14.08 World Wide Web

Purpose

To establish a policy governing the University’s presence on the World Wide Web. This policy applies to all who provide, maintain, or create university web sites.

Chapter 14: Information Technology

Policy Statement

The University of Northern Iowa’s World Wide Web site will serve as a convenient, comprehensive source of information and interaction between the University and its various audiences. These include current students, faculty, and staff, as well as prospective students and alumni; the Board of Regents State of Iowa; State government; higher education; business; and the general public.

There will be one UNI home page (https://uni.edu) that is the default view for those who access UNI’s web site from outside the UNI domain. The upper levels of the web site hierarchy will be designed to emphasize easy access to information of greatest interest to electronic visitors who are not working or studying in the university community. It will also provide a direct link to the campus intranet (or intranets).

A campus intranet (or intranets) will be designed primarily for users within the UNI domain. It will serve to expressly address the needs of UNI students, faculty and staff. It will place emphasis on easy access to such information as campus data, internal publications, technology support, student services and library resources.

Procedure

Overall Responsibility

Oversight for the development and maintenance of the UNI web site will be a joint effort of Office of University Relations (UR) and Information and Technology Services (ITS). UR will take primary responsibility for the content of the UNI home page and for the site design and structural hierarchy of the upper levels of the site. ITS will provide the hardware and software for housing web pages and will be responsible for integration of university administrative processes. Both will collaborate closely and with those in the campus community who maintain institutional web sites. Departments may elect to provide their own hardware and software for housing web pages.

Types of Web Pages

UNI recognizes five broad types of World Wide Web pages in use at the University: institutional, instructional, individual, student organization and affiliate.

  • Institutional web pages are those representing the official academic and administrative units of the University.
  • Instructional pages are those developed by or for faculty for use by students as part of a learning experience.
  • Individual web pages are those whose content represents the personal views of the UNI faculty, staff, or student propagating them, and not any official University academic or administrative unit.
  • Student organization web pages are those managed by officially recognized student organizations of the university.
  • Affiliate web pages are for non-profit organizations that have a relationship with, but are not part of the university.

  1. Institutional web pages

    Each administrative unit of the University is expected to have an institutional web page(s). These pages will be linked to the University home site and intranet (or intranets) as needed to best serve the audiences of each. Institutional web pages must link to all subordinate web sites desired to be found by the University search engine.

    1. Each University administrative unit is responsible for the content and accuracy of its web site as well as for keeping it up-to-date.
    2. All material on these sites is the copyright domain of the university, not the employee nor the unit that created it.
    3. For information and processes directed primarily to on-campus audiences, the web should be used at least as an additional, if not the primary, means of communication whenever possible.
    4. In the case of information and processes targeted primarily to off-campus audiences through traditional media, strong consideration should be given to using the web as well (and to reference the web site in the traditional media).
    5. All university and university-related Web pages shall conform to the standards set forth in the University of Northern Iowa Visual Identity and Style Guide.
      1. All university and university-related Web pages also shall conform to the Web page development standards set forth in the university Web policy.
        1. For details and procedures, see the UNI Visual Identity and Style Guide

  2. Instructional Web Pages

    All current full- and part-time UNI faculty members are encouraged to develop web pages to supplement and enhance the learning experience they provide students. These pages will be linked to institutional pages as needed.

    1. Instructional web pages represent the views of the faculty member who is wholly responsible for their content and links.
    2. The copyright of material on these pages may rest with the faculty member, the University, or jointly with both. Ownership will depend primarily on the resources and assistance provided by, as well as the arrangements made by the University in the creation of the material (see University policy 10.03 on Inventions, Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and other Intellectual Properties.
    3. Each top level page should reference the University of Northern Iowa, according to specifications established by UR.

  3. Individual and Student Organization Web Pages

    The University provides individual and student organization web space as a service to encourage the free interchange of information and ideas among members of the University community and the world. Any current University student organization, student, faculty, or staff member may create a web site on the University’s web space. The University, however, reserves the right to place limits on the space allotted.

    1. Web system administrators are responsible for ensuring that UNI students who desire a personal or student organization web page on the university web sites are provided a copy of University policy regarding publication of information on the university's web, as implemented by the office of the Associate VP for ITS.
    2. The individual or student organization is wholly responsible for the content (including what links visitors are permitted to access), adherence to this policy, and maintenance of his/her web site, as well as its impact on University bandwidth.
    3. University trademarks, symbols, and wordmarks (e.g. "University of Northern Iowa", "UNI", or "Panthers"), may not be used as html page, site descriptors, or titles without permission of the Office of University Relations.
    4. UNI bears no responsibility for the content of individual or student organization web sites. The University reserves the right to remove, without notice, from any University server an individual or student organization web site that is judged by the Office of the Associate VP for ITS to be outside the mission of the University or in violation of University policies, or pertinent State or Federal law.
    5. Individual web sites shall not be used for direct personal pecuniary gain.
    6. Those who maintain the University home page or institutional sites may, at their discretion, link (or subsequently remove links) to any individual web site that exists on the University’s web space. vii. The University accepts no liability for the loss of any information stored in its web space by an individual regardless of fault or negligence.

