WEB SERVICES POLICIES

1. General
2. Departments
3. Student Organizations
4. Copyrighted materials
5. Pictures and video
6. Technical and Coding Considerations
7. Accessibility

The Office of Web Services is responsible for web site security; maintaining site consistency and for enhancements to the site. The Webmaster retains control over changes to the site.

Cascading stylesheets (CSS) are used on the website. Any changes to a style can only be made after consultation with Web Services.

"Enhancements," such as Java, Javascript, other scripting languages, or animations should not be used without consulting the webmaster. Always keep in mind that not everyone uses Javascript (either by choice or by circumstances) and that these will slow down the loading of pages. In general we tend to prefer and use Macromedia products such as Flash to provide enhancements or database driven content.

HTML filenames should be lowercase, with no spaces, for Unix compatibility

Adobe Acrobat documents linked on a page should be followed by the adobe icon: OR, "(.pdf)" to alert the user that if they click the link a pdf file will open.

Here is the code to insert the Acrobat icon in your page: <img src="/images/shared/acrobat40.gif" border="0" width="40" height="40" alt="PDF document">

Microsoft Word documents linked on a page should be followd by the Word icon: OR, "(.doc)" to alert the user that if they click the lin a MS Word document will open.

Here is the code to insert the Word icon in your page: <img src="/images/shared/word40.gif" border="0" width="40" height="40" alt="Word Format">

Regular HTML files should end in the .cfm extension, not .html or .htm.

The "home page" for each directory (i.e. the main page) should be named index.cfm.

Links to other pages and graphics within the law site should use relative links, not absolute links.

Deprecated tags should not be used unless absolutely necesssary and after consultation with Web Services. For example: font and bold tags have been deprecated and should not be used.

Frames should not be used. If there is a situation that demands frames, please consult the Webmaster.

Each law school department should have only one designated contact person for their portion of the website.

If a department makes its own changes, they shall notify the Webmaster whenever they make a major addition or change to their section.

Pages should be updated regularly, when appropriate. The title field should be descriptive. "Authorship" credit on a page is fine; generally this will be for pages that are created by someone, not just converted into HTML.

All pages should use the standard Law School design/look. This generally includes black text on a white background, and no changes to the default colors of any links. See the styleguide for specifics.

Text in the navigation part of the page may not be changed. If you wish it modified, please contact the Webmaster.

No scripting, databases or dynamic applications are allowed unless explicitly authorized and approved by the webmaster.

A student organization sanctioned by the Dean of Students can create and maintain its own web site on the law school server. Read the Assistant Dean of Students Memo dated September 09, 2003 re Student Group Web Pages

Each organization should have at least one designated contact person for their website.

The design and construction of each website is the responsibility of the student organization. The Office of Web Services can offer assistance and guidance but cannot design sites. When designing web pages keep in mind that what you make will reflect not only on you and your organization, but also the Law School.

While we do not define inappropriate materials, please use common sense -- no legal or ethical issues may be violated on any website hosted by the law school; any such breach will result in the shut down of that website.

You may not place any materials owned by others, i.e. copyrighted works, on a Web page without the expressed permission of the copyright owner. (Examples: cartoons, articles, photographs, songs, software, graphics scanned in from published works or other web pages).

Assume materials you find on the Web are copyrighted unless a disclaimer or waiver is expressly stated. You may include quotations of a few words provided you identify the author and the work from which the quotation is taken.

If you want to include something from another Web page in one of your Web pages, then link to it rather than copy it.

You may not place any materials or videos of people on a web page without the permission of the people in the picture or video. Every person has a right of privacy which includes the right to restrict the use of his/her own image. In addition, the picture or video may be protected by copyright.

If you are using any text, graphics, or images that are copyrighted, you must have permission to use such information. (It can be in writing or email, but proof of permission should be available upon request.)

Each file should include a doctype statement; e.g., <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">

The head of each document should contain a meaningful title, followed by keyword and description meta tags for better search engine indexing.

All graphics must have descriptive ALT tags.

HTML should be compliant with version 4.01 standards, or validated by a clean load into Homesite, Dreamweaver, or the web editor you are using. The world wide web consortium (W3C) provides an online HTML validator.

Pages should be designed so that they can be properly viewed with a window that is 800 by 600 pixels wide. Avoid forcing the user to scroll to the right and left to read a page.

All attributes should be quoted to ensure that all browsers render code currectly and that xhtml standards are adhered to.

All tag names should be in lower case to comply with HTML 4.01 standards and be forward compliant for XHTML.

All class materials to be placed on the web should be in electronic format for conversion to an appropriate web format

Legacy materials in print format should not be considered for placement on the web except in special circumstances. Please consult with the webmaster.