Web Services & Publishing Policy
The University of Massachusetts Boston's presence on the World Wide Web is essential to its mission of teaching, research, creative work, and public service. Thus, the University's Web policy seeks to establish standards and guidelines that will:
- Support the vision, mission, goals, and traditional academic values of the university;
- Assist Web publishers in developing sites that comply with university policies, rules,and regulations, and local, State, and Federal laws; and facilitate the official business of the University and appropriate online transactions.
Click here for general Division of Information Technology policies.
This document applies to:
- www.umb.edu, the official website of the University of Massachusetts Boston
- Web pages located on servers within the umb.edu domain
- faculty, staff, and student pages on servers connected to the Campus network.
It also describes policies that will assist Web publishers outside the university in appropriate use of the university's resources.
Contribute Policy
Copyright
Content
University Name, Seal and Marks
Student Information Disclosure
Privacy
Accessibility
Links to and from Non-University websites
Personal Web Pages
UMB Master Template
Special Sites
Style Guidelines
Copyright
All electronic publications must follow university and legal standards regarding copyright. Web publishers must secure permission from the owner of the copyright when including copyrighted or trademarked material such as text, photographs, audio, video, graphics, maps, or logos, and include a permission statement or disclaimer as required by the owner of the copyright or trademark. For more information on copyright, see the U.S. Copyright Office Web site.
Content
Web Services is not responsible for Staff and/or Faculty content of University websites. Contribute editors are the sole authors of their websites and take sole responsibility for content being published. Staff and/or Faculty who require the assistance of the Web Services team for editing their content need to give adequate time for Web Services to make requested changes to their site. They should do so by formally filing an online web request (see web requests ). The standard time frame for web service requests is a minimum of five business days.
Student Information Disclosure
The disclosure of information about students is governed by the Federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Web page creators must comply with the provisions of this law. University guidelines for compliance are available at the FERPA website.
Privacy
websites that collect individually identifiable information must provide a privacy statement. The statement must be clear and easily accessible, and should cover the Federal Trade Commission's five core principles of privacy: notice, consent, access, security, and enforcement. websites that collect individually identifiable information and provide services to children 12 and under may also be required to comply with provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
Accessibility
In compliance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and university non-discrimination policies, all electronic publications, to the extent feasible, must be made accessible to people with disabilities. If it is not feasible, alternative methods must be made available to complete the same tasks. More information is on http://www.umb.edu/wau/
Links to and from Non-University websites
Links from a University of Massachusetts Boston page to any non-university site must not imply university endorsement of the site's products or services. A disclaimer must be included unless it is clear from the context that the university does not endorse the product or service.
The disclaimer is: "Links on these pages to non-university sites do not represent endorsement by the University of Massachusetts Boston or its affiliates. The university welcomes links to its website for educational or informational purposes. However, the link must not imply affiliation with or endorsement by the University of Massachusetts Boston. "
Personal Web Pages
Personal Web pages created by faculty, staff, or students are the sole responsibility of their authors. As a service and for informational purposes only, the university may provide lists of and/or links to personal Web pages. The university is not responsible for and does not monitor the content of these pages.
However, the university may investigate complaints, and may remove or limit access to Web pages that are deemed unacceptable. Since access to University Web space is a privilege, acceptability will be determined primarily on how closely the content of the site is related to the individual's role in the university's mission of teaching, research, creative work, and public service.
Personal Web pages are subject to all existing laws and university policies, and may not be used to promote businesses, goods, or services; for advertising; or to provide financial gain for any individual or organization.
Personal pages must not convey the impression that the author is representing, giving opinions, or otherwise making statements on behalf of the university or any unit of the university. A disclaimer must be included unless it is clear from the context that an author is not representing the university.
The disclaimer is: "The opinions or statements expressed herein should not be taken as a position or endorsement of the University of Massachusetts Boston."
UMass Boston Master Template
UMass Boston uses a core master template developed by Web Services. This is the university's main template and helps brand the university and provides consistency to web visitors. We have developed a training site with details on how to use this template including training videos. Click here to see the full training site for the UMass Boston master template.
Special Sites
Sites that do not use the core UMB master template require additional time. Clients must present a valid case for veering away from standard branding. We require a minimum 15 business days to review and analyze such sites depending on size and scope. Turnaround time is on a case by case basis.