Manchester College WWW Usage Policy
The scale of a web site, both in number of documents and number of departments and individuals providing those documents, as well as the rate of growth within such a system precludes any systematic review of published material by a single individual or group. Management of the College web site, therefore, relies on a distributed system of information ownership. Each department or office that publishes information on the web site has full responsibility for the content and currency of that information, just as they would for information published by traditional means. All documents should be clearly labeled with ownership information so that responses to those documents can be directed to the appropriate individuals.
The
web site offers an excellent medium for personal expression, and Manchester
College chooses to allow faculty, staff, and students to publish personal pages
that are accessible from within the web site structure. The College supports
such publication, recognizing that the personal expressions and insights of
members of our community are an important part of College's identity. It is
important, however, that visitors to Manchester's web site be able to clearly
distinguish between official publications of offices and departments and
unofficial publications of members of the community. Allowing individuals
to publish freely may also have legal implications for the College. Manchester
claims no editorial control over material maintained in the individual accounts
of staff, faculty and students. To keep a visible distance from
"official" Manchester information on the home page, disclaimer
notices should appear on pages not containing College-specific information.
Within
a distributed publication system, it is important that all contributors abide by
a certain minimal set of publication guidelines, both to ensure consistency in
style and appearance throughout the official structure and to provide clear
indications of ownership and timeliness on all documents. Agreement to the
following guidelines is a prerequisite to publication within the official web
site structure. Web site servers operated independently by college departments
and organizations should also conform to these guidelines if they wish to be
linked into the official structure.
WWW
Site General Implementation Guidelines
Manchester
web site documents should be designed to be accessible and useful from all
generally used web browsers.
MS Frontpage2000 will be supported by ITS as web development software. Users are encouraged to use this software package for web page development.
Copyrighted materials may not be used without obtaining documented permission prior to use.
Links
to external sources must include identification of the external source prior to
linking.
Disputes
or complaints about published information should be resolved with the
information provider, through the Webmaster, Director of Information Technology
Services (ITS), or the Technology Committee, as
appropriate.
The Webmaster can remove materials that are determined to be offensive or illegal, or which do not conform to College policies. The owner will be contacted after removal and changes will be recommended. Owners may take unresolved complaints to the Director of ITS.
Documents
published on the web site are public by default; information providers should
contact ITS for help in taking appropriate steps to restrict information
intended for campus use only.
Specific
Are you a faculty or staff member creating www pages for your department?
Are you a faculty member creating a course home page?
Are you creating a www page for a student organization?
Are you creating a personal www page?
Are you creating a www page for an off-campus organization?
Any questions regarding this policy can be directed to Webmaster@manchester.edu, or to the Technology Committee.
Credits
These
WWW site implementation and information guidelines have been adapted, with
permission and thanks, from the policies of Carleton College and Goshen College.
This document in its entirety was formally accepted by manchester college technology committee on 3 april 2001.
Last updated 9 April 2001. BJPeterson