Web Policy

1.0 Purpose

This policy seeks to maintain and enhance the image of Georgia Highlands College and assure that as with traditional printed information all officially provided information published electronically is accurate and consistent. It is also the desire of the college that faculty, staff and students be able to publish freely and openly within the constraints of local, state, and federal laws.

2.0 Scope

This document governs the policies and guidelines concerning the publication of information on the Georgia Highlands College web servers.

3.0 Policy
3.1 Official Documents

The College Relations Office reserves the right to review and edit all OFFICIAL Georgia Highlands College electronic publications and encourages each division, department, and unit to review and/or monitor home pages within its purview. A document that is OFFICIAL is one that purports to speak for Georgia Highlands College and its official programs and departments and not for individuals employed by Georgia Highlands College. Some examples are: college and departmental policies, official forms, academic/curriculum information, institutional statistics, recruitment materials, financial aid guidelines, etc. All such OFFICIAL documents must have a comment at the bottom of all files containing a contact e-mail address of the content.s author, and a last modified time/date. If there is not a specific author, the department.s generic e-mail address is recommended.

3.1.2 Official Departmental Home Pages

Departmental home pages should express the distinct nature of each department, while also conveying a consistent Georgia Highlands College identity. The required content for departmental home pages shall be minimal.

3.1.2.1 Required Elements for Official Departmental Home Pages

Each departmental home page must have at least one link back to the Georgia Highlands College home page. The use of a consistent icon (at this time the bell towers logo) is strongly suggested as the link back mark.
The home page must have some description of the department. Sources may include the catalog, or departmental recruiting materials.
The home page must contain a contact e-mail address. It must also contain a "last modified time" stamp somewhere on the page.
Information on home pages must be kept up-to-date, as appropriate. The home page should be updated at least twice a year. Outdated information should be replaced as needed: daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
The department, or office creating the home page is responsible for ensuring that the information contained thereof is of the highest editorial standards (spelling, punctuation, grammar, style, etc.) and factually accurate. If errors are observed, you may be contacted by the College Relations Office and asked to make the necessary corrections.
The following statement should be included on all official home pages: "Notwithstanding any language to the contrary, nothing contained herein constitutes nor is intended to constitute an offer, inducement, promise, or contract of any kind. The data contained herein is for informational purposes only and is not represented to be wholly accurate."
If linking to external sites, links will be monitored for accuracy. Broken links should be removed immediately. If broken links are observed, you may be contacted by the webmaster and asked to make the necessary corrections.
Commercial ads and/or banner ads are not appropriate and are not permitted.
Attention to usability & accessibility guidelines will be followed to include highly contrasted text, client side image maps with appropriate text links if needed, text alternatives for multimedia elements, alternative representation tags, and table summary tags for data display.

3.1.3 Other Pages

It is also recognized that each faculty and/or staff member, or student will have individual requirements for his/her pages. However, the contents of documents and pages outside the scope of the first two sections of these Policies and Guidelines must not violate any applicable export laws and regulations, must not constitute a copyright or trademark infringement, and must not otherwise violate any local, state, or federal laws. Further, such pages shall be in good taste and, specifically, to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the document and pages taken as a whole shall not appeal to the prurient interest, such as pornography. Commercial ads are not permitted. Such documents and pages must be in compliance with all appropriate Georgia Highlands College campus policies and procedures. In addition, any application that makes excessive use of network bandwidth for unofficial documents may be terminated. Attention to usability & accessibility guidelines will be followed to include highly contrasted text, client side image maps with appropriate text links if needed, text alternatives for multimedia elements, alternative representation tags, and table summary tags for data display. Georgia Highlands College will not undertake to edit or pre-approve these pages, but any pages discovered that are in violation of these policies and guidelines shall be subject to immediate removal from the Georgia Highlands College network.

3.1.4 Chat Rooms and Online Forums

ESTABLISHMENT OF FORUMS

Connection with College Activities . Forums that either use the highlands.edu or other legitimate activities of the College.
College Role . Unless specifically sponsored by an academic or administrative unit of the College, the College's role in connection with these forums will be solely as a passive Internet service provider.
Terms of Use . In all cases, as a condition to establishing a forum, forum homepages (where they exist) and each individual forum page should contain a header that states: "Acceptable Use" and all pages should include a link to the page maintained by the College entitled "Acceptable Use" http://www.highlands.edu/students/currentstudents/helpdesk/computing-policy.htm.

OPERATION OF FORUMS

All forums shall be operated in compliance with the Acceptable Use Policy, as modified from time to time, and the various policies regarding computer facilities and services.

3.2 Copyrights and Trademarks - All Pages

Use of the Georgia Highlands College name is limited to the official name as recognized by the college.
All trademarks used must have the express written permission of the person or organization that owns the trademark.
Use of the Georgia Highlands College seal must be pre-approved by College Relations.
All photos and images used must have the express written permission of not only the person or organization that owns the image, but of any person or persons included within the image.
Departments using copyrighted material must have the express written permission of the person or organization that owns the copyright. The College Relations Office reserves the right to require proof of the above written permission and to remove the material if that proof cannot be produced.
Copyright and trademark laws also apply to departments using logos or trademarks to link to outside companies or products. In addition, the link must contain the following disclaimer: "In no way does the link(s) from Georgia Highlands College to this specific company or product constitute an endorsement of any kind." The disclaimer may be referenced at the bottom of the page with an asterisk.
More detailed information on copyright laws can be found in a document titled "Am I a Crook? Copyright Issues on the Internet", which was produced by PBS, and is on reserve in the Georgia Highlands College Library.

3.3 Creating and Posting a Web Page

Web pages can be created using any number of software programs that are available on campus computers. Examples are Microsoft Word, FrontPage, and notepad. Classes are periodically offered to train employees in the usage of these programs. Faculty and staff members can also receive assistance through the Instructional Support Specialist in the Technology Training Center of the college, the webmaster, and in many cases, academic divisions have an "expert" on the faculty who will help others create web pages.

When the web page is ready to post (put on the Internet) check with your department head to see if someone on the staff has access to the server to post and update web pages for your area. If so, that person can take a disk containing your page and post it. You can also ask for assistance in posting yourself by contacting the webmaster in the Information Technology Department.

If your department does not have direct access to the server, call the webmaster to make an appointment for having your content posted. Bring the disk containing your information in word format to the webmaster. At times you may be asked to submit the documents via Email. If bringing in a disk, ensure the disk is labeled and make a notation of where the page should be linked on the Georgia Highlands College home pages (i.e. . Under Academics. Social and Cultural Studies. Faculty pages). The webmaster will review the disk for grammatical errors, usability issues, correct if needed and post the content.

Faculty and staff are not permitted to post or test server side scripts such as CGI scripts on the Georgia Highlands College site. If you have a scripting need, please contact the webmaster directly.

If submitting material to the Information Technology Department, please allow at least a week for the page to be operational. If there is an urgent need for the information, please convey this information. New web site creations may take longer than one week. Please confer with the webmaster for an estimate.

4.0 Enforcement

Any employee found to have violated this policy may be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of employment

5.0 Definitions

Term Definition
Forums From time to time, University departments, faculty, students, and others may host electronic communication forums such as chat rooms, newsgroups, bulletin boards, or websites whereby various parties may contribute their thoughts on various subjects and where such communication is made available for others to read and comment upon. For purposes of this policy, these sites are collectively referred to as "forums".