Edison Community College
Office of Information Technology Services
Official World Wide Web Policy

TITLE: World Wide Web Policy

EFFECTIVE: August 16, 1999

APPROVAL: August 2, 1999

LAST REVISION: June 28, 2005

The World Wide Web (W.W.W.) service of the Internet is an electronic medium which presents an opportunity to project a positive image of Edison Community College to a growing, increasingly sophisticated audience that includes casual visitors, community members, students and prospective students, parents, business clients, current and prospective donors, faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni. The Web offers the College a remarkable communication and marketing tool which can reach audiences throughout the world. The quality of information, and its visual presentation on the Web, is thus as essential as that in printed and broadcast materials. Unlike printed and broadcast materials, however, this medium presents the possibility of continually updated information from a widely diverse authorship. To aid the College community in creating an effective presence on the Web, the College has initiated the following procedures. Structure and development The College has, available for download from the World Wide Web, a home page and other pages (initial pages) directly linked to it. The Webmaster oversees the structure and development of the College's home page found at the uniform resource locator (URL) http://www.edisonohio.edu and determines guidelines for consistent graphic design, format, navigation, accessibility, readability, writing style, and accuracy of official information for this page and College Web pages linked directly to it. The Webmaster and I.T.S. administrators have sole access and responsibility for updating information and maintaining quality and accuracy on this home page and the initial pages. These pages act as the College's electronic presence in the world and, therefore, need to be sensitive to the clients served by it. The College also delivers academic instruction and training, provides student and client services, and conducts aspects of its business operations through the use of Web pages. In order to unify and coordinate these diverse services, the Webmaster and Learning Systems Coordinator., advised by the Executive Council, Marketing Committee and Edison Technology Committee (E.T.C.) , oversees the planning, procurement, and provisioning of the systems and procedures used to implement these services. Servers and access The I.T.S. Core Services unit provides the hardware, communications facilities, server software, and system maintenance of the Edison server network, and serves as a resource for the home page and initial pages. I.T.S. also provides its services to College departments and offices for the purpose of electronically publishing information to the college's web site . I.T.S Core Services also maintains databases, directories, and other information services to facilitate use of the Web. I.T.S. Core Services provides assistance on a priority and time-available basis. Because of the Web's global audience, the College's Web receives highest priority.

Responsibility for information and updates Web contributors at Edison are responsible for the content of their pages and are subject to all College policies pertaining to published materials. Contributors are responsible for accurately presenting data and for updating any material they wish to have published on the College's World Wide Web servers. Contributors should: check all information for accuracy and functionality before submitting information for posting; place the name and e-mail address of that page's author and, optimally, the date of the most recent revision, at the bottom of each page; include on each page both a page heading and browser bar title which clearly identify it; link each home page to the Edison Home Page and its own site pages; respect the copyrights of textual and graphic material; the appearance of material in print does not indicate that the College holds permission for use beyond that appearance; provide text alternatives for all graphics included within the site pages; make pages "user-friendly" in terms of size and number of graphics, navigation, accessibility, and readability; and explore Edison's Web pages for existing URLs to link to rather than developing duplicate sets of data or graphics. Links to sites not on the Edison Web, unofficial College pages, or individual home pages of staff, faculty, administrators, students, and alumni must be clearly identified as such, either explicitly at the link or implicitly by page actions. Assistance The Webmaster assists individuals from the College who wish to electronically publish information by providing the mechanism for the transfer of the Web pages to the Web servers; in many instances an interim posting may be done to a prototyping server for testing purposes before being made accessible to the W.W.W. While the Webmaster assists and advises individuals or offices on Web site development and may assist in page design and building, it does not have an open-ended mandate to create Web pages for others at the College. If an individual or office requires more extensive assistance than consultation, The Webmaster may advise the use of currently available or custom-designed training, or assist in contracting authoring services. The Webmaster will advise and assist Web authors about correct logo and graphics usage; develop tips, techniques, and templates to assist Web authors to improve content and presentation; provide training to the College community on Web issues and tools; and review and promote W.W.W. developments.

MAINTENANCE OF POLICY: Edison Community College Webmaster and Learning Systems Coordinator

This page was created August 2, 1999; most recent revision June 28, 2005. Web site comments to:

URL for this page is http://www.edisonohio.edu/mainweb/webpolicy.htm