Plattsburgh State University

Information Provider Agreement (IPA)

Definition of Information Provider

An Information Provider (IP) is a member of the campus community who has agreed to be responsible for posting information on a topic or topics via the Plattsburgh SUNY web system. Individuals maintaining personal web pages are also considered to be Information Providers. Each IP will sign this agreement and abide by its requirements.

Responsibilities

The IP agrees to see that the content posted under her or his direction adheres to all applicable University rules and regulations and all legal requirements including New York State and Federal laws. The IP is personally responsible for reading and understanding any applicable rules, regulations, or laws. In specific, IPs are advised to read the Usage of WWW Servers and Services policy.

Violators will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action which can include immediate loss of web services privileges.

Individuals posting materials for an office, department, organization or other units of the University must have the written permission of the departmental administrative head. Heads of administrative units, or their designees, should review postings for content and accuracy. Additionally, IPs must obtain approval of those offices, departments, organizations, or units who have responsibility and/or stewardship of information to be posted.

The IP agrees to put her/his email address on every document she or he posts on the web server or its subsidiary files, so that questions on content may be directed to the appropriate IP. Additionally, the IP agrees to monitor and respond to such inquiries in a timely manner.

Each IP also agrees to indicate the date of the latest revision on each web page and update information in her or his topic as appropriate. Pages that have not undergone review in six months will be considered for removal from the server.

Organizations will be asked to re-confirm their IPA on an annual basis. Student organizations will have as their co-signator a member of the college's faculty or staff.

Student Organization Pages

The University recognizes the importance of student organizations to the University community and provides web services for those organizations. Because of the unusual nature of student organizations, their web pages are considered personal pages (see below). However, a link will be provided from the University's Home Page to an organizing page that contains links to individual student organization pages.

Student Organization pages are subject to the same restrictions as personal pages.

Violations can result in immediate loss of web services privileges.

Personal Pages

The University makes web services available to individual faculty, staff, and students of the University community for creating personal pages. A personal page is defined here as a web page for any Plattsburgh State University individual faculty member, staff member, or student.

Authors of personal pages must adhere to all Plattsburgh State University WWW Policy guidelines. Authors of personal web pages should in no way indicate that their pages are in any manner representative of official University policy, positions, or the University in general.

Violations can result in immediate loss of web services privileges.

IPs should notify the web site administrator of any attempts to hack their web pages.

Style and Content

Because of the high visibility factor, pages published on the web by University individuals and groups should follow basic style and content guidelines in order to represent the University in a coherent and appropriate manner. The style guidelines apply to all members of the University community. The style guidelines provided are intended to promote consistency in appearance and content for viewers of the University web site and to provide a framework for providing University information in a consistent and user-friendly manner, while allowing the University departments and personnel who publish this information flexibility in the final design. The guidelines are built upon certain basic expectations: to assure the accuracy of information, to maintain the currency of information, to assure continuing support of the network, and to develop page content that supports the University's mission.

The web is a medium that provides a high level of creative freedom in page design and content. Good site design, however, requires experience and the consistent use of basic elements of style and layout to help the user navigate.

Much of style is somewhat subjective, and guidelines can be quite lengthy depending on the author. There are some excellent guides that have already been written and are available on the web itself.

Follow these guidelines in constructing web pages:

1. Colleges and departments are responsible for preparing and maintaining their own Web pages. The information should be accurate, current and useful.
2. Sign each page with an e-mail address so users can contact someone responsible for maintenance of the page, to send comments or to request information.
3. Because of the distributed nature of the web, any page can be visited in whatever order and by whatever fashion the reader chooses. Thus, many pages may be read outside the intended context of the author. Therefore, every page intended to fit within some arbitrary hierarchy should include buttons or text to return to the author's intended previous page or pages as well as to the University's home page.
4. All official pages should be clearly marked as a product of Plattsburgh State University.
5. Although access to information placed on the Web can be restricted on many different levels, if your information is sensitive or is not for everyone on the Internet, consider other methods of transmittal.
6. Student data is confidential; don't put it on the web!
7. Link to files rather than recreating data already available on the web, particularly if the data is "owned" by another college/department. This applies, for example, to course descriptions, images, and other information. Avoid including text of campus-specific information, i.e., admissions information, tuition and fees, etc., which is the responsibility of another organization. Link to those organizations rather than writing possibly conflicting information.
8. Pages must adhere to copyright and libel laws. Authors are asked to employ reasonable judgment consistent with community standards when designing their pages.

As a general rule, please consider the following guidelines:

1. Keep documents as short as possible, particularly menus.
2. Content of pages should be grammatically correct, with no spelling errors.
3. Graphics should provide useful visual clues about the information provided. Each college or departmental home page should include the Plattsburgh State University lettering and icon, to be provided by the web site administrator. Templates should be followed closely for consistency. Pages should be tested on a non-graphical browser to make sure that information is accessible to the broadest possible audience. Graphics should not be so large that downloading is slow for the viewers.
4. Try not to use inline graphics without specifying text that can be displayed as an alternative in text-only environments. The design must be considerate of text-based browsers. Consider the HTML tag "alt" for naming graphic images.
5. Try not to use gratuitous graphics (graphics for their own sake).

The system managers reserve the right to temporarily disable those pages that attract sufficient network attention as to interfere with system performance. The system managers also retain the right to permanently remove pages that violate federal, state, and local laws, as well as University policies.

Review and Oversight

The Web Oversight Working Group is responsible for setting policy and establishing guidelines for the Plattsburgh State University web.

The web site is intended for use by individuals and organizations associated with Plattsburgh SUNY. Posting of materials relating to non-affiliated institutions, programs, or commercial enterprises is prohibited except when specifically approved by the Dean of Library and Information Services in consultation with the Web Oversight Working Group and the web site administrator.

Pages found to be in violation of the official policies governing the web site will be deactivated from the Plattsburgh server, after notification to the Information Provider. Determination of violations will be by the web site administrator in consultation with the Web Oversight Working Group. Appeals of those decisions may be directed to the Dean of Library and Information Services.

The web site administrator formats and maintains the top-level University home pages - the main university home page and several of the secondary pages linked to it. The web site administrator provides links from these pages under his/her direct control to pages developed by academic departments and organizational entities on campus. Individual organizations and departments with consultation and advice from the web site administrator maintain these additional pages. Accuracy and timeliness of the information are the responsibility of the department.

Links from many of the top-level the University home pages to academic department and organizational entity pages can be made by the web site administrator. Send mail to webweaver@plattsburgh.edu to have a hypertext link added from the existing web of pages to any departmental or organizational pages. Please consider an appropriate location and context within the existing web when making your request. It may be appropriate to have your pages referenced from several pages within the existing web. Keep in mind that not all existing pages are under the control of the web site administrator.

In general, links from the "Plattsburgh State University Home Page" - the one and only page found at http://www.plattsburgh.edu/ - are hard to come by. The design philosophy for this page is to keep it simple, concise, and relatively stable. Links from the University Home Page are provided primarily to sub-pages that encompass broad organizational units and informational services.

The web site administrator does not provide links to personal pages, although others are free to do so. Links to personal home pages are at the discretion of the individual academic departments.

Library and Information Services (LIS) is the University's provider of integrated information service through computing and networking technology. LIS will provide the technical support to help University clients provide and access information on the Web.