Website Standards

Web Guidelines
The internet offers the Coastal Carolina University community rich resources for advancing teaching, scholarship and communication. Coastal Carolina University provides web resources to departments and individuals for legitimate University business and for scholarly activity. Coastal Carolina University encourages students and faculty to create web pages and receive educational information available through the web in keeping with its principles of academic and intellectual freedom. Coastal Carolina University faculty, staff and students must review pages regularly to keep them updated and accurate. Outdated pages are subject to removal from the University web server.

Guidelines Applicable for All Web Pages
Web pages must be regarded in the same light as printed publications and written communication. As such, all pages will abide by the federal copyright laws and applicable laws and University policies relating to written communication and expression.

Web pages linked from the University's primary pages must abide by the design and navigation established in the content management system (t4). The offices of University Marketing and Communication and Information Technology Services (ITS) provide training and assistance for departments to comply with this requirement.

All official pages should follow the University's Brand Standards to maintain consistency in the use of punctuation, capitalization, titles, etc., and for the use of University logos and marks.

The University recognizes the difference between official and personal pages. Official pages represent the University and its programs. Personal pages should not give the impression that they are representing, giving opinions or otherwise making statements on behalf of the University. Personal pages should carry the following disclaimer: "The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of the page developers and not necessarily those of Coastal Carolina University. Any comments on the contents of this page should be directed to its administrator." All pages for student groups are considered personal pages.

Web pages supported by the University network may not be used for illegal or non-University commercial purposes. Use of University resources for monetary gain or pecuniary purposes, including advertising, commercial links and commercial credit, is prohibited unless such activity has been approved in advance and are articulated in the contractual agreement with the University. 

Coastal Carolina University reserves the right to remove network access to groups or individuals who ignore the guidelines or violate acceptable use policies as defined. The University also reserves the right to remove access for special problems such as pages that have become static, contain an excessive number of invalid links to other sites, or deny or degrade service to others.

Any use of the University's website to conduct research that collects personal information and/or identifiers must adhere to accepted protocols on informed consent and must be properly encrypted to guarantee confidentiality.