Purpose

The UW-Whitewater web site is an important resource for distributing information about the university to faculty, staff, current and prospective students, and the general public.
It is the University's intent to enable faculty, staff, and students to publish web content freely and openly within the constraints of local, state, and federal laws, including copyright laws. It is important to remember that the web site reflects the image of the university overall.

Appropriate Use

All web sites and pages hosted on the university domain should conform to all university rules and policies; local, state and federal laws; and copyright and trademark laws.

Official Pages

Official web sites represent and promote the university itself, its organizational units such as colleges and departments (academic or administrative) and organizations that are officially registered by the university, including student organizations.

Personal (Unofficial) Web Sites

The University recognizes that individual faculty, staff and students have unique requirements and preferences for personal web sites; to this end, UWW provides resources for individuals to develop a distinctive and personal web presence. Personal web pages should not be used for commercial purposes.
The University will not attempt to edit or pre-approve unofficial pages; however, if found to be in violation of the appropriate use policy, such pages may be subject to removal from the university site.

Privacy Issues

UW-Whitewater analyzes logs from the campus web site to better understand the use of our site and to improve its usability. In this analysis, we make no attempt to gather information from web logs with the individuals who use the web site.
UW-Whitewater does not sell or redistribute any personal information collected at our campus web site.
Privacy concerns regarding student records are protected by FERPA regulations:  http://www.uww.edu/registrar/docs/UWW_Policy_Statement.doc
To view Word document (doc) files, use Microsoft Office or download the Word Viewer from Microsoft. Get Word Viewer.
The University strives to ensure the privacy rights of individuals; one example is the UWW Library’s policy on user privacy:  http://library.uww.edu/policies/patriotpolicy.htm.

Procedures for Official Pages

Official pages should present information in a professional manner that describes the university clearly and consistently. At a minimum, official pages should:

  • Be accurate
  • Be up-to-date
  • Use correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar
  • Meet web accessibility guidelines to make pages accessible to all users  (http://www.uww.edu/accessibility/)
  • Follow the guidelines set forth in this style guide 

Colleges, departments, administrative units, and organizations are responsible for maintaining the content for pages on the campus site; iCIT establishes web accounts for the purpose of maintaining each content area.
Web content is ultimately the responsibility of the Dean of each college, department chair, or director of the office or program that the web page represents. Outdated or erroneous content will be communicated to these parties, who are responsible for taking action to correct the information.

Academic course pages should follow the guidelines for official pages, but the content is the responsibility of the individual faculty or instructor.