Policy Statement
The Claremont McKenna College Web Policy defines the roles and obligations of the College, operational units, and individuals in presenting material on the CMC website. The CMC policy on Claremont Colleges Policy Regarding Appropriate Use of Campus Computing and Network Resources and other global policies as published take precedence over the CMC Web Policy.
Contacts
Direct any questions about this policy to your department’s supervisor. Questions about specific issues may be addressed to the following individuals:
- For policies regarding public-facing websites: the AVP for Public Affairs and Communications (909-621-8099)
- For policies regarding intranet and internal websites/apps (Sakai, webapps.cmc.edu): Chief Technology Officer (909-607-1553)
Definitions and Details
CMC’s public-facing website
This portion of the CMC website consists of the database and files residing in the Drupal content management system hosted by Acquia, as well as the databases and files residing in the Wordpress content management system hosted by Pagely. Additional public-facing, official websites are the parent and alumni sites residing in the Blackbaud content management system; the course catalog and this policy library residing in Acalog and hosted by Digarc; the Planned Giving website hosted by Crescendo Interactive; and the Claremont Mudd Scripps athletic site hosted by Presto.
CMC intranet
The CMC intranet is the portion of the CMC website that specifically targets internal users, primarily faculty and staff, but also students and alumni. Access to most of the CMC intranet is restricted, either based on a login account or based on IP address.
Website
A website is a group of web pages structured to provide a coherent body of information about a particular subject.
Official CMC websites
Web sites that represent CMC academic departments and programs, research centers and institutes, special programs, administrative offices, and other College operations are official CMC web pages.
Unofficial websites
Student websites, student club and organization websites, faculty websites, and course-/class- specific websites are not official CMC websites.
Website owner (official sites)
The website owner for an official site is the head of the operational unit (department head, manager, senior staff member).
Website owner (unofficial sites)
A website owner for an unofficial site is the individual CMC student, faculty member, instructor, or club officer maintaining the website.
Web administration
Public Affairs is responsible for ensuring the reliability and general organization of the public-facing CMC website. ITS is responsible for the intranet and internal web apps.
Web Committee
The College maintains a Web Committee responsible for establishing and reviewing a priority structure for web development, including reviewing cases of conflicting priority; and assisting Public Affairs and ITS with strategic planning and decisions.
Legal and policy requirements
Website owners are responsible for the content and design of their websites. These responsibilities include ensuring that all online material conforms to local, state, and federal laws including copyright and other intellectual property laws, license agreements, and contracts. Where appropriate, website owners should protect material from inappropriate access. All online material and conduct must adhere to College and consortium policies and regulations. Websites should not provoke activity that interferes with the primary mission of the College. Public Affairs has the right to review any pages or activities that generate network traffic to a degree that deprives other users of their legitimate use of these resources or impedes the efficient operation of the rest of the website. Use of CMC’s web resources to promote a commercial venture is specifically prohibited. Website owners generally should avoid posting images or audio of people without their consent or using information about individuals who do not want the information posted.
Domain names
The official entry point to the CMC website is through URL http://www.cmc.edu. The Web Committee may approve exceptions in cases of cooperative programs with other higher education institutions or their partners. In accordance with other College policies, operational units may not operate their own servers or domain names without prior approval from Public Affairs and/or Information Technology Services. Non-cmc.edu domain names may not point to official CMC web sites without prior approval from the Web Committee. Information Technology Services will purchase and maintain all approved domain names for the College.
Content
Website owners must ensure that all information on their web sites is accurate and timely.
Official websites
All academic departments and programs, research centers and institutes, special programs, administrative offices, and other College operations may create and maintain websites. Such websites should contain only information that the department or organization is deemed to “own” on behalf of CMC, or is in the public domain, or for which the information’s owner has granted permission for its inclusion in the page. Website owners wishing to provide access to information about other aspects of the College should do so by way of links to pages owned by the appropriate operational units. The website owner has overall responsibility for all content and links from the site.
Official websites may link to related personal websites. The website owner is responsible for approving any such links. It is the responsibility of the website owner to ensure the removal of any link determined, after appropriate investigation, to violate any local, state, or federal law or College policy.
Personal websites
CMC faculty and students may maintain personal websites that do not require College hosting or resources. Individuals are solely responsible for their sites’ content and adherence to all policies stated in this document and all other College policies.
Design
Official websites must either use a standard CMC web template or the website owner must work with Public Affairs to develop an approved nonstandard template. Website owners wishing to develop a non-standard template will contact Public Affairs first to discuss the issue and obtain detailed requirements. Public Affairs will review all non-standard templates for usability, accessibility, and College branding. The Web Committee will decide ultimate resolution of disputes regarding web design. Intranet sites need not adhere to the same web design standards as other CMC websites. Website owners, however, should attempt to incorporate standard CMC web design elements into their intranet sites.
Outsourcing
If a website owner seeks web development assistance, paid or volunteer, outside of Public Affairs and ITS, the College does not guarantee that it will add the products of that labor to the CMC website. Website owners considering outsourcing web development should contact the relevant authorities first.
Removal
CMC does not intend to actively monitor the contents of web pages. However, the College reserves the right to remove materials that violate this policy or other relevant policies and laws, to disable links, and to impose charges for expenses incurred in such disabling and/or removal.
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