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LSTC Web Policy
The purpose of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago web site is to communicate LSTC’s mission of preparing women and men to proclaim God’s love in Jesus Christ to all people.
This purpose will be carried out by posting information and resources for the seminary’s various constituencies:
1. Prospective students, including information on: admissions, degree programs, academic life, housing, Hyde Park neighborhood, community life, libraries, international students’ requirements, concentrations and emphases, and president’s message.
2. Current students, including information on: academic calendar, course schedule, field education, registrar’s office, ISAO, community life office, employee directories, Book Center, LRWC, webmail and emergency contacts.
3. Alums & Friends, including information on: how the seminary is funded, how to make a donation, highlights and news from the advancement office, current fundraising campaigns, volunteer leadership, advancement staff, and advancement priorities.
4. Lifelong Learners, including information on: lifelong learning events (lectures, workshops, conferences) at LSTC; faculty and staff directories; directions to LSTC.
5. Congregations, including information on: links to related LSTC web pages and to other sites, program and speaker resources, faculty-developed web sites, faculty sermons and faculty essays, and LSTC publications.
The targeted audience is external, with limited information available for current students. An intranet portal scheduled to be added in early 2006 will provide a secure, password-protected link for exchange of internal information for faculty, students and staff.
The policy and guidelines in this document currently apply only to the official, institutional pages of LSTC’s web site which are maintained by the communications and marketing office. Pages which will be created for the intranet portal scheduled to go live during the 2005-06 academic year will be maintained by individuals and offices and not by the communications and marketing office. Policies and guidelines for the intranet portal will be developed and distributed by the information technology office.
Web Oversight and Policy Making
The administrative cabinet:
- sets policy for web publishing at LSTC,
- provides guidance and makes decisions regarding the web site, and
- reviews and approves large web projects and their funding.
Members of the administrative cabinet are: the president, president’s assistant, academic dean, dean of the community, vice president for operations, vice president for finance and special projects, vice president for advancement, director of admissions, director of information technology and the director of communications and marketing.
Working with the administrative cabinet , the communications and marketing office maintains the seminary’s institutional web pages and is responsible for implementing web policy. Information updates will be reviewed by the communications and marketing office, and members of the administrative cabinet also will review more substantive changes to ensure accuracy, focus on mission and consistency.
The institutional pages of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago web site are an official publication of the seminary. Unless otherwise indicated, all text and photographs appearing on the homepage or subsequent official pages linked to it are copyrighted by the seminary and are not to be reproduced without written permission from the director of communications and marketing or the president.
LSTC’s institutional pages include those pages which are intended as official public information about academic and administrative departments, offices, programs and seminary-sponsored events. Personal faculty pages, student organization pages, and associated linked sites such as Zygon Center for Religion and Science and the Web of Creation are not institutional pages.
Developing Institutional Web Pages
To add institutional pages to the site, work through the normal reporting channels for your office, department or program for review and approval. The steps in creating new pages are:
1. Review LSTC’s web policy.
2. Work with communications and marketing to develop copy and decide on images for your pages to maintain consistency with the entire site.
3. Communications and marketing will submit the proposed new web pages to the administrative cabinet for comment and approval.
4. Work with communications and marketing to design, test and launch new pages.
Each department, office, or program with pages on LSTC’s web site must designate an information provider who will be responsible for maintaining the information on those pages. Information providers will sign an agreement with the communications and marketing office stating that they will be responsible for:
- gathering, creating and maintaining information for their page or pages;
- ensuring accuracy of what is included on their page or pages;
- deciding how often and when page information is going to be updated; and
- responding in a timely manner to questions from internal and external visitors to their pages.
A link on the department, office or program homepage will be directed to the information provider’s LSTC email address.
If the department, office or program does not maintain information for its pages, the communications office may remove the outdated pages and links to them from other institutional pages. The page files may also be removed from the web server.
Links included in LSTC’s web pages may point to non-seminary web sites. Links are limited to those that meet the purposes of the seminary. The seminary is not responsible for the contents of any linked site or any link contained on a linked site. Links are provided only as a service to LSTC’s constituencies. The following restrictions and guidelines pertain to linking to external sites.
- Only external sites that are determined by the communications and marketing office, in consultations with the administrative cabinet, to uphold the mission of the seminary and/or the expectations and needs of its constituents may be included.
- External links must be tested, reviewed and monitored by the department or office that requested the link be included. Broken links are distracting and suggest negligence on the part of the seminary.
- Links should open into a new browser window so that when the link is closed, the user will return to LSTC’s site.
- A disclaimer regarding links will be included in the web policy linked to the LSTC web site homepage:
The contents of links are beyond the control of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Every effort has been made to ensure that links are working and to provide links to sites that are compatible with the mission of the seminary.
The following information must be read and implemented by every information provider. It is essential that information providers adhere to the restrictions and style guidelines.
- Advertising on LSTC’s web site is not permitted.
- Links to commercial sites do not imply seminary endorsement and when incorporated must adhere to the guidelines for external links.
- Use of non-LSTC related logos (e.g., of partner institutions or agencies) may be included only if approved by the communications and marketing office.
- Non-seminary fundraising may not be conducted on any web page that is operated and administered by LSTC or hosted on the seminary’s network.
- Materials that are owned by others may not be placed on web pages without the expressed permission of the owner.
- Photos, video, audio or personal information about a person or persons may not be placed on web pages without the subject’s expressed permission. The burden of demonstrating consent is on the Information Provider of the page in which the material appears. Photo permission forms are available from the communications office.*
- Text on web pages should be grammatically correct and free of spelling errors. Information Providers are responsible for ensuring that their pages meet this requirement. Acronyms should be used sparingly and never as a first reference.
- Disclaimers: All faculty, student and organization pages linked to a page should display the following statement: “The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of [site name]. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. [Page information provider] assumes responsibility and liability for the content of their documents. Please address all comments and other feedback to the Information Provider of this page.”
Information Providers should include the following information on pages for the LSTC web site:
- Full name of the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago visible on the site’s home page and in the meta tag or title of each web page.
- All institutional pages will include the standard header and standardized navigation bars for the LSTC web site.
- Contact information for the department or office.
- Department, information provider, author or other point-of-contact email address on or linked to the home page for the department, office, or program.
- Pages must provide appropriate navigation links to return directly or indirectly to the department, office, or program home page.
- Web visitors must be given sufficient information to evaluate how current the web publication is. A “last modified” date may be included in the page footer, or an explicit statement regarding publication schedule or expiration may be appropriate. For example, if a handbook is updated annually, it might be titled, “Handbook, 2003-04” and include a note that information is current for September 1, 2003. Calendars and other event listing should include the year.
*At the start of each academic year, the Communications and Marketing Office will collect and keep on file completed photo permission forms for students, faculty and staff.
Web Policy developed 7/18/02
Adopted by LSTC President’s Cabinet April 2003
Modified 3/2005
Modified 7/2005
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