Policy and Guidelines for UMM's World-Wide Web Site

1. General Guidelines
1. The UMM World-Wide Web site is an official publication of the University of Minnesota, Morris. Because of its status as an official, institutional publication, individuals do not have a guaranteed right to add unrestricted content to it.
2. The UMM WWW Advisory Group has set these guidelines to serve as UMM policy on the content of the UMM WWW site. Comments or questions should be directed to Nancy Helsper.
3. All pages which are part of (i.e., directly linked from) the UMM WWW site must follow the University of Minnesota policy on Publishing Information on the World-Wide Web. All pages must also follow the additional guidelines given in this policy.
4. The U of M policy contains different requirements for personal pages and for official University pages. The appropriate requirements must be met. Note that in addition to the policy statement at the above address, further rules are contained in a link from the word "Guidelines." Copyright protection for personal and University pages differ; go to copyright to see how to appropriately copyright a web page.
5. WWW pages which reside on UMM systems but are not linked to the UMM WWW site must not use the University of Minnesota wordmark, must not be used to conduct University business, and must not give the impression that they are official University pages.
6. Different guidelines will apply to three separate categories of UMM pages: central pages, unit pages, and linked personal pages.
   
   • Central pages include the UMM home page and centrally-maintained pages such as directory listings.
   • Unit pages include any material placed online by a UMM division, discipline, or department with the purpose of providing University information.
   • Linked personal pages are those created and maintained by an individual (student, faculty, or staff) which are linked to a UMM central or unit page.
2. Design guidelines
1. All UMM unit home pages (i.e., the first page of a unit's Web information; the unit page which is directly linked to the UMM central information) will contain these graphic elements:
   • A unit-name banner created for the unit in the approved design style of the UMM WWW site. (example)
   • The UMM toolbar (navigational element). (example)
2. These elements may be incorporated into unit pages beyond the unit home page if they are appropriate.
3. The UMM toolbar may be supplemented with additional buttons if they are appropriate for navigating within a unit's WWW information. Added buttons must be designed for the unit in the approved design style of the UMM WWW site.
4. Per the U of M policy statement, personal pages, whether for student, staff, or faculty members, may not contain the University of Minnesota wordmark or any other symbols of the University or campus.
5. A recommendation: be aware that a significant portion of the world's population have visual disabilities, including difficulties distinguishing between colors. Text and background color should contrast strongly. Various shades of red in backgrounds and text, as well as combinations of green and yellow, will be problematic for a large number of users. Additionally, avoid the use of extremely small text in graphical images, as its size cannot be increased by the Web browser.
3. Content guidelines
1. University unit pages and central pages must contain the University of Minnesota equal opportunity (EEO) statement (text may not be altered):"The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer."
2. Per the U of M policy guidelines, linked personal pages (whether for students, staff, or faculty members) must contain the following disclaimer statement (text may not be altered): "The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of the page author. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of Minnesota."
3. Per the U of M policy guidelines, all pages, whether personal or unit pages, must contain the URL (uniform resource locator, or Internet address) of the page, and the page's last-modified date.
4. Copyrighted materials may not be used without permission.
5. Linked software must be used in compliance with the software license agreement. Filters and scripts must be created and put in place to protect any linked software which is licensed for use only at UMM.
6. Because the UMM Web site is an official and public University publication, no information may be provided about students, faculty, staff, or alumni without the appropriate permissions. When information is provided which goes beyond the University's stated guidelines for public information, a signed written permission statement must be on file.
7. UMM does not permit links to commercial sites for financial incentives, except on pages of departments identified by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Finance as auxiliary departments. This is an interim policy which the advisory group will revisit as necessary.
8. Because UMM is a public institution, photo releases are not required for candid photos taken in public areas. However, a page owner should voluntarily remove any photo from the UMM Web site if the subject of the photo objects to its use, and anybody taking photographs for use on the UMM Web site should respect all requests from individuals who ask to be excluded at the time the pictures are taken.
9. UMM students and vendors who have donated their services in creating UMM web pages may include text credits (name and/or company name) but not logos on the UMM page. Links to company pages are not allowed at this time. Links to a student creator's personal page are allowed only if the personal page is hosted by a UMM server.
4. Structural Guidelines
1. UMM's primary Web servers are on two computers: www.morris.umn.edu and cda.morris.umn.edu. Code and content for central pages and unit pages should reside on www.morris.umn.edu. Personal pages may reside on either server.
2. Other sites and servers are not approved for use at the UMM WWW site. No unit or personal page may be a part of (i.e., directly linked from) the UMM WWW site or from any official UMM directory page from any system other than the two computers mentioned in 4a.
3. Because unlinked personal pages are not considered to be part of the UMM Web site, and because they may contain private information, the UMM search engine has been configured not to search pages that reside in users' personal accounts (i.e., the public_html directory of any account). Therefore, all central and unit pages should reside in directories descending from the UMM server root (i.e., directories which do not require a tilde (~) in the URL). Student organization pages may choose whether to use personal accounts or server root directories, but the organization's pages will not be indexed in the UMM search engine if the content is in a personal account.
4. UMM has chosen HTML version 2.0 as its minimum standard for graphical Web browsing. All UMM pages must be usable in any HTML 2.0-compatible browser (for example, Netscape 2.0). Pages which include non-standard additions not available in the HTML 2.0 specification must offer an alternative version of the page which is usable in any HTML 2.0-compatible browser.
5. Pages which contain menus based on imagemaps should also include an alternate text menu. Images should contain a text alternate if the image is meaningful to the content of the page. Be aware that not all Web browsers are graphical browsers.
5. Personal Guidelines
1. Every page in the UMM WWW site must have an owner who is reponsible for maintaining its content and its HTML code. The owner must be a single individual and must be either a student, staff, faculty member, or contracted consultant of UMM.
2. Units who have Web pages must report the name of their page owners to the UMM Webmaster. A unit's ownership of a page is permanent. When an individual page owner leaves the unit or the University, the name of the new page owner must again be reported to the Webmaster.
3. The UMM Webmaster will maintain a list of all unit page owners (and the pages they own) and a corresponding electronic mail distribution list. The list will be used for distributing updates to this policy and guidelines document, as well as other information useful to UMM page owners.
4. A mechanism for contacting the page owner should be provided on unit home pages, either as a "mailto:" button or as simple text.
5. In accepting the responsibility for owning a unit page, all unit page owners must agree to respond to all inquiries and mail in a responsible and professional manner, including forwarding off-topic inquiries to the appropriate individual at UMM who can respond usefully.
6. Units and individuals must not include a "mailto: webmaster" button, or anything which directs messages to the UMM Webmaster, on their pages without permission.
7. Units and individuals may not automatically direct mail to anybody without that individual's permission, except via central directory pages.