MARSHALL UNIVERSITY
ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING STYLE GUIDE

Electronic Publishing Oversite Committee
Original: September 16, 1996
Revised: March 20, 1999

The Electronic Publishing Style Guide has been written to provide guidelines and policies for any material published electronically including the following:

  1. Web pages residing on the official Marshall University web server

  2. Pages located within the top three levels of the official Marshall University web site (i.e., any page which may be accessed in two or less links from the official Marshall University web page).

  3. Pages associated with the Marshall University Information Provider Agreements.

 

COMPUTER USE AND ABUSE POLICY

Web pages residing on the official Marshall University web site or using University equipment must conform to the guidelines set by the Computer Use and Abuse Policy. This policy may be obtained from the main desk of University Computing Services or through the UCS web site. Web pages must also conform to the West Virginia Statewide Internet Acceptable Use Policy

 

RESPONSIBILITIES FOR CONTENT PUBLISHED ELECTRONICALLY

Campus units and other entities join the official Marshall University web server by completing the Marshall University Information Providers Agreement. The person entering into the agreement, the overseer, may at anytime grant other individuals or organizations the ability to add content to the entity’s web page. However, the overseer assumes full responsibility for the content of the page. The overseer must therefore insure that the page is in compliance with copyright, local, state and federal laws as well as University policies. Since these pages are an electronic representation of the entity and Marshall University, page content should be accurate and maintain high editorial standards (i.e., spelling and grammar). Links to pages that do not meet the conditions of this guide should be explicitly labeled as such, e.g. ("By following this link you will leave the official Marshall University web server").

 

ANNUAL WEB SITE REVIEW

All Information Service Provider web sites will be subject to an annual review by EPOC beginning from the date the site is linked from the official Marshall University web site. This review will consist of checking that the site's content has been updated and that the site maintains the guidelines of the Electronic Publishing Style Guide. If the site does not pass the review, the overseer of the site will be contacted about the problems and asked to correct them. If the problems are not corrected within 15 days, the site's link from the Marshall University server will be removed until such time as the problems are corrected.

 

FEEDBACK/RESPONSE TIME

All web pages will contain the E-mail address of the unit or entity responsible for the page's creation and maintenance. E-mail will be answered by the unit or entity in no more than three business days.

 

COMMERCIAL USE

Web pages on the Marshall University network are not to be used for commercial purposes of any kind including the generation of revenue. (i.e., selling products via the web page or the use of banner ads).

 

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS

Non-profit organizations can be hosted by the official Marshall University web site as long as the organization's site is sponsored by a current Marshall University faculty or staff member. These sites will be limited to a size of 10Mb on the Marshall University web server..

 

PAGE DESIGN AND APPEARANCE

When designing a web page, consideration must be made to the audience the page will reach. Marshall University faculty and staff have access to network bandwidth and computer systems that are beyond the capabilities of the home user. Web page designers are urged to take the following guidelines into consideration when designing a page:

System Capabilities

  1. Test the page on a minimum 15" monitor at 640x480 resolution. The main points of interest on the page should be visible at this resolution without the need to scroll through the page.

  2. The top level page for any group of pages shall be equal to or less than 50k (50,000 bytes) in size. This size is defined as the sum total of all content appearing on the page including but not limited to text, graphics, video, sound, and plug-in specific content. The download time of the page should be suitable for a 28k modem.

  3. Links to Pages which exceed 100k (100,000 bytes) in size shall be explicitly labeled as such (e.g., "This graphic is 208k").

Accessibility

  1. Pages should be designed so that different browsers (i.e., Netscape Navigator / Communicator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Lynx) will have equal access to the page’s content. For example, any image map would need to include a text alternative.

  2. Pages that make use of frames should include non-frames versions in such a manner that users will not dead end at the frames-enabled version of the page.

  3. Pages will be constructed and maintained so that the content will be equally accessible to all browsers with or without specific add-on modules (i.e., Shockwave Flash, RealAudio).

Marshall University Logo/Seal/Masthead

  1. The Marshall University Logo, Seal, and Masthead are to be used in accordance with the rules governing its usage as set forth by Marshall University.

Color Scheme

  1. It is recommended that a neutral color, such as white, be used for the background color of web pages. A high level of contrast should be maintained between the background and foreground colors (i.e., a light background color would be used with a dark foreground color). Level of contrast is defined as the readability of text on the page.