Information Resources - The University of Texas at Dallas web publishers are
responsible for the content of the pages they publish and are expected to abide
by the highest standards of quality and responsibility.
These guidelines are intended to assist Web publishers in professionally and
consistently representing The University of Texas at Dallas - Information Resources
on the Web.
In addition to the publishing guidelines included in this site, all publishers
should comply with established UTD Web Publishing Policies and Information
Resources policies.
Publishers must commit to keeping their pages up-to-date and with correct information.
It is the policy of Information Resources that all official Information Resources
information published on the Information Resources Web site shall be accessible to
all users.
The IR Web site was created with standards-compliant XHTML 1.1 applications.
Web publishers and developers are responsible for testing their sites in each of the
preferred browsers on the available platforms. We discourage publishers from implementing
any browser-specific features which do not break gracefully in Internet Explorer 5.5 or
later, Mozilla 1.2 or later, and Safari 1.2 or later.
The IR Web Site contains 5 cascading style sheets and 4 java scripts.
The main cascading style sheet defines the body, font family, font sizes, headers, tables, colors, links, menus, superscript, printing, etc. The 4 java scripts define the menus, search links and WebTrend tracking. For a complete list of features please contact the Information Resources Web Designer.
Naming Files, Subdirectories, and Links
The way Web files, subdirectories, and links are named determines how easily users
find information and navigate your site. A logical naming system also makes it
easier to maintain your site.
Organize files into subdirectories
It may help to think of a subdirectory as being similar
to a folder. Organize your HTML files by topic in as many subdirectories as necessary.
Use index.htm or index.php as the name for the first or primary page of your Web site
If the primary page is called index.htm or index.php you do not need to specify it when
listing URLs. Both of the links below work, but the shorter one follows standard naming
conventions and is easier to remember and type:
When linking from other sites or pages to your main page, don't specify /ir/index.htm in
the link. Just point to /ir/. This is helpful in changing the file
extension of your main page from index.htm to something else later on, such as index.php.
If other pages link to /ir/index.htm they must be changed. If those same pages linked
to /ir/, the links will work no matter what type of file extension you use.
Keep file and subdirectory names short and descriptive and in lower case.
Make link text meaningful
Repeat usage of click here does not help readers
easily locate the information they need easily. Instead, write your link text to describe the page
it links to.
Metadata is data about data. In terms of your Web pages it is additional descriptive
information about the page. Typical information might include keywords, a description,
author, date of update and other information. Including metadata in Web pages can
help in managing them and can help users find them. Every page created must contain
keywords and a description highlighting the page content.
The Web templates developed for the 2007 redesign include metadata for keywords and description.
Why should I bother with metadata?
This is like asking why the library should bother with a library catalog. Metadata can
help other people find your pages. It can be used to relate pages of similar topics or authors. It
can help determine the freshness of your pages. While the tools used to gather and
process the metadata are still being refined, take advantage of these tools
as they become available.
State of Texas law and Department of Information Resources Web publishing guidelines
require Web sites to include a link to the University's Web privacy policy at www.utdallas.edu/privacy.html
As required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the university has a copyright page addressing complaints. Web sites are not required to link to this copyright statement
but all publishers should be aware of it.
Campus publishers can include copyright and usage statements on their sites to help
answer questions about appropriate use for the resources in the site.
Two sample statements are:
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As part of the 2007 Web redesign, templates were created for Web publishers. These
guidelines assist publishers in using the templates and in
representing Information Resources at The University
of Texas at Dallas on the Web in a consistent, professional manner.
There is one master template. From that template custom templates were created
for each department/group/publisher or publishers. All departments / groups will have
a custom navigation menu including a Home, About, Staff and Site Map. Every page will also contain Popular Links, and Site Search.
- Identify the audiences for your site. Who visits your site regularly?
What terms would they use to identify?
- Identify users' major tasks. What do your users want to accomplish
on your site? What information are they looking for?
- Organize information by audience, task or both. Depending on the type
and breadth of information presented, select one or two organizational systems for
your page and clearly delineate them. Ideally, after one quick look, users will be able to
understand how the information is organized. This does not mean that they will have memorized
all of the information contained on the page. It just means that they will know how and
where to look for what they want to find.
