Web Procedures & Guidelines

The College of Charleston website (charleston.edu and its subdirectories) is the first point of contact for prospective students, faculty and staff. To be competitive in today's market, it is essential that the College of Charleston provide website visitors with a creative, modern, sophisticated, intuitive and accessible, customer-focused user experience across all university websites. For a website to be an effective tool in the recruiting process, it is essential that the entire campus be knowledgeable about, and aligned with, university goals and policies as they relate to website procedures and best practices, as well as with the College of Charleston brand. This policy allows the College of Charleston to be proactive in thinking strategically about meeting recruitment and retention goals. Without it, we risk diluting the brand, strategic messages and website goals.

Please review policy 3.2.3 Website Content Policy.

The following procedures are in place for the College of Charleston’s public-facing website, charleston.edu, and its subdirectories. These procedures do not apply to The Hub, the “people server,” College of Charleston blogs or any website dedicated to faculty research or coursework. Microsites that are public-facing and have a recruitment or marketing purpose should adhere to the following guidelines and procedures. A microsite is a site dedicated to a special project with a specific marketing or communications focus.

Introduction

  • Why do we need a website content policy?

    It’s important to have guidelines and policies to guide content editors of websites under the charleston.edu and cofc.edu domains, including all subdomains and subdirectories, so that the user experience and user interface are consistent throughout. In addition, the Office of University Marketing and Communications is tasked with making decisions about content that is appropriate on the site so that the public-facing website continues to support recruitment and retention efforts by strengthening the College’s brand.

Considerations for Content Management

The College of Charleston website (charleston.edu) is the official, digital “face” of the university. For many visitors, it will be the first time they engage with the College and its brand. It is important that the website meets the needs of various key audiences by providing them with more than one access point to the information they are looking for.

Purpose of the Website

The public website (charleston.edu and its subdirectories) has been designed around consistent, on-brand messaging and visual elements, and provides visitors with a creative, modern, sophisticated, intuitive and accessible, customer-focused user experience. There is flexibility built into the templates, which allows content creators and website maintainers to customize a site while remaining on brand and retaining the integrity of the site’s overall structure and design. The goal of the website is to reflect the College’s brand in a way that encourages the prospective student, faculty or staff, or alumni or donors to engage with the university.

Key Audiences

The primary target audience for the College of Charleston website (charleston.edu) includes prospective students (undergraduate, graduate and transfer), prospective student families, prospective faculty and prospective staff. The homepage and navigation are set up with these audiences in mind. It tells the story of what makes the College unique and provides them with reasons to apply.

Current Students and Staff

The Hub is the College of Charleston’s robust intranet site, which is geared towards an internal audience of students, faculty and staff. The Hub, the “people server,” College of Charleston blogs or any websites dedicated to faculty research or coursework, do not fall under the purview of Marketing and Communications; however, all websites and digital tools must align with the campus-wide accessibility policy.

Content Management System (CMS)

All content will be held and propagated to the site using the approved CMS, Cascade, or its successor. Our secondary CMS is WordPress. New WordPress sites will not be approved unless the requestor can make the case that WordPress can provide a necessary service that Cascade cannot.

All websites and pages must use the available web components provided within the Content Management System without modification. Custom development work will only be considered in pre-approved instances where a) significant need is demonstrated, b) budget resources are available, and c) the site owner can identify someone who will be responsible for maintaining the custom development.

If you have questions about the capabilities of Cascade or which platform is best for you, please submit a marketing request ticket.

Domain Name System (DNS) Standards

The root of the College of Charleston website is charleston.edu. The College follows a subdirectory hierarchy to organize its website content. This means that in the URL structure, each unique unit site name will follow the root domain.

Example:

  1. charleston.edu/school-arts
  2. charleston.edu/academic-affairs
  3. charleston.edu/accounting-business-law
  4. charleston.edu/film-studies

In most cases, subdirectories will be spelled out using a hyphen where there are spaces and will omit all stop words (or, and, the, etc.).

All new subdirectory names must be jointly approved by the Office of Marketing and Communications and the Division of Information Technology. If you’re requesting a new website, please fill out a marketing assistance request form.

Applications and websites built outside of Cascade may follow a different structure to be jointly approved by the Office of Marketing and Communications and the Division of Information Technology.

Accessibility

Like our university, our website users are diverse. Site content must be accessible and useful to all users. Every page within the charleston.edu domain (including all subdomains), third-party websites and applications, and any sites that are part of university business, must comply with the requirements outlined in section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Images and Alt Text

Photos must be accompanied by “alternate” or “alt” text that conveys the information contained in an image to anyone who has a disability. Critical information on a website should not be included as an image or graphic. (For example, do not upload a .jpg file of a flyer to convey information).

Video Captioning/Audio Description

All videos posted on the charleston.edu website must be captioned and ADA-compliant. Only videos hosted on YouTube or Vimeo may be uploaded to the site. Various software tools and services are available for captioning. Any costs incurred will be the responsibility of the campus unit in charge of the video. Any video that is not properly captioned will be removed from the site.

