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Policies to Manage Content on College and University Web Sites

Prepared May, 1996, for Syracuse University School of Information Studies 600,
Building and Managing Internet Services. This paper is the Conclusion of a four-part project; the authors of the other two major sections were Kevin Winn and Eileen Lantier

[W]ith hard work...many institutions have succeeded in satisfying both the need for adequate institutional control...and the desire for the freedom of expression characteristic of academia.

The problems

Both the analytic bibliography and the case study point out that academic Web sites frequently come into existence before a set of policies and procedures is in place to govern the site. But at the latest when the community recognizes the importance of the site, it usually becomes clear that there needs to be some formalized agreement on the site's purpose, who gets to publish on it, and who takes responsibility for it.

In broadest terms there tends to be a difference of opinion between those who argue for strict institutional (administrative) control of the site and those who argue that the site should provide freedom of expression for all members of the community. The arguments for strict control are usually based on two concerns:

The literature shows that these concerns are not groundless. Many sites have grown up helter-skelter, presenting the institution in a way that is inconsistent from one area to another and inconsistent with the institution's print publications. Both content (quality and reliability of information) and form (the graphical "look and feel") of a Web site are natural concerns for administrative offices that devote significant resources to maintaining the institution's image in other media. "It is extremely important that a Web page properly represent its organizational sponsor, whether it's an institute of higher learning or a corporation" (Fritz, 1995; see Analytic Bibliography). The legal liability issue is potentially even more compelling. Administrators charged with protecting the institution from harm in possible lawsuits are understandably nervous about providing general community access to a potent publishing medium without being sure of who will be held responsible in cases of legal violations. Both in connection with concerns of consistency and of legal liability, arguments for strict administrative control tend to view the Web site as a form of publication of the institution, analogous to print publications, and speak of the need for "editorial control."

On the other side, many members of the academic community (especially faculty and students) argue that unrestricted freedom of expression and information is the essence of academia, and that the Web site provides an extraordinary opportunity to encourage the free flow of ideas. They argue that full freedom of speech contributes to the vitality of the intellectual community and thus contributes to the institution's attractiveness, even if given instances of speech may be unattractive. This viewpoint is based on an underlying understanding of the institution's Web site not as an official publication but rather as a forum or open space for communication and debate.

Solutions through careful policies and procedures

As irreconcilable as these positions may seem, examination of the many Web policy documents available on the Internet, the publications described in the annotated bibliography, and the case study makes clear that with hard work in constructing careful and appropriate policies and procedures, many institutions have succeeded in satisfying both the need for adequate institutional control to provide for a consistent image and legal protection and the desire for the freedom of expression characteristic of academia. While no two institutions' Web policies are exactly alike, many seem to be successful on the basis of embodying some or all of the following general principles:

Principles of Successful Web Site Policies

  1. establish specific responsibility for each page
  2. distinguish clearly between "official" and "unofficial" pages
  3. locate responsibility at the lowest appropriate level
  4. treat Web publication issues through "normal" channels

Nearly all of these principles rest on a fundamental understanding that the Web site as a whole should not be viewed as a publication of the institution, but rather should be seen as a place of communication in which there is a diversity of information with different levels of authoritativeness and "officialness." The University of Florida policy statement (http://www.ufl.edu/ufcwis-policy8.html) is particularly articulate in expressing the importance of distinguishing various levels of authoritativeness, and of clearly indicating the authority of each document published on the Web site. The underlying idea is that freedom of expression is increased when it is absolutely clear whose expression something is. The greater the degree to which individual entities assume clear responsibility for pages or areas of a site, the greater their freedom of expression can be without impinging on the representational or legal responsibilities of the institution as a whole.

1) Establish specific responsibility for each page:

One of the concrete consequences of such an understanding, adopted by the vast majority of institutions, is a requirement that every page be labeled clearly as to who is responsible for its creation and maintenance, and that there be a means of contacting the responsible person or office. To the degree that each page is "signed" it is clear who is immediately responsible for its content and, as a corollary, it is also clear with what degree of authority the page speaks for the institution as a whole. A page maintained by the Registrar's Office clearly has a different authority than one maintained by a student organization, which in turn has a different authority than a personal page maintained by an individual student.

2) Distinguish clearly between "official" and "unofficial" pages

A key concept in the principle of distinguishing among levels of authoritativeness is the distinction made by a large number of Web policy documents between "official" and "unofficial" pages. Official pages are viewed as analogous to print publications of the institution in the approval process they must go through and in the degree of weight they carry. Some officially-appointed staff member usually must sign off on them. Many Web policy documents make a point of distinguishing such pages visually by assuring that they carry the institution's official logo or other identifying mark, so that even a casual visitor will immediately recognize their official character.

Unofficial pages, by contrast, should be clearly identifiable as not purporting to represent the institution. Either the page itself or the page from which it is linked is frequently required to carry a specified disclaimer, stating that the page represents only the views of the person or group whose name appears at the bottom as responsible for its creation and maintenance. Just as official pages may be required to carry special identifying graphics, unofficial pages may be forbidden to imitate the look of the official sections of the site.

