3-38 Web Policy

• Effective date of this revision: July 1, 2018 
• Contact for more information:  Office of Information Technology

BACKGROUND 

Central Michigan University (CMU) is a large and comprehensive higher education organization that serves multiple unique populations locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally. Our websites support an increasing amount of academic activity and are our most vital tool for communications and business operations both internal and external to CMU. Our various audiences and constituencies rely heavily on our website to communicate, manage operations, and make decisions that directly impact students, employees, and other constituents of CMU. 

DEFINITIONS 

A. Controls are protections or safeguards implemented to protect data. Controls can be administrative, physical, and technical in nature, simple or complicated, and are often implemented in combinations or layers to protect data from simultaneous and ongoing threats. 

WEBSITES SUBJECT TO THIS POLICY 

All CMU websites are subject to this policy and will be classified as either Official Sites or Affiliated Sites as described below. 

OFFICIAL SITES

• Official Sites include those that are sponsored, endorsed or created on authority of the university or any of its departments or administrative units. These include the CMU home page; CentralLink; academic department and program pages; research and academic center pages; office, administrative, and support unit pages. Official Sites must be housed in the content management system hosted by OIT for this purpose. All university departments and administrative units are expected to maintain a presence in the university’s Official Sites.
• Each unit must use approved templates and must also adhere to the standards described in the CMU Web Style Guide. Revisions to existing templates can be requested through the OIT Help Desk.
• Units that publish information on an Official Site are responsible for ensuring the currency, factual accuracy, and editorial quality of all information presented on the site.
• Units hosting Official Sites through which they wish to conduct commercial activity, including receipt of online credit card payments, must receive authorization from the Associate Vice President of Financial Services and Reporting.
• All sites should be configured for the domain name service (DNS) lookup to resolve to a “cmich.edu” named URL or for a URL of a service with whom CMU has a contract (ex. “cmich.webex.com”). Hosting a site directly at an IP address or linking to such a site within an Official Site is not allowed.
• CMU provides an online blogging platform for CMU faculty, staff, students, and offices who wish to have a CMU- hosted place to provide more informal or conversational information to the community. This blog space is not for personal blogs; these are instead considered an extension of CMU’s official web presence. As such, CMU blogs must use the provided, CMU-branded templates in CMU’s hosted blog space and must meet CMU’s content standards. Departments utilizing these sites are still required to maintain an official site on cmich.edu. All sites in this space must be sponsored by a faculty or staff member who will be responsible for keeping the blog content appropriate and current. 

CONTRACTED SITES 

• Contracted sites and applications include online services and other websites that are sponsored, endorsed or created on authority of the university or any of its departments or administrative units but are not hosted in CMU’s content management system. Contracting of these sites must follow established OIT and Purchasing standards and procedures.
• Contracted sites and applications must adhere to the standards described in the CMU Web Style Guide to the extent possible. Any exceptions or deviations from the Web Style Guide must be approved in advance by the Office of Information Technology and University Communications.
• Contracted sites and applications must adhere to federal accessibility requirements like all other CMU sites – see “Accessibility” below. Wherever possible, units contracting these sites should file a VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template) or similar document with OIT through the process of contracting. In the event that the vendor does not make a VPAT or similar document available, units should understand that they may be required to provide suitable accommodation for those users of the Contracted Site with documented disabilities.
• Units that publish information on a Contracted Site or application are responsible for ensuring the currency, factual accuracy, and editorial quality of all information presented on the site

