The University of Maryland School of Medicine encourages faculty, staff, and students to publish freely and openly on the World Wide Web, within the constraints of existing laws and School of Medicine policies. This Web Policy & Guidelines document imparts minimal stylistic consistency guidelines and procedures for communicating on the World Wide Web. These guidelines address "Official School of Medicine Web Pages" and "Unofficial Web Pages." This document also contains guidelines and suggestions for all pages published by members of the University of Maryland School of Medicine community.
2.1. For the purposes of this Policy, an "Official School of Medicine Web Page" is a Web Page that represents one of the following organizational units of the School of Medicine:
2.2. The Office of Public Affairs and Office of Information Services reserves the right to monitor and review Official School of Medicine Web Pages.
The Office of Public Affairs shall make the final determination on what constitutes an "Official School of Medicine Web Page."
2.3. In order to facilitate the adoption of site-wide style standards, enable site-wide searches, and deploy online applications, all Official School of Medicine Web Pages must be hosted on a Web server administered by the Office of Information Services. Under special circumstances, this requirement may be waived at the discretion of the the Director of Web Communications.
2.4. In order to maintain a consistent public image, all Official School of Medicine Web pages must adopt the “look and feel” of the School of Medicine Website. The Office of Public Affairs provides a selection of design templates for this purpose. Design templates will be applied under the supervision of the Office of Public Affairs and the Office of Information Services. Design templates will be provided online and may be used for official and unofficial School of Medicine Webpages.
SOM Web templates will meet current development standards and guidelines of Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) and address requirements of Section 508 of the Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards (36 CFR part 1194) http://www.section508.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Content&ID=12
Each design template will include:
"Notwithstanding any language to the contrary, nothing contained herein constitutes nor is intended to constitute an offer, inducement, promise, or contract of any kind. The data contained herein is for informational purposes only and is not represented to be error free. Any links to non-University of Maryland information are provided as a courtesy. They are not intended to nor do they constitute an endorsement by the University of Maryland of the linked materials."
Official School of Medicine organizational units will be contacted by a representative of the Office of Public Affairs or the Office of Information services regarding redesign initiatives.
2.5. The Home Page for each official School of Medicine unit will contain a representative description of the unit. Sources for this description may include the Faculty Resource Handbook, the School of Medicine Catalog or school recruiting materials.
2.6. Each Official School of Medicine Website will contain a generic email contact address for the unit or person responsible for the content on the site.
2.7. Information on each Official School of Medicine Web Page will be kept up-to-date. One person in the unit should be designated to participate in this process, which will require a minimal time commitment once the initial site content is completed.
2.8. Each School of Medicine unit creating an Official School of Medicine Web Page is responsible for ensuring that the information contained therein is of the highest editorial standards (spelling, punctuation, grammar, style, etc.) and is factually accurate. Errors will be brought to the unit’s attention by the Office of Public Affairs and suitable corrections must be made.
Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to create Web pages presenting information that advances the mission of the School of Medicine. Web pages of this type are considered "Unofficial Web Pages."
Every Unofficial Web Page must have a designated page owner who is responsible for the content of that page. The page owner must be a University of Maryland School of Medicine employee or student in good standing. The School of Medicine does not review information contained in Unofficial Web Pages. The School of Medicine encourages faculty, staff and students to use Web servers administered by the Office of Information Services; however, Unofficial Web Pages may reside on outside servers. It is the owner’s responsibility to be sure that Unofficial Web Pages comply with the following rules:
3.1. The content of Unofficial Web Pages must not violate applicable export laws and regulations; must not constitute a copyright or trademark infringement; and must not otherwise violate any local, state, or federal laws. To the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of any page taken as a whole shall not appeal to the prurient interest, such as pornography.
3.2. Unofficial Web Pages must be in compliance with all appropriate University of Maryland, Baltimore campus policies and procedures.
3.3. The address of the Unofficial Web Page owner shall be prominently displayed and so shall the date on which the page was last modified.
4.1. The correct names for the School of Medicine are "University of Maryland School of Medicine" and "School of Medicine." Use of other names, such as "University of Maryland," "University of Maryland Medicine," "University of Maryland Medical Center" and "University of Maryland Medical System" is strongly discouraged.
4.2. Use of the University of Maryland School of Medicine logo and/or the University of Maryland, Baltimore seal must be sanctioned by the Office of Public Affairs. The official School of Medicine web logo can be downloaded at http://medschool.umaryland.edu/public_affairs/logos.asp.
4.3. Authors or originators using photos and images may need the permission of not only the person or organization that owns the photo or image, but also from any persons included within the images.
4.4. Any use of other copyrighted material must have the express written permission of the person or organization that owns the copyright. The Office of Public Affairs reserves the right to require proof of the written permission and to remove the material if that proof cannot be produced.
4.5. To avoid issues related to endorsement and trademark infringement, links should not include logos or trademark designs. Trademarked works should only be used when necessary, and with the mark: "TM".
Links to commercial Web sites and sites that carry advertising should be carefully considered. Links may not be used for the sole purpose of promoting commercial interests. Links to sites that feature content that is purely political or religious or that otherwise conflict with the School of Medicine’s role as a state institution are inappropriate. Web pages may not link to a site with content that creates a harassing or hostile environment based on factors such as race, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, or religion. Web pages may not link to a site that violates the law, such as a site that illegally publishes copyrighted material or a site that publishes child pornography.
Pages found to be in violation of these Policies and Guidelines shall be subject to immediate removal from the Network.
Revised: 4/22/2009