Website Policy - Andrews University

Approved by the Web Committee on (February 22, 2019) Website Policy PDF

This website policy has been created to provide clear guidelines for the development and maintenance of website assets on any Andrews University website. It details the hosting requirements of websites, domains and content for all University organizations. It clarifies why having a cohesive website is important to the mission of the University.

A great university website leaves a strong, positive first impression with its visitors, including current and prospective students, their parents, institutional partners, faculty, staff and others seeking information from or about the University. For many, the website serves as their introduction to Andrews University. It must communicate the University's mission, vision and outstanding characteristics in a clear and consistent manner. This is the goal for the Andrews University website.

Andrews website management and policies will be guided by the following objectives:

Be a vehicle for marketing the University to various publics.
Actively project a positive image for Andrews University.
Provide resources to support the mission of Andrews University.
Facilitate internal communication for Andrews’ immediate and extended campuses.

To that end, all Andrews University websites are required to be in compliance with the following policy as well as the Information Technology Usage Policy and any other requirements to protect Andrews University data and network resources as determined necessary by Information Technology Services (ITS).

CMS (Content Management System) & Official Templates

All Andrews University websites (except for personal home pages) are required to be managed through the Andrews CMS (Content Management System) and stored on ITS hosted and managed servers. Using the officially branded templates provided by the Office of University Communication will ensure a consistent user experience and support the University’s brand.

The Andrews CMS is available free to all University academic departments, administrative and service offices, and many other University-affiliated organizations and units. The CMS incorporates a family of templates, CSS styles, workflows and other processes in a centralized system compliant with standards for security and accessibility. The use of the Andrews CMS and family templates not only allows participating units to get websites to production more quickly, but it also saves work later as they maintain and continue to develop their websites. This allows units to focus on the most important aspect of their website, developing and maintaining their content, instead of dealing with technology.

Using the Andrews CMS provides:

Ongoing support—training on how to use the CMS, along with phone and web ticket support for any questions and troubleshooting related to the CMS is offered by the Office of University Communication. The CMS also rests on a foundation of servers and networks supported by ITS.
Free services—University Communication and ITS partner together to provide the CMS tool free to all campus entities needing a web presence. University Communication also provides all the visual design templates in the CMS. If you cannot find a template that fits your needs, they can help you design and implement a custom solution.
Security & Andrews username authentication—The CMS makes it easy to password-protect any files and/or folders on a website and restrict them to certain groups on campus based on their Andrews username. ITS also keeps their servers and networks up to date to keep files and data secure and prevent hacking into sites.
Continuity of management and ownership—When sites are hosted on Andrews servers, a department or office can utilize the support services mentioned above without interruption in service, even with transitions in personnel. If there is no immediate successor appointed University Communication can easily help maintain the website until a person is chosen.

Domain Name/Web Address (URL)

By default all Andrews University entities with a web presence are assigned server space under the official domain name of www.andrews.edu. This structure allows the following advantages:

The website and its content will be included in the global Andrews search engine results.
The website will have a search engine ranking advantage, as .edu domain names are given an extra level of importance in search engines.
The overall Andrews University brand is strengthened.

Academic schools and departments are represented using a folder structure under www.andrews.edu. (www.andrews.edu/cas/biology) Subdomains of andrews.edu (e.g. biology.andrews.edu), are not allowed as they create separate sites and interrupt the structure of the Andrews web presence.

Separate (e.g., .org or .com) domain names are not allowed for sites that represent the University and its departments. Besides the reasons mentioned above, the danger exists for changes in the department to render that domain unneeded. These unneeded domains must be maintained. This adds additional overhead to our operations. More importantly, if these domains fail to be renewed, at some point in the future they can fall into the wrong hands. We have had domains on this campus expire and be bought by those who point them to their own sites to siphon off the traffic the domain has been getting. This then causes people to end up at questionable websites when they thought they were going to an Andrews-affiliated site.

Marketing Web Address

Given the extensive size of the University web presence and the nature of web address management, not all websites can have a root-level folder domain name (e.g. andrews.edu/about; some are longer like andrews.edu/cas/biology), but all sites can be granted a shorter marketing address that redirects to the appropriate final web address.

For example, the Department of Biology’s website is actually housed under andrews.edu/cas/biology, but it’s official address for marketing (business cards, posters, etc.) is andrews.edu/biology, which automatically redirects visitors to andrews.edu/cas/biology. To lessen confusion and strengthen the branding and remembrance of a unit’s website address, only one website address redirect will be allocated for each unit site.

Website Content—Editing and Intellectual Property Guidelines

On the web content is king. It is important that the information on your website is current and relevant to your visitors. Be sure your content is spell-checked and uses good grammar. Any dated material should be updated as appropriate to prevent it becoming obsolete.

We recommend that all site updates of a substantive nature be sent to University Communication for editorial review before being published to the public.

Audience. Generally we focus on two types of student in our websites, future and current. A departmental website should be focused on retention and the needs of current students, with some references to where future students can find information oriented to them.

Marketing & Enrollment Management and University Communication develop and maintain many areas of the Andrews website that are oriented to future students. A large portion of these pages are program pages that summarize each program on our campus and have been developed in cooperation with University departments. If you are a department, you should review your program pages regularly. Send additional content and updates to University Communication for inclusion on these pages.

Imagery. All images should be large enough to fill appropriate space on the web page without being pixelated or stretched. All images must be from a source you have permission to use. You may request photos from the Andrews University photo archive website, Andrews Photos (andrews.edu/photos). If you are unable to find satisfactory images, please contact University Communication to help you create appropriate images or find them from stock photography accounts they access.

Intellectual Property. Make sure all intellectual property you use on your website is licensed for your use. Basically, make sure that you have permission to use it.

Credits

While various college and university web policies were reviewed, particular thanks goes to the following colleges and universities for their excellent examples of web policy development and structure:

Virginia Tech—http://www.unirel.vt.edu/web/web-guidelines/guidelines-index.html
Carnegie Mellon—http://www.cmu.edu/marcom/brand-guidelines/print-web-products/web/index.html
Northwestern University—http://www.northwestern.edu/univ-relations/webcomm/index.html
Boston University—http://www.bu.edu/brand/websites/