  4. Affiliate Web Pages

    Faculty and staff may, with the permission of their vice president in consultation with the University Attorney, sponsor an affiliate web site for a non-profit institution that relates to the university mission. A record will be kept with the UR. The University reserves the right to place limits on the space allotted.

    1. Sponsors must reaffirm their sponsorship by e-mail with UR by July 1 each year. Failure to do so will result in UR notifying the system administrator of the site to give the affiliate and sponsor notice of discontinuance of their site.
    2. Affiliate web sites must conform to all aspects of this policy, and all other University policies.
    3. The name(s) of the university employee who will be responsible for monitoring the affiliate web site to ensure continual compliance with this policy must be communicated to the Associate VP for ITS.
    4. University trademarks, symbols, and wordmarks (e.g. "University of Northern Iowa", "UNI", or "Panthers") may not be used as page or site descriptors or titles without permission of the Office of University Relations.
    5. Affiliate web sites shall not be used for pecuniary gain. vii. UNI bears no responsibility for the content of affiliate web sites. The University reserves the right to remove, without notice, from any University server an affiliate web site that is judged by the Office of the Associate VP for ITS to be in violation of University policies or pertinent State or Federal law.
    6. The University accepts no liability for the loss of any information stored by affiliate institutions in its web space regardless of fault or negligence.
    7. The University reserves the right to discontinue hosting an affiliate web site without cause with 90 days notice.

 

 

Relevant Laws and University Policies

UNI web space must conform to relevant State laws (such as prohibitions against using public resources for personal pecuniary gain, computer crime, and obscenity) and Federal laws (such as copyright or FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act). Questions of a legal nature regarding the appropriate use of UNI web space should be directed to the University Attorney. Information on FERPA can be obtained from the University Registrar. The University Intellectual Property Officer can provide guidance about individual and institutional ownership of university web content. EduCause provides an interpretation of copyright issues for university web sites (http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/powerpoint/CSD3029.pps).

In addition, University web space shall not contain any material in violation of university policies. Policies are listed at the Policies and Procedures web site. Those particularly relevant include:

  1. 14.04 Use of Computer Resources
  2. 10.03 Inventions, Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Other Intellectual Properties
  3. 13.02 Sexual Harassment
  4. 13.10 Freedom of Expression
  5. 14.07 Domain Name Services
  6. Web Privacy Statement

Revenue Generation

The Office of University Relations, in consultation with the Office of the VP in the area involved, must approve any use of University web space for advertising (including logos) non-UNI organizations and events, or for generating revenue for the University. Once approved, all revenue generation must conform to standard University procedures on accounting for University revenue.

Links

To a UNI site
  • All non-secure, non-protected UNI web sites will be available to be viewed by or linked to the entire web world. It will be the responsibility of the maintainer of each University web site to determine if the site contains sensitive information and, if so, to protect the site accordingly.
From a UNI site
  • UNI web sites may link to sites both inside and outside UNI web space. These linkages must abide by the same criteria that govern UNI web space, especially with regard to laws and University policies, responsibility for which lies with the maintainer of the university web site.

Domain Names

UNI will provide Domain Name Service (DNS) for web site URLs hosted on university servers, such as www.math.uni.edu for the Department of Mathematics' home page physically located at spider.cns.uni.edu/math. Domain names are managed by Network Services (NS) in ITS according to the Domain Name Service Policy.

Security

The system administrators of the servers on which University sites exist will provide reasonable protection from accidental loss, tampering, or unauthorized access. The creator of the web site, however, is responsible for protecting his/her own sites by keeping passwords secret and changing them regularly as well as monitoring the security of any executable code (CGI scripts, server side includes, JavaScript, etc.) placed on a university server. The system administrators reserve the right to monitor all software placed on university servers for potential security threats, and remove this software as necessary in compliance with "14.04 Use of Computer Resources." Web site creators are also responsible for maintaining personal backup copies of their sites to protect against loss or damage.

Any transactions that require secure communications (such as in the use of social security, pin, or credit card numbers over the internet), must receive the approval of the office of the Associate VP for ITS that the transmission, storage, and use of such data meets standards for security and privacy, such as using Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

Information Technology Services, approved May 2000
President’s Cabinet, approved May 15, 2000