The University of Lynchburg website is an important marketing tool and means of communicating with the University’s internal and external constituents.
Therefore, information posted on the website must be current, accurate, and appropriate for its users. As the University’s online publication, the website must adhere to the University’s official publications policy and style.
Oversight of the University of Lynchburg website is the responsibility of the Office of Marketing and Communications (MarCom).
Authority Over Web Materials
The University reserves the right to regulate and limit the use of web materials that use University resources including the network itself. Such limitations may include, but are not limited to, restrictions on resources such as disk space, material content, and location of information.
Prohibited Web Materials
It is a violation of University policy to place any of the following on a University web server or any web server on the University network:
- Commercial advertisements/solicitations;
- Copyrighted materials without the written permission of the copyright owner;
- Lewd or pornographic materials;
- Other materials that violate local, state, or federal laws or University policy.
Accuracy of Content
Campus entities represented on the website are responsible for keeping them current by sending updates via the website edit request form. The web designer and digital communication strategist reserves the right to remove pages from the University’s website that contain outdated and/or inaccurate information.
Accessibility
The University of Lynchburg website is moving as quickly as possible into compliance with federal accessibility standards as provided in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. New content on the site should comply with these standards. Please refer to About the ICT Accessibility 508 Standards and 255 Guidelines and the W3C Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 for additional information.
Content and Formatting
Faculty Profile Pages
MarCom will create a faculty profile page for each faculty member. Please fill out the faculty profile request form to request a page.
Profile pages will include:
- Faculty member’s name and title(s)
- Professional photo (see information about photos below)
- Phone number, email address, office location, and link to CV Google Document
- Date faculty member joined the University
- Education
- Courses taught
- Research interests
- Areas of expertise
Faculty Photos
Photos for use in the faculty profile (and other University publications) will be a recent headshot of the faculty member in professional attire, taken on a background furnished or approved by MarCom. The photos will be taken by the University photographer during designated times and will be provided free of charge.
One “re-take” session will be allowed if the faculty member is not pleased with the initial photo. If the faculty member prefers to have the photo taken by someone other than the University photographer, the photo must be taken by a photographer approved by MarCom and be paid for with personal funds.
Hyperlinks
Links that do not behave as expected (taking the visitor to another web page) will be labeled so that the site visitor knows what will happen when the link is clicked.
The text of an email (or “mailto”) link will be the email address only. For example, an email link for the Office of Marketing and Communications will read “marcom@lynchburg.edu.”
No colors or font style will be specified for hyperlinked text.
New Browser Windows
Links to pages should always stay in the same browser window.
Links to documents, however, such as MS Word or PDF files, should always open in a new browser window.
Font and Case
Font face and size are specified in the University website template and style sheet. Therefore, no font style will be specified within the page content.
Tags that are approved for use include headers (“h2”-“h6”), “strong” (bold), and, for titles of works, “em” (italic) tags. Heading styles are not appropriate for body text.
No underlined or all-caps text is permitted.
Images
Graphics files will be optimized for web and in JPG, GIF, or PNG format.
MarCom reserves the right to remove or deny posting images of poor quality that do not uphold the professional tone of the website.
Webpages should not contain animated images.
Body Text
Webpage text must adhere to the standards for official University publications. Brevity and simplicity of language should be the rule of thumb for text. For ease of on-screen reading, frequent paragraph breaks and lists are used when possible. Remember that website visitors read information that they are interested in, but they rely on skimming text to find what interests them.
“Upcoming” or Placeholder Content
Placeholder text, such as “Coming Soon” or lists of links that do not yet go anywhere will not be published. Such content is unhelpful to site visitors and looks unprofessional.
Sound
No embedded sound is permitted on any official University of Lynchburg page. Links to sound files, however, are permitted.
This document is subject to change without notice.
