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Fort Lewis College Web Governance Policy
November 2024
The website is the College’s primary marketing and communication tool, requiring a large investment in time and resources. To reach our goals, the website must be managed through web governance.
Web governance defines how the website and other digital assets are managed and who manages them. It creates an insurance policy for the significant investment we’ve made in our digital platforms. It provides structure and accountability toward achieving the college’s strategic goals.
Managing a website or digital asset requires knowledge of digital accessibility, marketing, UX (user experience) design and testing, content strategy, analytics and reporting, and more. Managing a higher ed website requires even more consideration of systems and audiences, especially for an institution as diverse and unique as FLC.
Comprehensive Web Governance will ensure that the website is a single source of truth for our users. That includes up to date content, on-brand information and images, legal compliance, and clear navigation structures.
Our user-centered approach reduces confusion and frustration for end users who come to our site to learn about FLC, apply, and complete required tasks.
This document defines the scope of web governance to help ensure consistency, compliance, and alignment with the college’s strategic goals. To do that, it will establish roles, responsibilities, and guidelines for website administration, content creation, maintenance, security, and user experience.
Fort Lewis College’s strategic goals
View the complete Strategic Plan
MarComm owns the FLC website, the college’s primary digital marketing asset. MarComm is tasked by the administration with the following goals:
Primary
Secondary
To reach these goals, the Web Governance Committee will set objectives on a biannual basis. These objectives may include improving the speed and performance of webpages, ensuring the site is up and running 24/7, making webpages and digital assets accessible for users with disabilities, providing quality search results, and improving the user experience (UX).
Web governance model
The MarComm Web Management Team (WMT) and Information Technology (IT) follow a modified centralized governance model for managing the website and its assets. In this model, individual departments act as subject matter experts, providing content relevant to their areas of expertise.
While departments are responsible for the accuracy and timeliness of their content, including updating information according to the web schedule, the WMT reserves the right to edit or modify departmental content to comply with best practices for readability, accessibility, and overall quality for end users. The WMT can provide reminders for content updates, but ultimately, the department must ensure that its information is current and accurate.
This governance model ensures a collaborative approach to maintaining a high-quality, user-friendly, and accessible website.
Websites and digital assets
The following websites and digital assets fall under this web governance plan.
Primary websites
Primary websites include top-level, mission-critical, and wayfinding pages. These include, but are not limited to:
Secondary websites
Secondary websites are for FLC departments and grant-funded programs with strong community outreach. In most cases, these departments have dedicated staff who maintain the sites. However, some departments do not have the staffing or expertise to maintain the sites in-house. In those cases, the WMT provides ongoing support and maintenance. These include, but are not limited to:
Student clubs and organizations
High-level, long-standing student clubs that have maintained a website on the College’s content management system (CMS).
Other digital assets
These tools provide a higher quality user experience and/or add content and design elements to the website. They should be implemented in a way that provides a seamless user experience and will require little ongoing maintenance.
Limited exemptions
The Web Governance Committee does not manage the following websites and assets. The WMT can provide support upon request. These sites and platforms have technical support from IT. The sites need to adhere to the FLC brand and accessibility guidelines. The Web Governance Committee will review the sites once annually to check for issues. These sites include, but are not limited to:
The following roles and responsibilities will change as technology evolves and personnel changes occur.
Web Governance Committee
Members: Include representatives from the WMT and IT.
Duties: Create, oversee, and enforce the web governance policy; plan and approve new projects; and define and manage web standards.
Web Management Team (WMT)
Roles: Web designer, content editor, and director.
Responsibilities:
Information Technology (IT)
Roles: Manager, system administrators, and director
Site administrators
Roles: Designated faculty, staff, and students with permission to add and edit pages and content. These are limited to secondary websites and student clubs.
Responsibilities: Site administrators have permission to add, edit, and delete pages, modules, and content on their sites. Permission is granted on a case-by-case basis. Site administrators are trained by and receive support from the WMT.
Content editors
Roles: Designated faculty and staff who have limited access to edit pages.
