Web Page Publishing Guidelines

Introduction

Policies for use of the Internet and World Wide Web are important both for defensive purposes and as strategies for the implementation of a well-planned Web presence. The MCEA EdTech task force developed these sample policies with the goal of enabling school districts to formulate their own policies for staff and student use of and publication to the World Wide Web based on acceptable practice and sound judgments. We hope you will find them useful, but urge you to read and discuss them with teachers, technologists, parents, and students prior to adopting your district's Web policies.

Blaine Victor Morrow, Educational Technology Task Force Chair

CONTENT STANDARDS

All documents to be published on District servers must be edited and approved by a referring teacher and school principal before publication. (See RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND PRINCIPALS.) Individual schools are encouraged to develop and make public their own standards for content. Schools should concentrate on submitting material that reflects school activities, student work, special projects, or aspects of the community, which they serve. Be careful to provide meaningful content. School sites that say essentially "Here's our school, here's a picture of our principal" are common and do not contribute to the information available on the World Wide Web. All work published on the District's WWW server must be free of any spelling or grammatical errors consistent with maintaining the "voice" of the author appropriate to age and grade level. The following District guidelines also apply to all student work published on the World Wide Web:

1. Published documents may not include a child's phone number, street address or box number, names of other family members, or other personally identifiable information.
2. Documents may not include any information which indicates the physical location of a student at a given time other than attendance at a particular school or participation in school activities.
3. Documents may not contain objectionable material or point directly or indirectly to objectionable material.
4. Documents must conform to school board policies and established school guidelines.

Regarding #3, above: A link that logically leads to an objectionable site must be removed. For example, a link to a pop music page that links to a page that publishes objectionable lyrics should be removed, since it's logical to assume that a person looking at the music page would follow links to related pages. By contrast, a link to the Lion King page, which links to the Disney page, which links to the MCA page, which links to a music page which links to objectionable lyrics is not a logical progression of thought. Teachers will have to use their judgment in deciding what links are appropriate.

STUDENT AND STAFF WEB PAGES

Students and staff may compose and submit their own Web pages. Students can showcase examples of their work, list awards they have received, publish stories or artwork, and collect and point to resources elsewhere on the web. This would be especially appropriate for college-bound juniors and seniors or for other job applicants. It is the intent of the District to publish exemplary work. Schools are encouraged to set standards for published work and not to simply publish anything that a student submits. Schools should set standards for overall acceptable content. We suggest that student Web pages:

1. Contain some original content; stories, artwork, photography, etc.;
2. Avoid a preponderance of links to game and entertainment sites; and
3. Reflect a student's academic interests by pointing to academic or cultural resources.

Student and staff publications may not contain copyrighted material. This means that clip art taken from commercial or entertainment sites such as a movie site or an NBA site may not be included on a student's page unless they have obtained specific permission to do so from the copyright holder and if they include this permission on their Web page.

The work of students under the age of 18 may not be published on the World Wide Web without written permission from parents or guardians. The District form for securing permission for publication may be found here.

A faculty member must screen web pages before they can be published. Web pages should be free of spelling and grammatical errors and should adhere to accepted content standards. These standards have been established by the District for student publications.

PLEASE NOTE: It is the responsibility of the supervising teacher submitting material for publication to check students' work for content, spelling, grammatical, and usage errors. Material published by students reflects directly on the submitting school. Please screen all work to be submitted.

PLEASE NOTE: It is the responsibility of the Principal to insure that the content of a school's Web page is appropriate and within the guidelines for student publications.

For more information regarding responsibilities of various parties in the development and publication of World Wide Web documents, see "RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND PRINCIPALS."

SUBMITTING MATERIAL FOR PUBLICATION

A designated Webmaster (sometimes more than one person) at each school can post material directly to the District's servers. All school postings must go through this person. The Webmaster has ftp access to the school's directory. The Webmaster is responsible for making sure that submitted material conforms to all guidelines, above.

RESPONSIBILITIES OF STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND PRINCIPALS

Work that is published on the World Wide Web server should be free of spelling and grammatical errors and should adhere to accepted content standards for student publications. The following model shows the chain of responsibility for WWW publications. It is the responsibility of each entity below to make sure that standards for which (s)he is responsible are followed closely.

