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Adopted by President’s Cabinet 6/25/19; AE 9/27/22

Overview

East Georgia State College’s website is one of the most important tools utilized for communicating about EGSC, and it is often the first impression our constituents form about the college. Having a dynamic website maximizes the usability and accessibility for site visitors to find meaningful content, increases visitor engagement and conversion, and engages with prospective students, current students, donors and alumni.

Purpose of this Policy

The purpose of this policy is to establish authority, responsibilities, and actions that assure that the East Georgia State College’s presence on the World Wide Web supports and promotes the college mission by:

    1. Providing appropriate access to accurate, timely, relevant and authoritative information;
    2. Publishing materials consistent with EGSC’s Identity Standards and which best reflect the official image and message of the college;
    3. Identifying authority and responsibility for EGSC’s presence on the Web;
    4. Establishing resources available and direction to all who publish information on college or college-affiliated webpages;
    5. Ensuring regular review of college and college-affiliated webpages for compliance with established policy, standards, guidelines and best practices;
    6. Ensuring that EGSC’s Web presence forms a coherent whole.

Content Management Using the Distributed Publishing Model

All college and college-affiliated webpages will have an assigned Content Expert and Content Manager.

Website content (such as written text and images) will be supported and sustained by using a model of "distributed publishing.” The standards are defined by the following and compliance will be monitored by the Web Team:

    1. EGSC Identity Standards
    2. EGSC Web Style Guide C
    3. Related EGSC policies and procedures

In using a distributed publishing model for website content management, EGSC has adopted a recognized "best practice" for the following reasons:

    • Relevant website content "lives" with the offices and departments. They know their content best.

    • Offices and departments know best the messages they need to convey to and the responses they need from their web constituencies.
    • Potential bottlenecks created by a centralized publishing model (one person or a small group of persons responsible for all website changes) are avoided. Time-sensitive information can be published more quickly because there is not a queue of other changes that take priority.

Support for Webpage Design and Development

EGSC’s Web Team, comprised of staff in the Information Technology and Institutional Advancement units, works to ensure consistent, positive experiences for our web visitors. From design and development to branding and maintenance, the EGSC Web Team supports the web content efforts of offices and departments throughout the college.

The EGSC Web Team is comprised of the following EGSC staff:

    • Vice President for Information Technology
    • Manager of Enterprise Services
    • Director of Institutional Advancement and Community Relations
    • Information Technology and Creative Services Specialist

While individual departments are responsible for keeping their sites current, the web team will continue to review webpages and offer ongoing information and advice to assist content experts and content managers.

The web team will also train content managers for each department and provide the necessary access needed to maintain webpages using the content management software tools.

Procedures for Content Review Workflow

    1. Designate Content Experts and Content Managers
      • Each department having a presence on the EGSC website will have a designated “Content Expert” who is responsible for ensuring the overall accuracy and appropriateness of a web page’s content.
      • The Content Expert will appoint a departmental “Content Manager” who will work with the Web Team to ensure web content is updated and maintained on a regular basis.
      • The Content Expert is responsible for notifying the Web Services Specialist of who is serving as the departmental Content Manager, as well as appointing a new Content Manager should staff changes occur.
    2. Develop a Content Strategy

      According to usability.gov, “Content strategy focuses on the planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content. The goal of content strategy is to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging, and sustainable content.”

      Before creating new content or updating existing content, Content Experts and Content Managers should think through the purpose of each webpage to ensure relevance in the messaging, as well as who, when and how the webpage will be maintained.

      • Keep text brief and concise. Readers skim and look at photos; they do not read paragraph after paragraph of text.
      • Get rid of ROT. Redundant, outdated, and trivial content (ROT) is a waste of space on the EGSC website. Without keeping close track of our pages, the EGSC website can grow out of control with information that is no longer or has never been useful to our readers.
    3. Establish Review Dates

      Each asset (page content, images, etc.) requires its departmental “owner” to set a review date whereby page owners can review content regularly so that it stays as current and relevant as possible.

      This Web Content Governance Policy requires that:

        • Static content, or content that does not often change, should be reviewed at least once prior to each semester. On assets that contain static content, the review should be completed by August 1, December 1 and April 1 each year.

          The Web Team will request annual verification of the static content review from each departmental Content Expert. The reports will be maintained electronically by the Web Team.
        • Dynamic content, or content that is event-driven or date-related, should be reviewed according to when the date or event expires. For example, if the content on a page pertains to an event on January 31, the review date for that page should be set for January 31 so the content owner can remove content on that page on the day it becomes obsolete.

Roles and Responsibilities

Web Content Managers are only responsible for editing existing content and keeping it up-to-date. The creation of new webpages should be requested using the online IT Work Order System. A two-week advance notification is required for adding new pages.

  1. Content Expert: EGSC employee responsible for the accuracy, timeliness and appropriateness of a web page’s content who may or may not also be the Content Manager. The Content Expert is typically, but not exclusively, the VP, Dean or Director who oversees the department/division.

  2. Content Manager: Serves as the point-person for timely content changes and updates to the departmental/division webpage(s) to which they are assigned; adheres to stylistic and image standards, proper use of graphics, images and formatting; and attends all web content management training as scheduled by the Web Team.

      • Edits Content Managers can and should make:
        • Add/remove internal and external hyperlinks
        • Upload and link PDF documents
        • Add/update text on a web page
        • Add/remove a photo
      • Example of edits/changes made by Web Team:
        • Create and publish new pages
        • Add a new content manager
        • Add marketing retargeting tracking codes
      • Edits made by the Office of Human Resources:
        • Add/edit employee directory entries