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World Wide Web Use Policy

Introduction

This policy is an adjunct to the University's Acceptable Use Policy for Computer and Internet Use.

The University makes available a web server facility for the use of its staff. The information hosted on the official ACU web server must reflect the values and ethos of the University.

This document sets out the processes by which ACU staff may mount material on University web servers. Access to that material through the www.acu.edu.au web address implies that the University carries some liability for the content. Accordingly, use of those web servers implies acceptance of the policies outlined in this document.

These guidelines do not attempt to define design or look-and-feel standards except where materials published are part of the University's corporate identity and public face.

Guiding Principles

The guiding principles here are:

• information mounted on University web-servers always remains the property and therefore responsibility of the person/group concerned;

• information has a defined life requiring a "review at" date and a "remove on" date before public release;

• it is the responsibility of the information owner to ensure that their information remains current;

• information owners will be notified on the "review date" that access to their information will be disabled at the "remove on" date unless the currency is reviewed and amended;

• appropriate approvals are required before information will be mounted;

• it is the owner's responsibility to present their information in a form accessible from web browsers;

• information system release procedures will apply ensuring that information cannot be altered without the formal approval of the information owner;

• other web servers will only be linked to the official ACU server if they can demonstrate that a full security and backup régime is in place.

Roles and Responsibilities

The Web Controller

The Web Controller is the person appointed to coordinate the corporate aspects of the University's web server (http://www.acu.edu.au/). The Web Controller is responsible for:

• maintaining the core infrastructure of web pages to which the remainder of the University's web related publishing is linked;

• making available the web server resources necessary for the orderly development of information;

• ensuring that the information is mounted according to the owner's requirements;

• notifying the information owner that their review date has passed;

• disabling information access at the use-by date;

Information Owners

Each organisational unit wishing to place information on the University's web server must appoint a coordinator. This person must be the head of the organisational unit or his/her nominee. The coordinator will be responsible for ensuring that:

• the published content complies with the University's general requirements for electronic publishing;
• the content is maintained to ensure that it is current and accurate.

Director, University Relations and Foundation

The Director, University Relations and Foundation carries the responsibility for ensuring that publicly available documents are checked for consistency with ACU style and correctness.

For example: only the official electronic versions of the ACU symbol are to be used. Suitable versions for web use are available in http://www.acu.edu.au/images/.

These online versions of the logo and symbol have been given specific approval for use within the guidelines of the Corporate Style Guide and form part of the definition of acceptable use within that Guide. They must be used 'as is' and may not be modified by authors (eg: through scaling, recolouring, filtering or distortion).

Copyright

All material published electronically is subject to the same legal considerations as information published through traditional means. All authors should be particularly aware of copyright restrictions as they apply to the reproduction of text, graphics or other intellectual property on the web. For material sourced from outside the University, care must be taken to respect any claims of copyright, disclaimers or usage policy. Any uncertainty existing about the legal implications of information being published electronically should be referred to the University's Copyright Officer who can be contacted via email at fiona.wilkinson@acu.edu.au.

Procedures

The procedures for placing new information on the University web server follows:

• if necessary, a private area on the ACU web server will be made available by the Web Controller, with an appropriate address which will not be generally available;
• the information must be converted to a format capable of being accessed by a standard browser, either on the ACU web server or other facilities;
• the information will not be released until appropriate testing of the linkages is complete;
• once testing is complete, the URL must be made available to the Director, University Relations and Foundation for checking conformity with the ACU Style Guide;
• when approved by University Relations, the information as developed must be approved by the organisational unit head or his/her nominee;
• all information to be placed on the ACU web server must have "review at" and "remove on" dates agreed by the organisational head or his/her nominee;
• the information will then be linked to the ACU Home Page and removed from general access.

Procedures for reviewing and upgrading information on the ACU web server follow:

• at the "review on" date, the information owner will be notified that the information requires review;

• at the "remove on" date, if no action has occurred, access to the information will be disabled;

• at the "review on" date or before as agreed with the information owner, access to the information will be again permitted by the Web Controller;

• modifications or entirely new versions will be accepted after appropriate testing;

• the modified information, with a clear description of the changes made must be submitted to the Web Controller for formal release as described above;

General Issues

The design of web pages should take into account the functionality and performance issues related to the reader's network access, computer and browser software. Thus things which the designer of any web pages should consider include:

• the visually impaired, and/or partially visually impaired must be kept in mind when documents are prepared;

• the advisability of using techniques such as Java plug-ins;

• HTML documents should be designed with the text-based browser in mind. Therefore, where images are used, "ALT tags" should also be used;

• text links should be included when setting up image maps to enable the text browsing client's access to the same or similar choices which are available via the active regions on the image map;

• image size and detail should be constrained to assist in efficient use of bandwidth;

• the usage of proprietary or browser-specific extensions is strongly discouraged, due to the restrictions they place upon who may view the published information;

• all official HTML format documents must be formatted using a variant of HTML published by a recognised international standards body;

• an indication of the size of files such as images, sound, and digital video should be clearly stated to indicate the download time for a particular file;

• usage of MAILTO: tags must be implemented so that if there are any queries/problems with these pages, the client may contact the person responsible for the web page directly via email.