Printer FriendlyWeb Maintainers for Colleges/Departments
Each college, department and office is required to designate a web maintainer, who will be trained by Information Technology in the content management system (CMS). This person will be responsible for updating content on the website using a workflow within the CMS. The workflow is simply a series of approval steps within the software.
Faculty or staff members who are designated department maintainers can have students assist them. It is recommended that the student's supervisor is also trained. The Information Technology/Training Office provides training on a regular basis. To set up training, contact Jose Guererro at ext. 4768.
General Policies
• Each web site will have University mailing address, phone number and email address in the footer.
• Verdana is the font used throughout the University pages.
• Text options can be accessed using the style button in the toolbar. Styles not within the set parameters will be stripped out.
• Links to documents should be designated as such and should open new windows. Links to websites outside the University should open new windows.
• Reducing redundancy across the University’s pages is a goal of CMS – enabling information to be updated in one place. The Public Affairs Office will determine where the information should “live” and encourage others to link to that page. (For example, tuition and fee information should be on the Accounts Receivable page; Admissions and other departments can then link to that page.)
Navigation
• Up to 12 primary navigations buttons are allowed.
• The current navigation menu format enables two levels of navigation to be visible. (Second level “drops down” or expands when top level is clicked on.)
• It is preferred that there are About Us and Contact Us pages for each site.
Site Design
To create a more consistent look across all the pages, templates have been designed. These are all similar in terms of the general design, although each family has a different color scheme. Each site will be customized with photos and graphics by a web designer with input from the department.
Logo
The University logo will be used for each site, unless the department has a preferred logo.
Banner/Masthead Design
A creative area at the top of every page (the banner or masthead) is available for each department to customize with photos or graphics. The masthead design has two sizes – a large size that takes up most of the content area and a small size that allows for more text. In addition, the designer can incorporate flash technology to change images (rotating images, changing images upon refresh, etc.) or add other interactive features.
If a department has specific pictures or images, the designer will ma
ke every effort to incorporate them into the design. The designer may use stock photography if images from the department are not available.
At this time, due to resource constraints, the masthead will be the same across all pages. The software does allow for multiple masthead designs. Departments interested in having additional masthead designs can contact Web Services for specifications and then submit designs for approval.
News Feature
Departments will have the option of having news items appear on the front page of the site – either floating over the masthead or within the content area. The articles are pulled from eNews.
Spotlight Feature
Departments can choose to have links to departmental news items from the front page. The box can accommodate one to three items and either floats over the masthead or within the content area. These links are maintained by the department. Departments have used the headlines "News & Events" or "News & Updates."
Department Content v. Catalog Content
Department Website
The goal of departmental websites is to promote the departments’ benefits, research activities and achievements to prospective students, parents, researchers and job applicants. Department sites are maintained by the individual departments. Information includes:
• Department highlights
• Overview of research and community activities
• Information for current or prospective students
• Faculty/staff profiles that link to curriculum vitas and/or faculty websites
Online Academic Catalog
The goal of the academic catalog is to provide policy and course information to prospective and current students to allow them to graduate in a timely fashion.
• Houses institutional admissions, academic and financial aid policies.
• Course descriptions are pulled from the ISIS database. Currently updates are scheduled to occur the first week of each month.
• Maintained and monitored by the Provost’s Office.
• Changes and updates usually will need to go through the appropriate governing bodies. For example, a change to an undergraduate policy must first be reviewed and approved by the Undergraduate Policy Committee and then approved by the Faculty Senate.
• Site includes graduate, undergraduate and continuing education information. Continuing Education data is maintained by the Division of Continuing Studies and Corporate Education.
Courses of Study
Courses of study, curriculum check sheets or career track information belong in the academic catalog. This information can be a PDF or Word document and then linked from the department pages. Undergraduate programs are maintained by the Centers for Learning and Support Services to match ISIS. Please contact CLASS with any changes that need to be made to courses of study. Graduate programs are not currently being maintained by CLASS, please send PDF or Word documents to Deborah White to be uploaded into the CMS. Once the link in the catalog is live, a link can be created on the department page.
Photos
Photos or other graphics (ie: logos, graphs, not clipart) may be included in the content areas of department pages. There are restrictions to minimize download times:
• Photos should be optimized for the web and be 72 dpi
• Three photos are allowed per page
• Photos should be 200 pixels wide maximum
To wrap text around a photo, click on the image button in the toolbar; when the dialog box pops up, select the alignment desired and put “5” into the fields for padding.
Photo Galleries
For pages requiring more than three photos, a photo gallery should be used. Galleries may be live for up to one academic year. Galleries older than that will be removed to ensure that website content remains fresh and current. Websites should not be used as an archive for dated photos or other materials.
Photos on Bio Pages
Although not required, faculty and staff members are encouraged to use headshots on profile pages. Two versions of each photo need to be uploaded – a full-size version at 160 pixels wide and a thumbnail version at 64 pixels wide. Both should be optimized for the web at 72 dpi. The Public Affairs Office arranged for headshots to be taken of faculty and staff at Eastern Photography. To have your photo taken, contact the Public Affairs Office.
Approval of Tasks
The Public Affairs Office must approve all changes before they go live. This is to ensure consistency across all pages, reduce the amount of typos and make sure the pages are correctly formatted and linked in Collage.
Tasks generally go live within 24 to 48 hours after they have been received by the Public Affairs Office. Occasionally, a task may take longer if it has issues that need to be resolved or if it is complicated (ie: many new pages that need to be added to the navigation).
Sometimes, Public Affairs Office approvers may have to reject tasks if there is missing information, information that belongs on another site or if the page is formatted incorrectly.
If you want to be notified when your task has been approved, you may select the “track task” option within Collage (either when the task is created or on the Task Overview page.) An email will be sent to you from Collage when the task is approved and will include any comments from the approver.
Deploy Schedule
The CMS software is scheduled to deploy changes every four hours at the hours of 6, 10, and 2. The amount of changes on a given day will determine when the changes go live; usually it is within one hour of the deploy. Please contact the web content staff if your change is not live 24 hours after the task has been approved. Occasionally deploys will be delayed due to major updates to the site.
Urgent Approvals
In the case of a major error on a page or time-sensitive material, please designate your task high priority and enter a due date. If you need an immediate response, please follow-up with an email or phone call to the web content staff. It is the responsibility of the department editor to submit tasks allowing for adequate time for the task to be approved before the content goes live.
The Content Management System software implementation is a major undertaking for the whole campus. The cooperation and support of the campus is vital to the success of the project. The end result will be a better website for the University that is more functional and more accurate with a more consistent image for visitors. Additionally, the website will be easier to maintain and adapt over time for the campus.