General Policy

A University Web site can include any information maintained online by a University department, office, recognized student club, or faculty committee that is authorized by the department chair, director, or club president. It may also include personal pages of faculty, staff, and enrolled students, as permitted according to the provisions noted elsewhere in these policies. It can contain public pages as well as intranet (private) pages.

The information referenced through the Web must adhere to all University policies and any other governing laws. In addition, it must be directly related to the University's mission in teaching, research, and health care, and the information should reflect the high quality standards for official publications of the University. (See Required Elements and University Style Guidelines.)

Usability: Any Web pages or sections that are largely unusable (for example, due to incorrectly written code or nonfunctioning links), violate Web policies, or contain incorrect or outdated information may be removed from the Web until they are corrected. The divisional or local server administrator or webmaster will attempt to provide reasonable notice of the link or file removal, but reserves the right to act without notice if the situation warrants.

Location: University related and departmental Web sites must reside on Web servers within the University network. There are several reasons for this policy:

Servers within the University network are controlled and managed by University staff. In the event that the person maintaining the site is not available for updating the site, other University staff can access and maintain it.
The address will be consistent with the primary University address, rochester.edu, and therefore avoid confusion about the relationship to the University.
Off-site servers can be commercial in nature. Advertising banners and such are a violation of nonprofit status.
Security on commercial ISP servers is of varying quality and may leave a site vulnerable to hacker alteration or vandalism. Within the University network, site managers are assured an adequate and consistent level of security.

Access for updating: In order to access the primary Web server, site authors must have an Information Provider Account. The application is available online.

Information Provider accounts are available EXCLUSIVELY to University staff, students, and faculty, and approved volunteers. In the case of volunteers, the sponsoring department must vouch for and take responsibility for its volunteers and their accounts. The application has notation for such circumstances. Such accounts are bound by all University policies. Accounts for volunteers will expire at the end of the academic year and must then be renewed as though they are a new application.

Software requirements: Information providers must have a secure FTP client in order to upload their pages to the central server. ITS supports Dreamweaver MX 2004; this Web editor features a built-in SFTP utility and is available for both Windows and Macintosh users. Dreamweaver MX 2004 can be purchased through ITS Computer Sales. Windows users can also download the SSH Secure Shell. This free download does both SSH and SFTP. Mac users (OS X only) can download Cyberduck, a free SSH and SFTP utility.

With Secure FTP, information providers can access their Web sites from any computer—on-campus or off-campus—with an SFTP utility installed. It is no longer necessary to set up a VPN (virtual private network) to access sites from off campus.

University Vendor Sites: Web sites owned by official vendors of the University under contractual relationship with the University may reside on servers of those vendors provided they abide by the policies specified in this manual.

Content last modified: Tuesday, 17-May-2005 14:53:53 EDT
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