STUDENT/CLASS

Follows guidelines set by teacher, school, and District
Edits for spelling and grammar
Edits for content
Edits for appropriate length
Seeks approval to publish from supervising teacher

CLASSROOM (SUPERVISING) TEACHER

Edits student work for spelling and grammar
Edits student work for content
Edits student work for appropriate length
Checks for appropriate permissions from parents/guardians
Grants permission for publication
Submits material for publication

PRINCIPAL

Sets standards for school content
Approves content of student and school pages

WEBMASTER

Sets standards for content and length
Edits for correct links in published material
Checks for appropriate length
Publishes or resubmits materials for editing

PERMISSION TO PUBLISH ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB FORM

Dear Parents/Guardians;

As part of your son's/daughter's educational program, (s)he will have the opportunity to publish documents and projects on the World Wide Web. These documents might include a personal Web page, a story or poem, a graphic, a science or research project, a group photograph from an activity or club, or a collaborative project with other students locally or internationally. Individuals with Internet access around the world will be able to view and possibly respond to your child's work by electronic mail. We think this is an exciting and enriching opportunity for our students.

We will publish these documents only with your written permission. Please consider the following options, then sign and return this form to your child's teacher. To see examples of work that is already published on the World Wide Web, ask your child's teacher. Thank you for your cooperation.

Guidelines:

Published documents may not include a child's phone number, street address or box number, names of other family members, or other personally identifiable information;

Documents may not include any information which indicates the physical location of a student at a given time other than attendance at a particular school or participation in school activities;

Documents may not contain objectionable material or point directly or indirectly to objectionable material;

Documents must conform to school board policies and established school guidelines.

Additionally, documents must be edited and approved by a referring teacher and school principal before publication.

Parent/Guardian Permission:

I grant ________________________________permission to publish documents on the World Wide Web as described above, including the following: (initial all that apply)

First Name: Last Name: Photograph: Return e-mail address:

I do not grant ______________________________ permission to publish documents as described above.

Parent/Guardian signature:____________________________________________________

Date:_________________________________________

Referring Staff, please provide the following information:

Referring Staff signature: __________________________________________________
School Principal signature __________________________________________________
Proposed URL: ____________________________________________________________
Return this document to the referring teacher and/or principal.

GENERAL STYLE GUIDELINES

Documents to be published on District servers may be composed on Mac or Windows platforms using a standard editor (e.g., FrontPage, PageMill, HotDog), text processor, or word processor that saves files as HTML files or as standard ASCII (text) files. The use of an editor such as PageMill (Mac) or FrontPage (Windows) is strongly recommended for individuals who are learning to compose HTML documents. Graphics may be composed in any program but must be submitted already converted to the GIF or JPEG/JPG format.

FILE NAMES

File names should consist of a descriptive file name followed by a period (dot) followed by an appropriate extension. Please follow these conventions when naming text files:

1. Never use upper case letters in file names

Incorrect: Patrick.html, patrick.HTML, Patrick.Html
Correct: patrick.html (Mac) or patrick.htm (DOS)

2. Never use spaces in file names

Incorrect: jane doe.html
Correct: janedoe.html, jane_doe.html, janed.html (or .htm for DOS)

3. Use only letters, numbers, underscores, or periods in file names

Incorrect: jane/doe.html, jane~doe.html
Correct: janedoe.html, jane_doe.html, janed.html (or .htm for DOS)

4. Never end a text file with anything other than .html (Mac) or .htm (DOS)

Incorrect: jane.html3, jane.homepage
Correct: jane3.html, janehome.html

SIZE CONSTRAINTS

Schools are encouraged to be creative with their pages and include graphics and other information that presents a good picture of "life" at their school. However, students are discouraged from adding multiple large graphic files to their Web pages. These files can take many minutes to download and block use of the server by anyone else during the time it takes to download the files. If a page takes longer than about 30 seconds to download over a 28.8 modem connection, then the page is too long and should be broken up into separate pages or some of the graphics should be eliminated. Again, it is the responsibility of the supervising teacher to insure that student pages fit the guidelines set forth in this document.

WEBMASTER GUIDELINES

The content and suitability of school Web pages are left ultimately to the discretion of the principal. However, there are some guidelines that must be taken into consideration in order to insure that the server operates effectively and provides adequate access to everyone.

The school Webmaster is responsible for maintaining and updating the school's web site. Please make sure that information posted is timely and up to date. Remove staff or student e-mail addresses that no longer work or have been changed. Add new content as often as possible.