Responsibilities: Review and maintain the content on select pages and/or within select modules on the website. For example, event coordinators can add and remove events from an event calendar module.
Data collectors
Roles: Designated faculty and staff who can download data from online form modules.
Responsibilities: Monitor online forms and download data as needed.
Content managers
Roles: Designated faculty and staff responsible for specific sections of the site.
Responsibilities: Content managers review their departmental web pages at least twice a year to ensure accuracy, timeliness, and compliance with institutional guidelines. They collaborate with the WMT and IT, who may make necessary modifications to ensure best practices for readability and accessibility. Content Managers must partner with the WMT during significant updates and redesigns, aligning with the overall web governance model.
Content types
Our content management approach is built on the principle that all content is essential to maintaining a robust and accessible web presence. Content is categorized by review frequency, strategic priority, and update type:
The WMT schedules medium to significant updates based on priority and availability. They maintain a calendar of upcoming projects. The WMT contacts departments when their site is up for redesign or refresh. Departments can request updates outside of the cycle if they have changes that require them and if they can execute the content updates.
Approval process
All content updates and new pages must go through a defined workflow, which, depending on the content type, includes review and approval by department heads or requestors and MarComm. Significant updates or new web projects require WMT approval.
Workflow
Department heads should designate someone to review their websites and send update requests through the WMT project management program, Lytho, as needed.
Updates include:
Review the Web Management Team Project Process document for detailed workflow information: Web Team Process for Projects_Quick_Large_.docx.
Updates to WMT workflow
WMT will send out as-needed campus communications to inform campus partners of workflow changes for updates to the website.
Content standards
Content archival and removal
The public-facing website is not an archive. Content needs to be up-to-date and accurate to best serve our users. Content that is outdated, irrelevant, or no longer in use must be reviewed and archived. The WMT is responsible for auditing top-level pages, and Content Managers are responsible for auditing their departmental websites. The specifications and timetables are listed under the Content Owner responsibilities above.
Quality assurance (QA) is managed in two ways:
QA Tools
Content Management System (CMS):
DNN Modules
Security Protocols
Performance optimization (Guidelines on load times, hosting standards, and mobile optimization.)
Backup, recovery, and development
Outline procedures for regular backups and disaster recovery plans.
The State of Colorado requires all state organizations, including colleges and universities, to comply with HB21-1110 and HB24-1454. These laws define the level of compliance required, provide a timetable for compliance, and provide exceptions if compliance can not be achieved for various reasons.
What is accessible content?
Accessible content includes webpages and documents that can be accessed by all users, regardless of ability. This includes ensuring content can be read correctly by screen reading software, images include alt text, graphics have the proper color contrast, and videos have accurate closed captioning.
All accessibility standards are defined in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1.
Compliance responsibilities
The bills listed above require adherence to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard or, when necessary, accommodation for the end users and documentation of why we cannot meet that standard. Examples of non-compliance might include third-party modules that we cannot control directly.
To stay compliant, Content Managers are responsible for providing accessible content to the WMT. This includes images, documents, and videos. The WMT team reviews the content to ensure it meets the standards. If the documents do not meet the standard, the WMT will remediate them as time and priorities allow. They will send them back to the Content Manager for remediation if they cannot remediate them. Digital accessibility is the ultimate responsibility of the Content Manager per Fort Lewis College policy.
Accessibility of Information Technology and Digital Content
In addition, the WMT and third-party vendors working on their behalf must remediate existing webpages and elements and build new webpages and elements that meet the standard or document why they are not able to do so.
Auditing and monitoring
Remediation and training
Learn more about digital accessibility standards and FLC policy
Take the Digital Accessibility 2.0 course
The WMT uses various tools to monitor websites for user acquisition, engagement, and performance. They use these tools to track the performance of digital marketing campaigns and as a resource to inform website maintenance and redesigns. They can provide reports to Content Managers and department heads as needed.
Tools
The Web Governance Committee is charged with policy enforcement.
This policy will be reviewed and updated annually. Last updated: November 2024
970-247-7103 kadera_s@fortlewis.edu