Quality assurance
Content Maintainers are primarily responsible for content maintenance and quality.
Communications & Marketing is empowered to take corrective action on content not adhering to College standards to ensure public digital representations reflect the caliber of Union College. Content Maintainers will be notified when substantial changes (anything beyond simple corrections) are made.
Examples
- Gross misspellings such as Unoin, reseach, frist, opportunites
- Links to unsafe domains will be removed or updated when the correct destination is known
- Outdated/incorrect information such as references to Union Graduate College, tuition, programs no longer offered through the College like MAT, freshman will be removed or corrected
- Improper logo usage
- Issues that limit accessibility (see Accessibility below)
Public digital content administered through Union College offices
Offices will provide access or grant permissions with associated vendors to Communications & Marketing so that severe content problems (referenced above) can be corrected as soon as possible. Communications may apply design adjustments consistent with the Union brand. Content Maintainers will be consulted when substantial changes (anything beyond simple corrections) are considered.
Personal public digital content
Websites that utilize the union.edu domain for personal purposes such as faculty, staff, student and course websites are not required to grant access to Communications & Marketing staff.
Mass Email
Mass emails sent on behalf of a Union College office, program or department using a third party vendor (not Gmail) shall have design templates reviewed by Communications. Organizations engaged with mass emailing should contact Office of Communications & Marketing to arrange a review of example email designs for best practices.
Contact Information
Contact information must be readily available on sites for visitors to reach someone responsible for the content.
Quality assurance reports
When possible, reports will be provided to users that cover topics such as links, spelling, accessibility, security, performance and other best practices. Content Maintainers are responsible for resolving errors and false positives (ie potential misspellings) in the Quality Assurance service. These reports must be transitioned to new staff who assume maintenance duties. Site Owners are encouraged to receive copies of any such reports.
Editorial Oversight
Institutional websites such as www.union.edu will be held to higher standards. This does not include faculty, staff, student or course websites. The Office of Communications and Marketing strives to provide a consistent look, feel and voice to our external audiences. Content may be edited/altered as needed for clarity, grammar, spelling, usage, and style, as well as to conform with college naming conventions and branding. Any significant alterations will be discussed with the responsible office.
Search Engines
Sites that are out-of-date or abandoned may be “hidden” from search engines by the direction of the Vice President for Communications and Marketing. Site Owners will be notified of this action.
Sustained content maintenance
Content Maintainers are expected to maintain the content within their respective sites. If there is an expected interruption in support for a site due to such things as a staff departure or leave of absence the current Content Maintainer should make arrangements with a colleague to transition maintenance duties (include social media sites in this transition). This ensures that content can remain current.
Sites that are abandoned by an office because there is no Content Maintainer transition will become the responsibility of the appropriate Responsibility Center for the College and a corresponding existing Content Maintainer within that Responsibility Center. If an abandoned site cannot be assigned to an existing Content Maintainer the site may need to be unpublished, locked or hidden from search engines. Web Communications will work with the individual in charge of the office or department responsible for the site to resolve the issue.
Social Media Challenge
Social Media accounts can be extraordinarily difficult if an office loses access via a staff transition. Plan accordingly.
Sites referenced in upcoming promotions
If a site is referenced in an upcoming promotion (ie mass email) the response time may be as short as 1 day to ensure the promotion timetable remains intact.
Analytics tracking
When possible, institutional websites should include an analytics tracker(s) as determined by the Web Working Group. This ensures an overall awareness of traffic that can be used to focus quality assurance efforts and resource allocation. Reports will be provided upon request.
Security
Reasonable efforts must be made to secure any public digital representation of the college. This may include secure (https) connections for authenticating users or collecting sensitive data. Security warnings/errors from browsers should be rectified as soon as possible.
Accessibility
Union College strives to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA accessibility guidelines with public content representing an official office or department. This is not only an affirmation of Union’s mission and strategic goals but also a legal obligation.
Ongoing accessibility scans for most College sites are available.
Microsoft Office Documents
Due to web accessibility, security and compatibility issues, Word/Office documents should not be posted online. Instead, convert them to accessible PDFs.
Data collection
If a website collects personally identifiable information, it must adhere to the Data Classification Policy and disclose to the visitor the purpose of the collection and how the data will be used. Furthermore, the data cannot be used for any other purposes other than the stated purpose on the website.
Secure (https) connections are required for all pages. Ensure these connections are secure through testing on multiple browsers, OS’s and mobile devices.
Third party links, services and applications (vendors)
Links on institutional websites are an endorsement from the College to visitors and search engines. Links to sites that have content quality, security, or accessibility problems may be removed.
There are many existing tools to solve problems and improve services that departments and offices want to provide to their constituents. These tools may also come with a variety of problems such as security, accessibility and privacy concerns that could harm the visitor and the College. Before committing to any new service, tool or application offices must contact ITS by emailing the ITS Help Desk at helpdesk@union.edu. This extra step can provide a critical layer of protection for our digital visitors.
Domains and subdomains related to Union College
union.edu and unionathletics.com are examples of domains.
muse.union.edu and ualumni.union.edu are examples of subdomains
New domains or subdomains for public content are not a common practice. Any new requests for public domains or subdomains must be reviewed and approved by the Web Working Group via wwg@union.edu and any domain purchases must be made via ITS.
Copyrighted Content
Copyright violation is a serious offense that comes with strict penalties for which the College itself could be held liable. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your content, including text, images, video and music, complies with all copyright laws. Any content on the Union website that does not comply with the copyright policy will immediately be removed and the content owner will be notified.
Noncompliance
Content Maintainers are responsible for addressing issues related to the aforementioned policies and guidelines. If no attempt is made to address violations within a reasonable timeframe (~2 weeks) Communications will contact Site Owners. Sites ultimately fall under the appropriate Responsibility Center and corresponding VP.
Reassignment of content maintainer responsibilities
Communications will determine if responsibilities need to be reassigned to another trained staff member and will contact the Site Owner.
Examples
- Content Maintainer doesn’t demonstrate general technical competency
- Errors persist for long periods of time
- Content Maintainer requires repeat support for the same issue
Site removal
Sites that are out-of-date or abandoned may be taken down (hidden from public viewing) by the direction of the Vice President for Communications and Marketing. Site Owners will be notified of this action if they can be determined.