Publications Policies Index

Statement of Policy

1. The department will provide support for web-based publication of non-confidential information about the department.
2. The department will develop its printed publications based on documents provided by individuals and projects via the department's web information structure.
3. Personal web pages are private and are not subject to review by the department, except for cause.
4. Project, course, or group home pages that are accessible from http://www.cs.unc.edu without going through a personal home page are subject to review by the department to determine that minimal maintenance expectations are satisfied. Subpages of the project, course, or group home pages are not subject to such review, except for cause.

Rationale
The World Wide Web is an important means of communication for the department and for individual investigators and projects. Resources of the Department of Computer Science and of individual projects and the time of individual students, faculty, and staff are being dedicated to create and maintain the department's Web presence. The department's Web presence requires a significant investment of human time to set up and continuing investments of human time to maintain. This document explains why and how the department will create and maintain its Web presence.

Why?
It is in the department's interest to anticipate and facilitate the transformation of departmental public information from a centrally controlled, printed form to a decentralized, Web-based form.

Departmental public information includes but is not limited to "directory information" about people in the department, news and announcements, course offerings and schedules, degree requirements, current research efforts, departmental committees and their membership, and general information.

Communication with outside persons not involved in departmental activities is an important function of the department that has been heretofore provided and enhanced centrally (via our Publications staff). The department provides staff and resources to support the production of printed documents such as the Admissions Poster, the Department Brochure, the Admissions Brochure, and other communications. The portion of the department's external communication that can take place via the World Wide Web is increasing, thereby increasing the value of on-line information and decreasing the importance of some printed communications.

It is to the department's advantage to provide up-to-date information about the department, its academic programs, and ongoing research. Such information has been and will continue to be provided by centrally organized, edited, published, dated snapshots of departmental affairs that are current as of the publication date but that become stale rapidly. The growth of the World Wide Web enables us to publish immediate, up-to-the-minute information whose maintenance responsibility is distributed to the interested members of the department. If done well, this accrues to the advantage of current department administration and operations, prospective and current students, alumni, and other friends of the department.

It is to the department's advantage to provide mechanisms that enable printed departmental information to be derived from the Web-accessible information. This will facilitate the preparation of printed documents and enable members of the department to more easily maintain their printed information since its maintenance is under their direct control, with advice and help from the Publications staff. This strategy also avoids unnecessary duplication of effort since the medium in which individuals and projects communicate with the world is the same as the medium by which they communicate with the Publications staff to develop entries for departmental publications.

It is to the department's advantage to establish procedures by which the department's public information can be identified, gathered, verified, and edited for the preparation of printed documents and for maintenance of the Web-accessible departmental information.

How?
The handle: www.cs.unc.edu
The department provides an information infrastructure of benefit to the whole department through its centrally maintained publications and through the department's World Wide Web server, www.cs.unc.edu.

The name www.cs.unc.edu is a public handle that outsiders can access. Visitors exploring the department's Web site can access a great deal of nonconfidential information about the department, its members, and their activities. Documents accessible via links from this handle are more easily found by such visitors than documents accessed only under personal home pages. The ability to link a course, project, or other departmental organization under the department's web pages is a valuable asset to that entity.

The department does not censor the content of personal Web pages. (But note that the department has the authority to take action under the Campus Code, by administrative action, and/or via a grievance procedure against individuals who publish on the Web material that is obscene or illegal.) The department particularly disclaims responsibility for the content of web pages produced by individual department members under their Web home page accessed by http://www.cs.unc.edu/~login.

However, since the reputation of the department is affected by the quality of the information provided in Web pages accessible under www.cs.unc.edu, the department will impose some minimal expectations for identification and maintenance of web pages that are accessible by following links from www.cs.unc.edu without going through a user's personal home page. Home pages for research projects, courses, and organizations are all subject to this review, but the scope of this departmental review will not extend beyond the home page of the project, course, or group, except for cause. Home pages that are not adequately identified or maintained may have their links from the department's Web structure removed, after suitable notification.

This policy means that personal home pages are private and not subject to departmental review (except in case of a complaint). Home pages of projects, courses, or groups accessible from www.cs.unc.edu are only semi-private and are subject to departmental review. Pages accessible only through a project, course, or group home page are not subject to departmental review (except in response to a complaint).

Conventions for Distributed Maintenance of Information
In addition, the department will establish a convention for distributed maintenance of information for inclusion in printed communications. This material can be updated at the convenience of the faculty member or project, and, subject to editing by the Publications staff, may be included in appropriate departmental publications. The summary material may or may not be linked into the individual's or group's Web pages, as they wish.

Mechanics
It is necessary to establish a simple convention for use by the department's Publications staff to find written material prepared by a project or an individual intended for inclusion in departmental publications.

The edited material for departmental publications should be located in the personal home directory accessed by http://www.cs.unc.edu/~login for individuals or in the project home directory accessed by http://www.cs.unc.edu/Research/project. Other URL structures may be used for courses or groups.

Minimal Expectations on Pages Linked to www.cs.unc.edu

Web pages for projects, courses, and groups that are linked into the department's Web information structure and are thus accessible from www.cs.unc.edu without going through a personal home page will be expected to indicate two kinds of information: (1) identification of an individual who is responsible for maintenance of the page and its subpage and (2) a date when the material in and under that home page was last reviewed and found acceptable.

Rationale
We have experienced instances when a visitor has acted upon out-of-date information about research projects that was found on the department's Web site. In the absence of a last-reviewed date and a contact person, there is no way that a visitor can identify out-of-date information or inquire as to whether a particular project's Web pages are up-to-date, and therefore part of the blame for the bad actions (a poor article, a misguided visit, a poor recommendation) lies with the department. If we properly identify and date the home pages of projects, groups, and courses, the department will be able to respond more strongly to such undesirable actions by visitors.

Identification
Project, course, and group home pages must identify an individual person, currently associated with the department, who is responsible for maintaining the content of this home page and the Web pages under it. For courses, this will be assumed to be the instructor of the course. Projects and groups must specify that individual.

The convention used in the departmental Web pages is to indicate a Content Manager, and this convention is recommended but not required.

The required identification will be deemed to have been satisfied if there is an anchor containing a mailto: command that allows an inquirer to send a message (perhaps through a properly maintained mail alias) to an appropriate person currently in the department.

Last Review Date
Few Web pages really need to indicate their date of last modification. It hardly matters that a spelling error was corrected last week if the content is entirely out of date. What is needed is for the page to indicate the date of the last content review at which time the content was found to be correct and up-to-date. This date will be required to appear in the home page of the project, course, or group, except that courses currently in progress will be exempt from this requirement. Courses that have completed will be required to establish a Content Review date.

The convention used in the departmental Web pages is to indicate a Last Content Review: date, and this convention is recommended but not required.

Policy written by the Associate Chairman for Academic Affairs, and accepted by the faculty on 14 Nov 1997. Minor revisions by the Publications Manager on 13 August 2002.