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Drake Web Site
Policies and Procedures

Version 2.8
Approved 4/12/2006

1. Introduction

This document describes policies and procedures for the Drake Web site. The objectives of these policies and procedures include:

  1. Provide accurate and timely information about Drake that is easily accessible to the Drake community and its external constituencies.
  2. Maximize the effectiveness of the official Drake site as a tool for recruitment and retention of students, faculty, staff and alumni.
  3. Enable the Web to be used for the teaching, learning, research and service missions of Drake.
  4. Provide opportunities for creative use of the Web by Drake faculty, students and staff, while maintaining a consistent look and feel.

2. Classes of information on the Drake site

Web pages on the Drake.edu site fall into one of two categories: those that contain official information and those that do not.  (Note that Blackboard is not part of the Drake.edu site, and so does not fall under this Policy).

Official information is information that commits the University to offering specific courses, programs, majors, etc. or any other service (e.g. the libraries, Alumni and Parent Programs, Athletics, etc.), facility or activity.  Academic information created by faculty for teaching and research purposes is also official information , though faculty may also wish to create personal non-official pages.

All other information, such as that on student organization pages, personal pages, etc., is “non-official” and appears on non-official pages.

3. Characteristics of official information and pages

A. The following apply to all official pages:

  1. Original content on these pages is owned by Drake  (even if they are produced and hosted by an outside vendor).
  2. The content on all pages must conform to Drake’s Acceptable Computer Use policies for faculty and staff and students.
  3. Pages must also be in compliance with Drake’s Right to Privacy policies for personally-identifiable information for faculty and staff and students.
  4. All new pages created must be accessible to those with sight and hearing disabilities.
  5. Links to external pages from official pages are required to open into a new window.
  6. The appearance of pages must follow the Drake branding guidelines.
  7. These pages must include a footer with copyright mark, contact information (which could be an alias or generic email address) for the name of person responsible for the page, and the “Last Reviewed” date.
  8. Pages must follow the approved naming conventions.

B. The following additional requirements apply to official school and college sites:

  1. Specific schools and colleges may create policies that are in addition to University policies.
  2. A link to information on the benefits to be gained from a Drake education.  This may include graduates’ job opportunities and be illustrated by alumni profiles where appropriate.
  3. Links to pages that describe the Drake services available to students to help them graduate successfully and find jobs in their chosen careers.
  4. Schools may wish to provide links to relevant student organizations and activities of particular interest in that school/college (which may be on official or non-official pages).  They may also wish to include other information of interest to current and prospective students.
  5. Some school pages have additional, different functional requirements. Schools have the freedom to address those in the way that works best within the overall policy.

C. The following apply to official pages of academic departments.  They should meet the rules for all official pages, plus the following functional requirements:

  1. They contain curriculum information, including course descriptions and their prerequisites, and graduation requirements for majors and concentrations.
  2. The pages should contain departmental information with links to pages maintained by faculty on their courses, research, etc.
  3. There should be pages where students can determine any general academic requirements of their school or college and of the Drake Curriculum.  These pages are part of the catalog, referenced from multiple other pages, and hence must be in the Content Management System.
  4. Department and program pages must have contact information for visitors seeking more information.
  5. Information as described in B 2) and 3) in the previous section, unless that has already been addressed at the college level.
  6. These pages may also contain links to pedagogical systems, software and information controlled by faculty teaching those courses.
  7. At the request of a faculty member, space may be provided on schools’ and colleges’ servers for pages created by students as part of a course. By default, student pages will be deleted from the server three months after the end of a semester. If faculty members want the pages to remain longer, they should specify the required time to the appropriate server administrator.  Faculty should remind students at the end of the course how long their pages will be kept on the server.  It is the responsibility of students to copy their Web pages to their own computer if they wish to archive them.

D. The following apply to administrative departments, who must have their own official pages that meet the rules for all official pages, plus the following functional requirements:

  1. Pages describing the general function of the department, and the services it provides to faculty, students, staff and other constituencies.
  2. Information on how each group of constituents can access those services.

All official information must reside on official pages with the characteristics and capabilities listed above.  The simplest way to ensure they do this is to have them in the CMS system.  However, units may have alternative ways in which they can meet these requirements, and the Project Team will work with those units to explore the unit’s plans for compliance.

4. Characteristics of non-official pages

Non-official information (student organizations and other non-official information) is to be placed on non-official pages.

  1. These pages are not owned by Drake, but by the organization or individual who created them.  Drake shall not be liable or responsible for any information or content on these pages.  The page must carry a disclaimer to that effect.
  2. Links to external pages are required to open into a new window.
  3. If a student organization wishes to be linked from an official page, it must be registered with the Student Life Center in Olmsted.
  4. Personal pages created by students not as part of a course are non-official pages.
  5. The content on all pages must conform to Drake’s Acceptable Computer Use policies and Right to Privacy policies, see Section 3 A above.

5. Hardware Servers

A. Official pages must reside on secure servers with the following policies:

  1. The only users permitted login accounts to these servers are those authorized by the server’s owner (or designee) at the request of an official page owner.
  2. These servers must have redundant power supplies and be connected to an uninterruptible power supply.  They must be configured with mirrored system disks and redundant disks.
  3. System administrators are responsible for maintaining their software at a patch level that is appropriate for their environment and that protects the rest of the campus.
  4. OIT will periodically run scans of systems within the firewall and work with system administrators to identify changes needed to keep their systems secure. 
  5. Secure servers must be kept on a regular and appropriate backup schedule, as defined in the unit’s Business Continuity Plan. The backup media must have a retention schedule and off-site storage procedures that comply with their unit’s Business Continuity Plan.
  6. Secure servers must be within the Drake firewall or, if they are outsourced, the service provider must by contract meet these requirements.

