The ITC originally asked the Web Services Committee to focus on web development tools for campus 

wide adoption. However, as the Committee delved into the issues, it became clear that the campus 

needs an effective web development infrastructure before we can effectively deploy and support web 

tools. This infrastructure will prepare the campus for tool deployment that will in turn facilitate the 

movement to a web portal with integrated services. The proposed web development framework has 

several distinct components: 

Policies and procedures for achieving status as UCSC  official  pages  

Defined roles: content expert, web developer, information architect, system administrator, 

and principal officer of the unit. 

Training curriculum to develop skills needed for each role  

Content management processes, including a content update model, and a common taxonomy  

Suite of tools or systems to enable and support the framework, including a permissions model 

and an automated backup model and system. 

An ongoing Web Council to oversee the above activities to coordinate web development, to 

build and facilitate community among web developers, and to make recommendations to ITC 

for funding and support 

Findings and Recommended Actions 

Policies and Procedures for Achieving  Official  Page Status 

Findings: It is not clear which pages at UCSC officially represent the University and which do not. 

There is no uniform naming convention for web site urls. There is no guarantee that web sites on 

UCSC owned servers are ADA compliant, for example. A site such as 

http://porter.ucsc.edu

 does not 

represent Porter College, but in fact is an unofficial site. There is no procedure to ensure that web 

authors develop campus web pages that adhere to existing web policies posted at 

http://www.ucsc.edu/resources/webdev/policies.html

Lack of process for policy enforcement: 

Makes it difficult for users to find information because UCSC does not have not consistent 

url naming conventions 

Results in some information that is inconsistent with traditionally published documents, 

such as the General Catalog 

Results in some web sites that do not clearly articulate the Chancellor's and Provost's 

priorities 

Puts the university at risk for legal action if sites are not ADA compliant 

_________________________________________________________________________________

Web Services Committee 

Page 6 

May 28, 2002