PDFs

PDFs on the website must be accessible documents; non-accessible PDFs will be removed. An accessible PDF is a file that has proper organization with headings, paragraphs, bookmarks, alt text, hyperlinks, tables, etc. set up in a way to aid screen readers and other assistive technologies. A PDF is considered accessible if it can be used and accessed by everyone, including people with disabilities.

The website governance council has final authority regarding appropriate document formats. As a best practice, content on the College of Charleston site should be created as web content using the templates provided. There are some limited instances where it is suitable to upload a PDF. Examples include:

  1. Custom forms that can’t be created with existing services and/or must be printed and completed.
  2. Scans of historical documents.
  3. Legally restricted formats.

If a PDF meets the above criteria and is determined necessary, it must include a revision date and current College of Charleston logo. PDFs and other documents must include an approved branded font.

Ownership and the Content Editor's Role

Ownership of the Website

The website (charleston.edu) is the sole property of the College of Charleston. While faculty, staff and, in some cases, students will have access to edit content, create new content and remove old content, the site and all subdomains remain the property of the College of Charleston.

At minimum, each campus unit must appoint a point of contact who will be responsible for the integrity, accuracy and accessibility of content on their respective web pages and will ensure that content adheres to the requirements defined in this policy. Anyone whose responsibilities will include being a website content editor must apply to and be approved by the Division of Information Technology. It is a best practice to appoint two people to be website content editors so that there is a backup in place if the primary content editor is unavailable.

All websites and pages must use the available web components provided within the Content Management System without modification. Custom development work will only be considered in pre-approved instances where significant need is demonstrated, and a budget is available.

If the Division of Information Technology and the Office of Marketing and Communications jointly approve custom development work, the unit requesting the custom work will be responsible for maintaining the site. If there are technical, functional, or content issues, the requesting unit will be responsible for fixing any issues. If notified of an issue related to any custom feature, the unit responsible will have seven business days to address the issue. If the issue is not resolved within that time, the site or content will be taken down until there is a resolution.

Website Content Editors

Website content creators and editors should work with the Office of Marketing and Communications to ensure that brand standards and appropriate information architecture are being followed. Every page should provide a positive, consistent, accessible overall user experience. All content should be reviewed by at least one content editor prior to posting.

Content Creator Objectives

  • Maintain a user-centric web structure that is based on an understanding of the information the key audience is looking for, as opposed to the organizational structure of the university.
  • Incorporate user-friendly, ADA-compliant content.
  • The end user should be able to quickly find the information that they are looking for.
  • Content should be short, easy to read, mobile friendly and written with the key audience in mind.
  • Enhance the reputation of the College of Charleston brand.
  • Maintain a cohesive and appealing visual design that is consistent with the College’s brand.

All content must adhere to the College of Charleston brand manual and style guide. If content does not comply with the brand and style guidelines, the Office of Marketing and Communications will make a good-faith effort to notify the website content editor. The website content editor will have seven business days to make requested edits or remove the content unless an exemption is granted by the Office of Marketing and Communications. If no attempt to address the violation is made, the Dean or Director will be contacted by the Senior Director of Brand Marketing to develop a corrective plan of action.

Avoid duplication of content

To avoid incorrect or outdated information, content editors should always link to the “single source of truth.” For example, instead of compiling a list of courses on your charleston.edu website, you should link directly to the course catalog. In the event that you need to share information about tuition, you would link directly to the treasurer’s website. If you were to share information about application deadlines, you would link directly to the admission section of the site.

Specific Web Elements Homepage

The College of Charleston’s homepage is a branded resource that has been designed and organized around the needs of prospective students and their families, and prospective faculty and staff. The homepage structure, elements and site navigation have been carefully built to appeal to these key audiences. The homepage will not be altered to feature topical content, including events, news or announcements. Topical updates will only be featured in the events and news components designed explicitly for this purpose. The Office of Marketing and Communications controls all content on the homepage to ensure that it aligns with university goals.

Program Finder Pages

The Program Finder and associated program pages are maintained by the Office of Marketing and Communications. Each page follows a set format. If an academic program would like to suggest edits to the page, they should submit those suggestions via the marketing assistance request form.

Template Design of Landing and Child Pages

Page templates are designed with components specifically intended to focus on the goals of the website – to recruit and retain top students, faculty and staff. Web content editors should not change the look or design of the webpages.

Types of Pages Allowed

  • Landing page – this page type is reserved for marketing-owned pages and are the top-level navigation pages (About, Academics, Cost & Aid, Student Life and Admissions).
  • School landing page – this page type is reserved for academic schools, including the Graduate School and the Honors College.
    1. Faculty page – this page is used to detail biographical and professional information about faculty.
  • Faculty pages should follow the same template, which has been approved by the Office of Academic Affairs.
  • Standard detail page - all other pages will use the standard template.
  • Program Finder pages are standardized pages used with the program finder tool. These pages all follow a similar format and are built to be user-friendly, accessible, and optimized for SEO. If you have a new academic program that should be added to the program finder, or need to make edits to a program finder listing, please submit a marketing request.