- Organize lists of material (lists of links, offices, etc.). Organize the
list of materials either alphabetically or by importance to users.
Naming
- Use consistent terminology. Be aware that one term can represent
different kinds of information. Do not use the same term to refer to different
pages. For example, if a section of your site is devoted to policy, select a consistent
word and use it on all pages that refer to the policy section of the page.For example avoid calling it
"Policy & Procedures" on the index page, but referring to "Policy
Information" on subsequent pages.
- Ask yourself what kind of information the user expects to find behind a given link. Link labels should match the title of the page where the link leads. For example,
when a user clicks on the "e-mail support" link, they should be directed to a page
entitled "E-mail Support."
- Spell out all acronyms at their first use. Example: The Help Desk is
part of Technology Customer Service (TCS). Do not assume that users know what an acronym
stands for.
- Label items logically and include helpful scope notes throughout. If a term or a name of an office isn't intuitive or explanatory, provide details. A
scope note is a brief description which adds depth to the navigational elements.
Consider removing repeat instances of "Office of" in front of names
- Avoid using icons or graphics as the only source of labeling information. Graphics and icons can be misinterpreted.
Navigating
- Include some visual clue when a page requires a NetID.
- Make thumbnail pictures clickable links. Users expect thumbnails to be
links to the material they represent.
- Include the group's name on all pages.
You have a 40 page report with a Table of Contents, Executive Summary, Appendices and have been asked to publish the report on the Web. How is this task accomplished? There are a variety of options, each with their own advantages
and disadvantages, including:
- Creating an Adobe Acrobat PDF file
- Using Microsoft Word's built-in Save As Web page feature
- Breaking the report into sections and using links to improve web navigation
- Creating links to external resources to add value to the report
- Uploading the Word document "as is" and letting people download the .doc file
These pages outline several possibilities for putting the report on the Web in a reasonable manner.
When adding a graphic make sure to provide a description of the image in the <img src="image.gif" alt="NetID required">. You can use the following types of graphics:
Flash
Web Video
Creating and Maintaining a Campus RSS Feed
Really Simple Syndication (RSS) files, or "feeds", enable Web publishers
to provide a summary of their site in a standard XML format. RSS files can be used to
syndicate headlines or updates from your site to other sites that subscribe to your
RSS feed. RSS feeds are commonly used to announce news or spotlight items, but they
can include links to any content at your site or other sites, including audio files
for podcasts.
Posting Your RSS File
- When finished creating RSS file, save it with .rss as the
extension. (for example, name the file helpdesknews.rss)
- Upload your RSS file to your Web server as "ASCII" or "text."
- If you have an RSS feed for a Web site, you can also include a link to that within
your Web page.
Maintaining Your RSS File
Publishers must commit to updating their channels at least once a month. If there news
stories or events that occur more frequently, post them as they become available.
What is PHP?
From the PHP Web site (www.php.net):
"PHP is a server-side, cross-platform, HTML embedded scripting language."
That's a mouthful, but if we break the definition down into smaller pieces, it is easier to understand.
- server-side: This means that PHP scripts execute on the Web server, not
within the browser on your local machine.
- cross-platform: Cross-platform means that PHP scripts can run on many
different operating systems and Web servers. PHP is available for the two most popular
Web server configurations (IIS running on Windows NT and Apache running on UNIX).
- HTML embedded scripting language: This means that PHP statements
and commands are actually embedded in your HTML documents. When the Web server sees
the PHP statements in the Web page, the server executes the statements and sends the
resulting output along with the rest of the HTML. PHP commands are parsed by the server
much like Active Server Pages or Cold Fusion tags.
What Can I Do with PHP?
Like most server-side scripting languages, PHP is excellent for creating dynamic Web
sites based on database content or different characteristics of browsers. Through the
use of external libraries and functions, PHP can:
- create graphics on the fly
- serve different content to users based on their browser, IP address, date and time,
or numerous other characteristics
- connect databases like Oracle or MySQL to the Web
- communicate with external Web sites
- build discussion forums or Web-based e-mail programs
- read and process XML
These are just a few of the many things that PHP can do.
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