Familiarize yourself with these guidelines, campus-wide standards, and procedures that pertain to your website.
Guidelines for use of the Waterloo Content Management System (WCMS)
General guidelines:
- The WCMS supports websites for use by academic and academic support departments.
- The website supports the administrative, research, teaching and learning objectives of the University.
- Requests for a new website from academic support units must be supported by the unit head.*
- Requests for a new website from academic units must be supported by the Faculty Associate Dean of Computing or equivalent.
- A designated faculty member or regular staff person; (authorized by the department) must be assigned as website lead and site owner.
- For security reasons, access to development servers is restricted to WCMS staff. Units on campus can request access to the development server to work on projects that may be integrated into the central build.
* Unit heads/Associate Deans of Computing (or equivalent portfolio) may assign a website lead to approve new websites for a specific area.
Users of the WCMS must:
- Complete the required WCMS Training.
- Follow published guidelines on Secure E-Commerce.
- Only post web content that complies with web accessibility at the University of Waterloo.
- Ensure copyright and other legal compliance; ensure consistency with University policy and guidelines; best practice.
- Plan and budget for the ongoing maintenance of the website.
- Inform the WCMS team using the WCMS Help portal about any changes in website lead.
Additional WCMS guidelines
Here are some additional resources that a Website lead should be familiar with.
University of Waterloo guidelines for the web
Waterloo brand guidelines
Learn how the brand guidelines define best practices for how to express the Waterloo brand in visual and written formats.
Waterloo web policies, procedures, and guidelines
Depending on the nature of your site, you may want to familiarize yourself with additional university guidelines such as e-commerce, information management, and information and security.
How campus supports the web
There are several committees and departments on campus that help to support the web at the University.