|
 Pleasant
Valley School District Web Policy Guidelines
Introduction
"When businesses decide that they will have a web presence, there is much
thought and planning since this will be another avenue for information and eventual
revenue. This same attention to developing and maintaining a web site should be paid by
school personnel when it is decided that a web site is appropriate. "
--Joanne Romano, 1998 Pepperdine University, The Oasis Project
As in business, the Internet offers great potential to school
districts. In many districts across the country, the district web site is an invaluable
resource, improving communication between parents, students, staff, and the community;
enabling current school information to be broadcast to a wide audience efficiently and
providing a medium whereby student work can be viewed and critiqued by a global audience.
Research shows that those districts whose web sites have met with the most success are
those that started with clear-cut objectives and careful planning.
Statement of Purpose
This document defines the standards and guidelines that the Pleasant
Valley School District will use to make information available on the World Wide Web. The
purpose is twofold: to ensure high quality and consistency regarding the content,
organization, and presentation of information on the district web site, and to outline the
method by which information will be gathered, assessed, and disseminated via the district
web site.
Section I: Content, Organization and Presentation
 | Content |
All published material must have clear relevance to established district curricula and
the educational goals of the district.
Each school home page will contain the following disclaimer:
All published material must support the district guidelines, goals, and policies.
Materials published must not display, access or link to sites deemed offensive to the
Pleasant Valley School District.
While no personal web pages will be allowed by either students or district employees,
teachers will be permitted to have their own professional web page incorporated into the
district web site that supplements or enriches their course curriculum.
All material published must abide by existing copyright laws. Appendix A contains
guidelines regarding copyright issues and the Internet. The guidelines stated herein are
not only for our own protection, but for teaching by example those principles we wish to
instill in our students.
All material placed on the district web site is expected to meet academic standards of
proper spelling, grammar and accuracy of information.
The World Wide Web is an ideal forum for sharing student work, and the publishing of
student projects is encouraged. Student projects will be linked to a teacher page where
the project will be described. Students’ privacy should be protected by indicating
the student’s first name only, without photos, except for class photos without names.
Students should annotate their projects with a description of what they did, what they
learned, and, if appropriate, how using the Internet was useful to completing their
project
Materials created by teachers and staff are the property of the district and may not be
sold or distributed outside the district without prior approval.
| Organization |
The district web site will consist of a home page with links to each
building, the district "virtual library," district services (e.g. busing), and
any other appropriate information. Each building will have its own home page and document
collection, with links to different departments, highlights of the building activities,
extracurricular functions, and notable events. The department page will contain the links
of each teacher who wishes to have a web page that supports his/her curricular goals.
| Presentation |
Consistency is important in maintaining the appearance of the site. Therefore, the
following guidelines will be followed to enrure a uniform look and feel to the site.
i) A template will be available for download from the district home page. It will
contain the basic structure, background, color scheme, and navigational icons for a web
page to be included in the district site. All those who wish to publish information
through the district web site will use this template to ensure consistency and quality in
the appearance of their documents.
ii) Backgrounds, if used, should be subtle, and should not interfere with the
legibility of the text.
iii) All pages should be formatted using a mix of upper and lowercase lettering. No
document will be accepted typed in all capital letters. This is considered poor
"netiquette" and also reduces the readability of the print.
iv) Headings should be used to set apart document or section titles. They should not be
used to emphasize text.
v) The use of frames is discouraged, but if a frames version of a page or document is
created, it should be accompanied by a non-frames version as well. No more than two frames
- one for navigation and the other for actual content – will be allowed.
vi) Web pages that require extensive scrolling are too long, and should be broken down
into separate pages or subsections connected by hyperlinks.
vii) Every page should have a title. The title should be as short as possible, but
informative and specific (e.g. PVHS Drama Club). Although the title is often overlooked
because it does not appear in the body of the document, it is important because it is
frequently used to identify the document in bookmarks, search result sets, and site
indices.
B) Graphics
i) Inline graphics will be used instead of links to graphics on external servers.
ii) Consideration should be given to those who still use text-only browsers like Lynx,
and those who have turned images off through their graphics-enabled browsers. The ALT tag
will be used for all important images. This will also aid in the location of pages since
some search engines index the text with ALT tags.
iii) Animated graphics, and graphics that detract from, not enhance, the web page
should be avoided. Slow loading graphics should also be avoided and web pages with several
graphics should be tested through at least two different browsers to ensure they load
within 30 seconds.
