District No. 118 Technology Policies: Website Policy
Please
read the following policies. If you are maintaining your school, or
your own teacher website, please consult these policies for information
on acceptable website use.
Purpose. The District 118 web site and school web sites provide students, staff,
and community members with information about our District and the
schools. Web sites include the school’s mission, curriculum,
programs, school activities and other information about the school,
the community and interests. The creation and maintenance of the District
site is provided by the District Webmaster. The creation and
maintenance of the school sites is provided by a designated person
or persons (webmaster) in each building. Webmaster Directory.
Content Requirements. Building and District administrators,
with input from designated individuals from each school, are responsible
for web page approval. All subject matter on the web site should relate
to curriculum, instruction, school-authorized activities, the school
district, or general items that are appropriate for staff and students
and of interest to the school community. Neither staff nor students
may publish personal home pages as part of the District’s or
individual schools’ web sites. Staff and student work may be
published only as it relates to a class project, course, or other
school-related activity. No advertisements for any product or service
may appear on official District web pages. Logos for paid or free
subscribed services and education related links are excluded. All
pages must adhere to all copyright laws.
Quality
Requirements. All web page work must be free of spelling and
grammatical errors. Documents may not contain or point (link) directly
to inappropriate material. Inappropriate material is defined as material
that is not consistent with the District’s educational mission
or that would disrupt the orderly operation, maintenance, and discipline
of the schools. If the quality or propriety of web page material,
appearance, or content is called into question, the judgment of the
District webmaster, and building or district administrators will prevail.
Technical
Standards.
- Each page must have a link that returns the user to the appropriate
point(s), either in the school web pages or the District pages.
Each school’s home page should link to the District’s
home page.
- Users must exhibit care when creating Web pages with extensive
tiled backgrounds or large graphics. Such files require extensive
download time, are frustrating for modem users, and slow down
the file servers. As a general rule, a Web page should not take
longer than one minute to download over a 56 KB modem connection.
Graphics files shall be under 60K in size unless a special situation
exists that requires a larger graphic. Be sure to consider monitor
size when creating web pages. 600 x 800 is the current standard.
- Persons who create and maintain web pages will edit the pages
for accuracy of links, and check for conformance with standards
outlined in these guidelines.
- Web pages may not contain links to other Web pages not yet completed.
If additional pages are anticipated, but not yet developed, the
text that will provide such a link should be included.
- All Web pages must be given names that clearly identify them.
The main page for all folders and webs shall be index.html. The
home page of each school shall be created using a common format
that will be provided.
- Web pages should be developed using approved software, preferably
Dreamweaver or Stoneware.
Security. For a student’s name,
picture, work, or information about a student to appear on a school
web page, the school must obtain parental permission. Students will
not be identified by name in any published photos. Documents may
not include a student's phone number, address, names of other family
members, or names of friends. Web page documents may not include
any information which indicates the physical location of a student
at any given time, other than attendance at a particular school,
or participation in activities.
Published e-mail addresses are restricted to District e-mail addresses
of staff members or to a general group e-mail address where arriving
e-mail is forwarded to a staff member.
Copyright. The Copyright of all material must be respected.
The author of the web page must not use copyrighted materials without
permission. Unless there is a clear statement that art, photos and
text are "public domain" and available for free use, one
should assume that they are copyrighted. This material should not
be used for republication on a Web site unless permission is granted
from the copyright owner.
Procedures for Posting. Each school will
have a folder on a District server in which to store school web
pages. For each building, the building administrator, the person(s)
responsible for the development and maintenance of the web page,
and the District webmaster shall have rights to the web folder.