or can request review by College Communications for typographical errors and similar problems.
• The College's logo may not be modified in any manner. Contact College Communications if you need a logo to use on your site.
• All official College pages must adhere to the College's accessibility, appropriate use and privacy policies.

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Requirements for Personal Pages on The College of St. Scholastica Web server:

• Each Web site must have at least one site manager
• Personal pages must display the following disclaimer at the bottom of every Web page, "This page is not a publication of The College of St. Scholastica. It has not been edited or examined for content by the College. The author(s) of the page are solely responsible for the content."
• Each personal Web page must also include a standardized "mail to" link to its site manager.
• Site Managers are responsible for making sure that the information on the Web pages the oversee is as accurate and up-to-date as possible and for removing or revising inaccurate information.

We encourage the site managers of personal Web page to follow the requirements and guidelines outlined for official pages. However, personal pages will not be reviewed for content or design. The Web Team does reserve the right to remove a personal Web page from the College's Web server that violates College Web policies.

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Site Managers

Each department on campus with Web presence must have a "registered" site manager. A department may have more than one site manager. Students are permitted to serve as one of the site managers, but at least one of the site managers must be a faculty or staff member of The College of St. Scholastica.

Responsibilities of the Site Manager:

1. Within their department, site managers coordinate the gathering of accurate information for the Web page and decisions about how the information will be organized.
2. They determine within their department how often page information is going to change and when information will be updated.
3. They integrate Web information into their department's publication cycle.
4. They prepare the information for display on the Web following College Web guidelines
5. They respond in a timely fashion to e-mail inquiries generated by their pages and other queries related to their department.
6. They verify that the information they place on the Web is accurate and current.

Editorial and Style Guidelines

Official Web sites are expected to follow AP Style and the editorial guidelines published by College Communications.

• .PDF

Content Management
Site owners are expected to check their Web sites on a periodic basis to ensure that information is accurate and up-to-date. Web sites should be thoroughly reviewed at least once a month, and more frequently if the site contains dated material.

1. Check all dated material (such as special announcements and departmental calendars of events) and ensure that the information is timely and up-to-date. Remove out-of-date listings. This is the most frequently-encountered type of problem found on departmental web sites.
2. Carefully review material for any misspellings and grammatical errors. Composer does include include a spell-checking feature. Carefully check for missing apostrophes, quotation marks, and extra spaces between letters; these errors frequently occur when transferring web documents from one system to another.
3. Carefully review editorial content to ensure that all information is accurate. This is particularly important for student-related information such as course listings and program information.
4. Check departmental names, phone numbers, room numbers, and e-mail addresses on a regular basis to ensure accuracy.

Departmental site managers should check their web sites on a periodic basis (at least once a month) to ensure that the site is functioning properly from a technical viewpoint.

1. Check to ensure that all pages within your web site load properly. Load each page and check that all text, graphics, tables, and other elements appear as intended. Because different browsers often display web sites in varied ways, it is recommended that the sites be tested using both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers. If you have access you should also check both browsers on Windows and Macintosh platforms.
2. Try viewing your web site via a modem connection rather than a direct on-campus network connection to monitor the time it takes to load the site. Some users will be viewing your Web site in this manner. Loading time can often be minimized by reducing the graphics used on the site.
3. Test all hyperlinks on your site to ensure that they function and link to the appropriate web location. This is particularly important when the links connect to outside resources, since these links may change or disappear without notice.
4. Check to ensure that all graphics on your web site load properly. This is particularly important if the graphics are being referenced from a source outside of your departmental directory. Missing graphics typically appear as a "broken" icon on the web page.

In addition to the quality checks performed by the departmental site manager er, it is strongly recommended that College Communications review the content of the entire Web site at least once per year to ensure that the content is accurate, timely, and appropriate for the department.

• Always include an e-mail address on your department's Web site so that visitors to your site can inform the departmental webmaster of any errors or problems that they have encountered.

Overview of frequently-encountered web page problems:

Editorial

• Out-of-date schedules and other events
• Misspellings in text
• Grammatical errors in text
• Missing apostrophes and quotation marks
• Extra spaces between letters in words
• Missing or incorrect names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses
• Inaccurate factual information (such as out-of-date program descriptions)

Technical

• "Broken" links to other resources (internal and external web sites)
• Missing graphics (these appear on web pages as a "cracked" icon)
• Incorrectly-formatted tabular material
• Slow loading times when connecting to the web site via modem
• "Special effects" (animations, banners, etc.) that do not function properly
• Overly-complex arrangements of web "frames" (multiple web pages on a single screen) that create viewing and navigational problems - Note frame-based design should be avoided.