Online Communications Policy

Site Maintenance

All units with web sites should be registered with the Web Working group through the Web Registry. In addition, each unit should have the following in place for website maintenance:

A designated page maintainer (web master). This person should register with the Web Working Group.
When a site is revised, attempt to maintain the homepage URL. If this is not possible, establish a redirect so that users with the old URL will be taken to the new site. Individual units should contact Public Affairs prior to site development in order to receive copies of applicable LSU Web Policies, Standards, and Guidelines.
When a site obtains a new URL for it's homepage, the site maintainer must notify the LSU Webmaster. Links from the upper tier of the LSU website cannot be updated unless the webmaster has been officially notified of the URL change.
If pages are being developed by an individual or company outside the university, make sure that a person within the department (the webmaster) is trained to properly update and maintain the website.

Remove Old files from the server

If old files remain on the server, the search engine can still find them. In order to make sure LSU Web Site users are not stumbling across an old site or outdated web pages, remove all files from the server that are not currently needed.

Timely and Accurate

To remain useful over time and to present an image consistent with LSU's position as an academic institution, information must be timely and accurate. Content providers are responsible for periodic reviews of the information contained and revising content based upon relevancy, accuracy, and accessibility. It is recommended that each page list the most recent modification date.

Identify Content Provider

Each page must identify the web developer and content provider. In some cases, these may be the same person. Organizational units and individuals are accountable for the information they choose to distribute via the Web.

Navigation and necessary links

All official pages must have a link to the LSU.edu homepage. An easy and effective way to do this is with the standard LSU footer.

Each unit's homepage should link to it's administrative parent's homepage (i.e., accounting services homepage should link to Finance and Administrative services homepage.)

All pages must have a link to the website unit's homepage so that users entering any page will be able to navigate to other portions of that unit's website.

All pages are required to have a link to the site webmaster (i.e., the webmaster's e-mail address).

If an image map is used for navigational purposes, "Alt" tags should be used in the image map and an alternate text-only navigation bar should appear on the page (the text only navigation bar is usually placed at the bottom of the page so that it does not interfere with the overall design and content of the page).

Graphics

When adding or replacing site graphics, remember all graphics contribute to page download time.

Use "Alt" tags on all graphics. The Alt tags should be:
1. the word "photo" or "image"
2. a set of empty quotes (this is usefule for use in graphics that are used in the site design yet not of importance; the use of empty quotes causes screen readers for the visually impaired to skip over the image).
Do not increase, reduce, stretch or shrink the size of graphics in the HTML code. You should always use an image editing program to prepare graphics before you insert them into your web pages
Do not use images greater than 40K
Do not use images more than 600 pixels wide or 400 pixels tall
Make sure you abide by copyright laws when selecting images for your website
Consult the LSU Graphic Standards Manual whenever you are using an LSU logo or trademark to be sure you are complying with LSU policies. See LSU Logo, Wordmark and Color Information to download web ready logos and wordmarks.

HTML Tags

When adding new pages to the web site, the following tags should be used on each page to help users access the site:

<title>
No more than 60 characters long, each page in a website should have a unique page title. Using unique titles for each page on a website will aid users looking at results from the search engine.