As pointed out in the analytic bibliography, the degree of officialness or unofficialness is often also marked by the hierarchy of the site. Many Web policy documents stipulate that only officially-approved pages can be linked directly from the top level (Home Page) of the Web site. Some documents imply that only official pages can be linked from the second level (i.e. the top level of departmental pages). Such a hierarchy helps visitors who enter the site through the front door of the Home Page to imagine the degree of authority attaching to particular pages. But the scheme is of little value to visitors who enter the site at places other than the top level, for example on the basis of searches with Internet search tools that index all pages. In such a case the visitor might easily enter through any random page, and can only be aware of the page's authority by how it is marked, not through its place in the site hierarchy.

The distinction between official and unofficial pages is often imprecise, and may sometimes be something of a continuum. For example, student organization pages in many institutions must be "approved" by some office or department (sometimes referred to as a "sponsor" or "sponsoring organization") but may nevertheless not be viewed as carrying the same degree of authority or officialness as pages produced directly by those offices or departments. (Characteristically, administrative offices probably usually carry a greater sense of officialness than academic departments; a professor's syllabus for a particular course may be more current than the description on the Registrar's page, but the Registrar's representation is more likely to be taken as official.) By the same token, student organization pages, even if they do not go through an approval process, may be perceived as carrying more institutional weight than the personal pages of individual students.

3) Locate responsibility at the lowest appropriate level

A concept not articulated as such in Web policy documents but nevertheless closely related to the fundamental ideas of establishing clear responsibility for each page and distinguishing between levels of authoritativeness is to locate responsibility at the lowest appropriate level within the hierarchy. This principle might be seen as grounded in the distributed nature of Internet computing. Most Web policies seem to recognize the impracticality and undesirability of locating responsibility solely at or near the top; instead they tend to be careful to limit the degree of responsibility of the webmaster or Web oversight committee beyond the top-level Home Page itself or perhaps (at least in terms of design) of the second-level pages. Lower-level pages are usually specifically made the responsibility of the entity creating and maintaining them. In cases of still lower-level, unofficial pages, the "sponsoring" official entity may carry a certain degree of responsibility (in initial approval and perhaps in some degree of oversight), but here, too, there is usually an attempt to place the major responsibility as close to the organization or person creating the page as possible.

4) Treat Web publication issues through "normal" channels

Loosely related to the principle of locating responsibility at the lowest appropriate level is the principle, described at the end of the case study, of trying to treat Web site issues as much as possible through ordinary institutional channels, not as special Web site problems. The immediate goal of this measure is to integrate computer issues into the life of the community as a whole, and to ensure that the institution does not duplicate policies that are already in place. Thus, as in the example cited in the case study, harassment that takes place through a Web page is treated in exactly the same way and through exactly the same channels as harassment that takes place in print or speech. But a useful consequence of the principle is to underscore the distributed nature of Web site governance. Responsibility does not need to be located at the top of the Web site or even within the Web site governance structure at all, since there are already adequate structures in place elsewhere in the institution.

The fundamental idea behind this set of related principles (establishing specific responsibility for each page, distinguishing clearly between official and unofficial pages, locating responsibility at the lowest appropriate level, and treating issues as much as possible through normal institutional structures) seems to succeed to a remarkable degree in enabling the institution to satisfy the apparently irreconcilable demands for both institutional control over the institution's image and for broad freedom of expression. If policies and procedures are formulated carefully enough and carried out, visitors can easily recognize the consistent, authoritative, official parts of the site, and still delve (if they wish) into the more chaotic free expression of ideas and information in the unofficial parts.

In the same way, this set of principles--particularly the clear assignment of responsibility for each page--has also served as a legal protection of the institution as a whole. Institutions with such policy statements seem, at least until now, to have felt comfortable accepting a broad range of uncensored free speech as long as responsibility for that speech is clearly placed.

Coda

"If [the Communications Decency Act] stands and you're a prudent university, you're going to have to screen everything students post."

Trotter Hardy, editor of The Journal of Online Law, quoted in The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 26, 1996, p. A21 [cover story]

It would be satisfying to conclude with the remarkable success of properly constructed Web policy statements at many colleges and universities in accommodating what at first may seem to be irreconcilable demands for institutional control and for individual freedom of speech. But with regard to resolving problems of legal responsibility one may need to emphasize "at least until now." The legal solution provided by the set of principles described above may at the least no longer be so clear if the Communications Decency Act (CDA) or other similar legislation is upheld in the courts. A number of universities have expressed concern that the CDA might be interpreted to define the content of the entirety of a university Web site (i.e. all Web servers owned by the university) to be the responsibility of the university as a whole. It is easy to see how such an interpretation could invalidate all of the fundamental concepts described here as enabling a compromise between institutional control and free speech: it might no longer matter who signed as responsible for a given page if the page was on a university server; the distinction between official and unofficial pages would be meaningless; and all responsibility would be shifted to the highest level, that of the university itself.

Under such circumstances, it is unlikely that most colleges and universities would be able to continue to satisfy demands both for control and for freedom, and would almost certainly feel compelled to choose control. Because of the technical unfeasibility of monitoring and approving a large number of constantly-changing pages, it would probably be necessary to restrict publication privileges to a much more limited number of (purely official) entities. The discussion here of the extraordinary success of the compromise solution found in most Web policies, and its imperilment by legislation such as the CDA, makes it easy to understand the degree of concern felt by the university Internet community about such legislation. The continued success of the compromise found in Web policy statements, at least on the legal side, may depend on the success of court challenges to the CDA or at least on clarification and narrowing of its interpretation.


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