Navigation Standards

Overall information architecture on the charleston.edu site will be maintained by the Office of Marketing and Communications. Information architecture decisions will be made to align with the business objectives of the university.

Domain Names

Domain names (i.e. charleston.edu, library.charleston.edu) are part of the College of Charleston identity. Consistent domain usage is a tool that helps users understand where they are on the website. Subdomains reduce search engine optimization. Subdomains will not be created for any campus unit unless there is a demonstrated need and prior approval is granted by the policy manager.

Vanity URLS

Vanity URLs, commonly referred to as “go links,” are a good way to direct users to a specific web page. These vanity URLs will be implemented on a first-come, first-served basis and cannot conflict with larger university-wide initiatives. Vanity URLs should be limited to two words, if possible. University Marketing and Communications reserves the right to revise a requested vanity URL. Vanity URLs will take the form of go.charleston.edu/<shortened-name> but will never take the form of a custom subdomain.

If you'd like a short URL, please submit a marketing request form.

Microsites and Special Projects

A microsite is a site dedicated to a special project with a specific marketing or communications focus. If any unit requests a microsite, it must be approved by the Office of Marketing and Communications. If the microsite is approved and hosted off site, the Office of Marketing and Communications must approve site mockups before development and publication.

News and Events

The news and events sections of the charleston.edu homepage prioritizes content that appeals to prospective and current students, faculty and staff, and reflects the College of Charleston brand. While all news and events are welcome on the site, only the Office of Marketing and Communications is authorized to select the news and events that are featured on the main homepage.

The Related News component will only display stories posted to The College Today, the College’s official news website. Each site may customize the Related News component on their site to pull in articles from The College Today tailored to their specific area. Contact University Marketing using the marketing assistance request form for assistance.

Each content editor may also add a custom event feed to their website using the Campus Calendar widget feature. Use this help article or contact University Marketing using the marketing assistance request form for assistance.

Written Content/Branding

The College of Charleston website should be written with web-writing best practices in mind. Web visitors are task-oriented and typically skim webpages to get just the right amount of information to meet their needs. Long sentences and blocks of text are not easy to absorb online. Subheads, bulleted and numbered lists, and appropriate images are effective tools for organizing a web page.

Copyright

It is the web content editor’s responsibility to ensure that all published content, including, but not limited to, text, images, video and audio, complies with all copyright laws. If your content infringes on copyright, it will be immediately removed from the site and the web content editor will be notified.

Photos

Images used on the website should align with the College’s brand standards. It is important to show a range of gender identities, ethnic backgrounds, races, ages, etc. All photos must include alternative (alt) text to be accessed by website visitors who have a disability.

The Office of Marketing and Communications will select images for key pages.

Faculty/Staff Photos

Faculty may include a headshot on their faculty profile page on charleston.edu (built through CascadeCMS). The headshot should be professional. The image should be clear and of good quality. A headshot must be 500x500px. If no headshot is available, the faculty member may use the “fallback” image of Randolph Hall.

Videos

Videos need to adhere to brand standards and include closed captioning. Videos on the site will only be allowed if they are hosted by YouTube or Vimeo. No video should be uploaded to and published from the CMS directly.

Webforms

For public-facing digital forms, you should use Gravity Forms, which can be set up through the Division of Information Technology. For internal forms that need to be submitted by College of Charleston users only, you can use either Gravity Forms or Microsoft Forms. Do not use Google Forms.

If you have a unique situation, work with the Division of Information Technology to find a solution.

Metrics

College of Charleston uses Google Analytics as a centralized web analytics framework. Units adding their own Google Analytics code could interfere with data collection, processing and/or reporting at the College-wide level.

You can access your site analytics by going to analytics.cofc.edu/site-name, where site-name matches your charleston.edu/site-name. If you need more detailed reporting, please contact the Division of Information Technology.

Review Process and Non-compliance

Review Process

Each semester, the content editor should review all pages for any outdated information, especially that which is related to outdated or irrelevant content, broken links, pages with fewer than 50 page views or other functional issues. If a page has fewer than 50 page views, the content editor should evaluate ways to make the page more engaging or determine if a stand-alone page is required for that content.

Non-compliance

Content editors who violate these guidelines will receive email notification from the Office of Marketing and Communications or the Division of Information Technology. The editor will have seven business days to address violations.

If no attempt to address the violation is made, the Dean or Director will be contacted by the Senior Director of Brand Marketing to develop a corrective plan of action. Continued violations will result in the revocation of the content editor’s access to the site or removal of the site from the CMS.

The Office of Marketing and Communications will make every effort to work with primary editors to address violations and assist in any necessary website updates.