Reed College Web Policy

Purpose of the Reed Web

The Reed College World Wide Web (WWW) site is a campus-wide information system that enhances the intellectual life of Reed students and faculty as they pursue curricular and research activities through a diverse, world-wide network of electronic resources. The Reed Web also provides faculty, students, and staff with an effective communications medium to distribute information to the Reed community and to the world at large about the college's mission, academic programs, library resources and information technology, admission and financial aid, campus policies and procedures, student organizations, events, publications, and people.

General Guidelines

Reed College is an intellectual community committed to the highest educational and ethical standards. The Web site is a publication in electronic form, subject to the same policies and guidelines that govern electronic media with regard to copyrighted material, photographic images, sound prints, confidential information, and libelous remarks. Material published on the Reed Web site is expected to reflect the community's educational purpose, broadly defined to include the breadth of its social and cultural activity, and to express the community's regard for ethical behavior, including compliance with the Honor Principle and college-wide Acceptable Computer Use policies. Publication of material that violates licensing or contractual agreements, laws, or college regulations or policies is not permitted.

Although general responsibility for the Reed Web resides with the the College Computing Policy Committee, the college pursues a decentralized approach to the creation and maintenance of institutional Web pages, with recognized college entities (administrative offices, academic departments, or student organizations) producing and maintaining their own material.

If college guidelines are violated or disregarded, the college reserves the right to suspend publishing privileges or remove pages while the matter is referred to the appropriate college body.

Procedural, Formatting, and Content Guidelines

The Reed College World Wide Web hosts both Institutional web pages and individual home pages for students, faculty, staff, and alumni. Only Institutional web pages are monitored for Procedural, Formatting, and Content guidelines. Institutional Web pages are created and maintained by the sponsoring administrative office, academic department, or student organization. Consultation and support is given to those responsible for the creation of pages by Web Support Services and the Public Affairs Office to ensure factual integrity, institutional consistency and style, legal usage, and technical feasibility.

Each office, department, and student organization will designate a contact person who is responsible for updating, deleting, and generally maintaining the information they post on the Web. Web Support Services will supply resource material to support the creation of high-quality Web pages.

Initial submissions and major revisions will be sent to www@reed.edu. There will be periodic review of the Web site by Web Support Services, Institutional Research, and the Public Affairs Office to ensure factual integrity, institutional consistency and style, and technical feasibility. It is assumed that contributors will only post material that is accurate, current, and appropriate for on-line use. All material will be accompanied by a disclaimer that the material is current to the best of the originator's knowledge and will display the date of last review and the name and email address of the originating office, department, or organization.

Examples of material that is appropriate for the Web include college publications, class syllabi, course schedules, departmental requirements, job announcements, post-graduate opportunities, campus directory (office and box numbers), upcoming lectures, and community governance documents. Individual members of the community may have home pages (see below).

Examples of material that is inappropriate for the Web include confidential material, personal correspondence, advertisements for commercial products or enterprises, software that is not in the public domain, copyrighted materials not allowed under fair use policy, performance evaluations, grades, medical records, hearsay, and threatening or defamatory comments.

If material is for an identifiably small, on-campus audience (faculty minutes, committee meeting notes, for example), an electronic medium other than the Web or distribution by paper copy may be more appropriate.

Questions about material on the Web should be directed to the originating office and copied to www@reed.edu.

Individual Home Pages

Generally, only students, faculty, staff and alumni with computer accounts may have personal home pages. Individuals are responsible for their own home pages. The college assumes no responsibility for these personal home pages, for the links from these pages, or for material in sites linked to the college's official pages. However, should a complaint arise about material in a personal home page on the Web, access to that material might be suspended pending further examination and consideration of these materials in light of Web guidelines.

Blogs

A blog (the condensed term for a “web log”) may be hosted by various Reed College community members on the Reed College website for intellectual, instructional, or community service purposes. Blogs usually contain commentary, opinion, or news on specific subjects, and therefore are frequently organized by topical content. Since many people may contribute to a blog through participatory journalism using topical commentary that may take the form of textual, musical, or artistic genres, issues of political vulnerability, personal safety, defamation or liability, representativeness of viewpoint, and employment perspective may arise.

Therefore:

contributors are solely responsible for the content they post in any Reed College sponsored blog.
the views expressed in any Reed College hosted blog are not the views of Reed College, its employees, administrators, directors, officers, or trustees.
contributors and users use the site at their own risk.
Reed can delete and/or edit posts and remove users as it sees fit.
Reed College will not be liable for any reliance by users on the content posted on its blogs (i.e., reliance on the factual accuracy of statements, comprehensiveness of topical coverage, etc. )
blog contributors have no right to use the Reed name, logo, copyrighted material, or blog software for their own purposes without the written permission of Reed College.

Revised by the Web Policy Committee, September 16, 2008
Approved by the Web Policy Sub-Committee, May, 1996