Should a unit that hosts its own Web site have difficulty meeting these requirements, please contact Network and Technical Services to discuss options.

The owner of any server with official pages not hosted in Dial is responsible for providing these services themselves.

B. Non-official pages can be hosted on any server, secure or insecure, with the following policies:

  1. 1) Anyone may set up and operate their own server.
  2. 2) No official pages are allowed on insecure servers.
  3. 3) Server owners may set their own policies on to whom they give login access, what the backup schedule will be, etc.
  4. 4) System administrators are responsible for maintaining their software at a patch level that is appropriate for their environment and that protects the rest of the campus.
  5. 5) OIT will periodically run scans of systems within the firewall and work with system administrators to identify changes needed to keep their systems secure. 
  6. 6) They are subject to the Acceptable Use and Privacy policies listed in Section 3 A.

6. Managing the Drake.edu Domain and its sub-domains

  1. Root Level Directories are determined and assigned by the Director of Web Communications.
  2. Names must adhere to Drake’s naming conventions for Short Site Names and Webview Publish URLs.
  3. The Director of Web Communications needs to maintain a current site map and all the current links for official pages.  Therefore, site owners (or their designees) must notify the Director if they wish to have links from official pages or if they subsequently change the addresses of those pages linked in this way. 
  4. Disputes about such links will be settled by the Web Policy Committee and the Director of Marketing and Communications.

7. Responsibilities of Site Owners

The site owner is the person who has responsibility for the unit with which the pages deal e.g., the Deans “own” the site of their college or school.  In practice, the creation and maintenance of the page will often be done by a staff support person or outside contractor .

  1. The content of a page is the responsibility of the site owner.  Pages must follow the Acceptable Computer Use Policies for students or for faculty and staff depending on who owns the page.  It must also follow the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act for information about students (Section G of the Student Handbook).
  2. All such personal information must be on official pages on a secure server as defined above.
  3. The site owner has the responsibility to ensure that official pages are maintained with current and relevant information.
  4. If a Web posting changes a previous policy, the site owner must communicate the changes to affected groups, via non-Web means such as memos, meetings, e-mail, etc.
  5. Should a compliant be made that a site’s pages violate policies, the site owner should use the procedures in Section 9.
  6. When site owners have given referral links to other pages and those pages are found to be non-compliant, the site owner should ensure that such pages are de-linked from their own pages until they are brought into compliance.

8. Copyright and Licenses

  1. Page creators (or their designees) should assert copyright when they own it.
  2. Page users must not violate the copyright of pages they are reading or using. (This is also covered in the University’s Acceptable Use of Technology Policy).
  3. Page creators (or their designees) are responsible for complying with all relevant copyright laws, including but not limited to those laws outlined in the Acceptable Use policy.

9. Compliance and sanctions

The Web Policy Committee has responsibility for monitoring compliance with this policy document when it receives reports or complaints about possible breaches.

If the WPC believes the complaint is justified and that a page is not in compliance, the CIO will ask the site owner (or their designees) to make changes to bring it into compliance. If agreement cannot be reached, different procedures will be used, depending on the status of the page owner.

Students

  1. If a complaint is made about alleged breaches of policy by students’ Web pages, the WPC will ask the Office of Student Life to speak with the students and try to reach a solution.
  2. If a solution cannot be reached, a complaint will be filed according to the Code of Student Conduct.
  3. If the University Panel agrees that the page is in violation, the page owner will be asked to correct the problem, and the WPC has the power to enforce that decision by de-linking the page(s).
  4. If the WPC and the Panel disagree about a page’s compliance, the matter will be referred to the Dean of Students for a decision.
  5. Complaints of alleged breaches of policy by officially recognized student publications will be referred to the Board of Student Communications.

Faculty

  1. Complaints of alleged breaches of policy by faculty pages will first be addressed by the CIO speaking to the faculty member.
  2. If resolution cannot be reached, the matter will be referred to the appropriate Dean.
  3. If the complaint cannot be resolved through discussion between the Dean and the faculty member, the matter will be referred to the Provost and if necessary the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

Staff members

  1. Complaints of alleged breaches of policy by staff members’ pages will first be addressed by the CIO speaking to the staff member.
  2. If resolution cannot be reached, the matter will be referred to the appropriate manager.
  3. If, following departmental procedures, the manager agrees the page is in violation, the page owner will be asked to correct the problem, and the WPC has the power to enforce the manager’s decision by de-linking the page.
  4. If the WPC and the manager disagree, the matter will be referred to the appropriate Vice President for a decision.

If a complaint has been received by the Campus Copyright Agent about an alleged copyright violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a page may be temporarily removed while the established DMCA procedures (to be published) are followed.

10. Leaving Drake University

  1. It is the responsibility of any page owner leaving Drake to copy and remove any unofficial page material. This includes faculty members who have left Drake and are not officially on leave, staff members who have left, and students who are no longer enrolled.
  2. Login accounts to servers will be disabled under existing OIT policies, i.e., at the time a person leaves Drake.
  3. After a six month period, system administrators may delete these pages and are not responsible for archiving them.  Drake will not be responsible for any deleted material.
  4. At the request of a Dean, an exception will be made for faculty which will be left linked to the school or college for the length of time specified by the Dean.
  5. At the request of a faculty member, an exception will be made for student materials (e.g. portfolios), which will be left linked to the school or college for the length of time specified by the faculty member.

11. Role and Membership of the WPC

The role of the WPC is to plan the strategic development and use of the Web at Drake, recommend priorities for resources, recommend policies and establish technical standards. It makes proposals to the Provost and Cabinet for approval and then oversees their operation and enforcement.

Faculty, staff and students are appointed as members of the WPC by the Provost to provide broad university representation. The Director of Marketing and Communications and the Chief Information Officer serve as co-chairs.