AFFILIATED SITES 

• Affiliated Sites are those that are voluntarily created by individual or small groups of university faculty and students to extend and facilitate the university’s academic capabilities. This category includes, for example, pages created by students in fulfillment of course requirements, sites created by faculty for academic or research purposes, and conference sites hosted at CMU on a periodic basis. Affiliated Sites need not share the templates provided for or be housed in the same systems as Official Sites.
• Affiliated Sites must link to a page within CMU’s Official Sites that will include the following information about Affiliated Sites: "Central Michigan University respects the diversity of values and opinions held by members of its community. The views expressed on this page are those of the author and not necessarily those of Central Michigan University or its officers and trustees. The content of this page has not been reviewed or approved by Central Michigan University, and the author is solely responsible for its content."
• Central Michigan University will not undertake to approve or review the content of Affiliated Sites. However, sites discovered in violation of this policy are subject to immediate removal from university web space.
• Except as outlined in CMU’s Solicitations and Fundraising Policy, Affiliated Sites may not be used for commercial purposes or for personal financial gain or benefit. Central Michigan University is not responsible for any liability resulting from any such activities prior to their discovery and appropriate remedy.
• An owner of an Affiliated Site is responsible for making arrangements for the removal or maintenance of that site once his/her employment and/or academic relationship with Central Michigan University has ended, such as when an individual leaves university employment or a student graduates or is otherwise no longer enrolled at CMU. In the absence of such arrangements, CMU reserves the right to remove Affiliated Sites authored by an individual and/or group who/that no longer maintains an employment and/or academic relationship with CMU as part of its routine maintenance of university servers and web space.
• Faculty and staff wishing to establish social media channels in relationship to their activities at Central Michigan University should note that these sites must adhere to CMU’s Social Media Guidelines.
• All sites should be configured for the domain name service (DNS) lookup to resolve to a “cmich.edu” named URL or for a URL of a service with whom CMU has a contract (ex. “cmich.webex.com”). Hosting a site directly at an IP address or linking to such a site within an Official Site is not allowed.
  

PERSONAL SITES 

CMU respects the rights of its students, faculty, and staff to create personal web pages outside CMU web space (ex. www.<studentname>.com). Because such sites are personal, however, they must not suggest that they are part of CMU’s web presence and must not be housed on CMU owned or contracted servers. Use of the CMU logo or branding icons, inclusion of CMU intellectual property, and use of URLs that suggest CMU ownership are inappropriate on personal web pages. CMU departments may link to personal web pages at their discretion. In such cases, the links should be identified as being external to CMU web space (ex. “Dr. X’s personal page”) and should open in a new window.

ACCESSIBILITY 

CMU is federally mandated to maintain websites that meet the accessibility requirements defined in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Because these requirements are subject to change, Site Owners should consult the CMU Web Style Guide and the links contained within it if they have questions about the compliance of their websites. Concerns related to compliance with this section of this policy may be directed to CMU Student Disability Services Office ( https://www.cmich.edu/student-life/student-support-services/student-disability-services ); to CMU’s Web Accessibility Coordinator ( https://cmich.teamdynamix.com/TDClient/Requests/ServiceDet?ID=18129, CMU Office of Information Technology, Park Library 101, 989.774.3662); or to the CMU Accessibility and Disability Advisory Council ( Accessibility and Disability Advisory Committee | Central Michigan University (cmich.edu). 

Consistent with all appropriate university policies, university sites may not contain advertising for non-university functions or commercial enterprises without advance approval by University Communications. Links to commercial entities from university websites are allowed provided these entities are related to the university's missions of research, teaching, and service and the presence of the link does not imply endorsement of the entity by the university. 

CONTENT AND COPYRIGHT 

University departments, schools, facilities, organizations, and individuals are responsible for the currency, legitimacy, legality, and accuracy of information contained on pages they maintain. Information within CMU’s public web space is subject to intellectual property law. Violations of this law should be reported to the Office of Information Technology Help Desk at helpdesk@cmich.edu. See the CMU Copyright Site for more information. 

OVERSIGHT 

Maintenance and enforcement of this policy is the responsibility of CMU’s Technology Planning Council (TPC), University Communications, and the Office of Information Technology. Violations of the web policy will be made known to the CMU Web Team for resolution. Sites found to be noncompliant with this or other university policies will be removed from university web space. The Web Team meets regularly and can be contacted through the Office of Information Technology Help Desk at helpdesk@cmich.edu. 

RELATED POLICIES AND RESOURCES 

In addition to compliance with this policy, all CMU Official and Affiliated Sites must be in compliance with applicable federal and state laws (including, but not limited to the law of copyright), and consistent with the policies of CMU.

• CMU Advocacy Policy
• CMU Solicitations and Fundraising Policy

Central Michigan University reserves the right to make exceptions to, modify or eliminate this policy and or its content. This document supersedes all previous policies, procedures or guidelines relative to this subject.