C) Links
i) All external links should be annotated with a brief description of the site, and
should be well-organized, preferably by subject. When linking to pages that are part of
the district web site, relative (local links) should be used instead of remote links. For
example, use <A HREF "web.htm"> instead of <A HREF
"http://www.pvsd.edu/web.htm">
D) At no time should a student’s personal e-mail address or phone number appear on
a school or district web page. All e-mail should be directed to the site webmaster.
E) All web pages should have a navigation bar that will help users find their way to
the appropriate home page. In addition, they should be stamped with the date the web page
was last revised, a copyright notice, and contain the author’s name.
F) Links to external resources can be helpful, but they should be limited to only the
best, so that the viewer is not overwhelmed, and they should be annotated.
G) All pages linked from the district web page must contain a link back to the building
home page as well as any other navigational icons or hyperlinks needed.
Section II Maintenance
A) The responsibility for maintaining the district web site will be the responsibility
of the district webmaster. This person will be chosen by and serve at the discretion of
the District Technology Coordinator in conjunction with hiring procedures of the Pleasant
Valley School District.
B) Duties of the Webmaster include, but are not limited to:
i) collating information from each building
ii) screening all material before publication
iii) checking all links for accuracy and appropriateness
iv) uploading material to the server housing the district web site.
v) purging information that is outdated or no longer in use
vi) maintaining a Webmaster e-mail address to which suggestions and inquiries about the
site may be directed.
vii) creating and maintaining a site index
viii) assisting staff in creating web pages
The webmaster will be the only person
(with the exception of the district technology coordinator) capable of uploading new files
to the web server. No students will have access to the password that enables entry to the
district web site.
Any person who wants to have information published to the district web site should send
the web pages or data to the webmaster by the first of the month. All material must be in
digital format. Information will be processed and added to the district web site sometime
within that month. Any information received after the first of the month may be held for
publication until the following month. All information sent should include the name of a
contact person, building, phone extension, and any other information pertinent to the
successful publication or uploading of the pages or document collection.
The district webmaster will use his/her discretion in choosing whether or not to
publish information to the school web site. All information received may be subject to
editing or revision deemed necessary to adhere to the Acceptable Use Policy and Web Policy
Guidelines. The sender will be notified of changes made, if any, as well as provided with
a URL (Universal Resource Locator) where the page, document, or document collection may be
found.
G) All files submitted on disk should be formatted for HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
version 2.0 or above. File names should be in lower case letters with no spaces and should
have an ".htm" extension (if created on a PC) or "html" extension (if
formatted on a Macintosh). Any collection of documents should be housed in a separate
folder or directory on the disk and should contain any graphics files used (only JPEG or
GIF formats will be accepted). If the homepage for a document collection is being
submitted, it should be named "index.htm" or "index.html" depending on
the type of computer used.
H) Students may be used in the maintenance of the district web site, but they will be
under the careful supervision of the district webmaster or other authorized district
personnel given permission to provide such supervision.
I) Any information that is more than six months old may be removed from the web site
without notice at the discretion of the district webmaster.
J) Students and teacher web pages will be removed at the end of the year unless special
arrangements are made.
K) Teachers, students, and district employees who send in documents to be published are
responsible for keeping a backup of this work on disk as a safety precaution.
Appendix A - Copyright Guidelines
All published material must conform to the district copyright policy. (Board Policy No.
814 revision adopted December 8, 1998.) To help you with this issue, the following
information was taken and modified from "Keeping it Legal: Questions Arising Out of
Web Site Management," by Jamie McKenzie, with permission:
The copyright law and the courts have provided exceptions to the rules that govern the
behavior of teachers, students, and schools. In general terms, teachers, students and
schools are allowed to make "fair use" of materials for instructional purposes.
"Fair use" has been interpreted to include those limited uses which are not
likely to deprive a publisher or an author from income.
"Fair use" of Internet resources by teachers, students, schools, or district
personnel should parallel the use of printed resources. Teachers and students might make
limited use of some text and graphics within their own classrooms. They should not
"publish" those same materials across other classrooms within the building by
posting on a local area network (LAN) or across other classrooms in other building on a
wide area network (WAN) or the World Wide Web. The moment the works move out of the
classroom, they may fall under a "public performance" clause of the copyright
law which imposes much greater restrictions and fees.
To avoid problems with what to use or not to use, the following statement should be
your guide: 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 local
area network, a wide area network, or a Web site unless written permission is granted from
the owner. Permission slips can be obtained from the district web master and must be
returned to the webmaster with appropriate signatures where they will be filed for future
reference. This extends to student work also, and any district employee who wants to
publish student work must first have the student and his or her parent or guardian sign
one of these permission slips as well. All web pages published will be in compliance with
local, state, and federal laws.
© Pleasant Valley School District - revised
07/20/04 03:16:25 PM |
