Cascade Site-Maintainers and -Owners Agreement

University Related

• Cascade is for official University sites—academic units, departments and offices, etc.—not for student clubs, course content, storing classified data, or teaching or personal faculty/staff sites.
• Avoid advertising. It is acceptable to name a corporate partner or event sponsor. Partner and sponsor logos must be displayed smaller than the University logo on the site.
• All digital communication on behalf of the University is subject to review by University Communications.

Accessible to All Users

• Use only accessible digital documents and properly captioned videos, write good alt text for images, properly nest headings, and follow other content accessibility best practices.
• Remediate the content accessibility issues identified in the monthly reports from Siteimprove, or submit an accessibility service ticket for Web Services help.
• All PDFs uploaded to the web must go through the Content Accessibility and Remediation service.

Secure

• Do not use your Cascade folders to store Level 1 data.
• Do not publish personal data such as home addresses.
• Check in with Web Services before embedding forms, feeds, or other code.
• Limit the number of links to non-Chico State sites, and check those links carefully.

Quality Content

• Keep pages clean and organized, free of misspellings and broken links.
• Write according to the standards in the University Communicators Guide.
• Regularly update content based on audience needs as determined by analytics.
• Create short and easily scannable pages.
• Consider mobile users: cut text to the essentials, limit images and videos.
• Use images that are correctly sized, visually interesting, well lit, and in focus.
• Use only graphics that you have permissions for, and follow the University Photo Policy.
• Do not use the Chico State website to reproduce or distribute copyrighted material without the author's or publisher's permission.

Consistency in University Branding & User Experience

• Use the University's standard Campus Web 3.0 framework, consulting with Web Services about any changes to CSS or JavaScript.
• Do not make changes to the University header, footer, department footer, or subfooter.

Organized for Ease of Maintenance

• Keep folders and assets organized, and follow site naming conventions.
• Limit the use of external links, and use internal (relative) links when sending users to other CSU, Chico Cascade sites.
• Delete or archive unused pages, documents, and assets.
• Do not store new page drafts in Cascade, as sites may be published at any time.

Please contact Web Services through the Website Design & Support service catalog or at webservices@csuchico.edu for any assistance with the above requirements.