If a school's Web page is found to be in substantial non-alignment with these guidelines, then it will be removed until appropriate changes have been made.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

GRAPHICS

Avoid overuse of extraneous, decorative graphic elements.
Avoid very large graphics with many colors.
Avoid putting multiple large graphics on one page.
Repeating a graphic element (such as a divider) rather than using different ones each time saves download time.
Make ABSOLUTELY SURE that graphics copied from other sites are free from copyright restrictions.

PUBLICATION ON OTHER LISTS

In publishing on the World Wide Web, we are trying to provide a service to the education community. We need to insure that members of the education community, locally and internationally, have adequate access to our resources.

We encourage webmasters to publish their Web page URLs on the following lists, which serve the education community:

Registry of K12 Schools on the Web http://web66.coled.umn.edu/schools.html 
Web66 What's New Page http://web66.coled.umn.edu/new/new.html 
Yahooligans http://www.yahooligans.com 
Any other school web site

ADDING YOUR URL TO SEARCH ENGINES (INDEXING YOUR SITE)

Webmasters are encouraged to add their Web page URL's to various search engines. Doing so means that WWW users doing keyword searches will be able to search your site for content information.

A variety of sites (both indexes, such as Yahoo, and robots, such as WebCrawler) can be indexed all at once by using the Submit It! service http://submit-it.permalink.com/submit-it . If you are not sure what a specific site offers, DON'T REGISTER. Check it out first. Alta Vista, Lycos, Excite, and Webcrawler are all recommended.

WEB PAGE EVALUATION

Use this table to evaluate HTML projects. Levels 1, 2 and 3 are outlined. It is suggested that only projects meeting the criteria for level 3 be considered for publication.

Sample Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

The District acquires and makes available certain materials, in the category of technology hardware and software, to aid in the effective conduct of teaching, learning and non-instructional operations. These technologies are acquired with the understanding that they contribute access to information, methods of presentation, and communication. Staff and students as well as interested persons outside of the District recognize that these technologies are a productive means of carrying out the mission and instructional goals of the District.

The uses of technologies carry with them certain responsibilities. Technology uses should be consistent with the tasks to which they are assigned. They should also be commensurate with privileges conferred upon the user by the District. "Technology" is defined as including, but not limited to, electronic media, hardware and software or equipment owned or leased by the District. For purposes of this regulation, "user of technology" is defined as any person who accesses technology, as defined above.

Listed below are specific responsibilities and limitations which must be observed by any person using technology the District possesses or accessing technology upon District premises or through remote access communications. These apply to any use of technology, whether owned by the District or the personal property of the user.

• It is the users' responsibility to provide for the reasonable care and protection of technology.
• Users are to adhere to all safety requirements when using technology.
• Any and all uses of technology are for the conduct of District operations.
• Users are responsible for reporting the misuse of technology.
• Users are responsible for compliance with existing laws while using technology.
• The Student Code of Conduct and regulations described in Board of Education Policies and Administrative Regulations apply to the use of technology.
• Students utilizing District-provided technology must have the permission of and be supervised by District's professional staff.
• It is the user's responsibility to ensure that transmission and/or reception of information by means of technology is appropriate. Electronic mail is not guaranteed to be private. People who manage the system do have access to all mail. Inappropriate or illegal use of e-mail may subject the individual to consequences stated elsewhere.
• Users have full responsibility for the confidentiality of any accounts or passwords related to the use of technology. Circumventing passwords and/or security is not allowed. All violations of this regulation that can be traced to an individual's account name will be treated as the responsibility of the owner of that account.
• Users of technology should act to prevent the disclosure of student records without permission.
• Users are responsible for obtaining permission prior to installing, removing or relocating software. This software must be virus-free.
• Users should use proper network etiquette.

Examples of Network Etiquette:

• Personal attacks are an unacceptable use of technology. Persuade with facts only.
• Avoid posting personal information about yourself or anyone else.
• Be careful about copyrights and licenses. Cite appropriate references.
• In e-mail messages, brevity is desirable. Messages with all capitals are considered SCREAMING; don't scream. Don't overdo signatures.
• Do minimize spelling errors and make sure your message is easy to understand and read. Remember that all network users are human beings, and forgive the spelling and grammar errors of others.
• Users should use language appropriate for school situations as indicated by the school's code of conduct, and avoid offensive or inflammatory speech.

Failure to comply with this regulation may result in loss of privileges, disciplinary action, or civil or criminal action against the user.

Merit Web
MichNet Acceptable Use Policy

http://www.merit.edu/michnet/policies/acceptable.use.policy.html