The following policy is a combination of the requirements of the Office of the Provost, University Marketing and Communications, and the School of Education Technology Committee. The goal of this policy is the help in the production and maintenance of useful, attractive, and user-friendly web sites, and to improve the quality of web sites associated with the School of Education.
Those who construct, revise, or write textual content for web pages for the School's academic and administrative units should consider broad-scope issues such as:
- what information to provide
- how that information can be presented clearly and attractively
- how that information and the site itself will be kept current
- who the site's audences are
- how to organize the site so it is easily navigable and user-friendly
Elements to be Placed on the Home/Primary/Entry Page
Elements to be Placed on All Pages (including Home Page)
- A graphic or text link to the University of Pittsburgh Home Page (http://www.pitt.edu)
- A graphic or text link to the School of Education Home Page (http://www.education.pitt.edu)
- The date of the last update to the page
- Contact information - contact information should be specific to the content on the page, though general contact information is allowable. The contact information should include at minimum an email address, phone number, and/or mailing address. You may optionally provide a "Contact Us" link that brings viewers to a central contact page or feedback form.
Responsibilities of the School, Office, Department, or Other Affiliated Group
- Maintain a current site. Pages should be reviewed by the appropriate administrator, director, or other affiliated faculty or staff member. Links should be checked for viability on a regular basis.
- Maintain an accurate site. Information on the site should agree with the University and School regulations, policies, and published data.
- When putting up an replacement for an existing page, avoid changing the URL if possible. If changing the URL is required, make certain the Web Developer redirects visitors to the old page through a link, meta tags, or server-side redirection.
- Ensure that permission has been obtained for the use of any copyrighted materials and an photograph or video material. While copyright law for the web is not well defined, a guidelines which may be helpful is to include on a site only those images and text which you would be permitted to publish in a book or article. It is important to refer to http://www.library.pitt.edu/guides/copyright/ for information regarding permissions and fair use.
In addition, the School has a form for obtaining permission to use documents, and permission to use photos or videos
- Instruct the Web Developer to read and follow the practices listed above.
Responsibilities of the Web Developer
- Include required elements as listed above.
- Follow proper web standards when designing and creating web pages
- Use a design that will be accessible to those using any common web browser.
- Enable the average viewer to view a page without scrolling horizontally by designing a page to fit on a 800X600 pixel display. The width should not excede 715 pixels.
- Add a redirect meta tag to the old file if an updated web page will have a different URL than an earlier page.
- Make the site accessible to users with disabilities. See http://www.w3.org/tr/wai-webcontent/ for more information.
- Use web design techniques such as alt tags, and avoid technologies such as frames in order to maintain Amerians with Disabilities Act compliance.
- Use standard fonts in sizes ranging from 10 to 14pt for text and 14 to 28pt for titles and headings so that the materials will be accessible to all viewers. The four standard fonts able to be viewed by most web users are Arial, Veranda, Helvetica, and Times.
- Read the University web policies at http://www.umc.pitt.edu/web/.
