School websites have the potential to strengthen links to the local community by sharing information: calendars, menus, classr

Tulsa Public Schools

School Website Guidelines and Standards

Updated: 11/06/06

To establish a website for schools/departments, call Public Information at 746-6298.

School websites have the potential to strengthen links to the local community by sharing information: calendars, menus, classroom assignments, parent letters, newsletters, and examples of student work. There is also the potential to reach out globally through various collaborative forms of education. Schools desiring websites hosted on the district web server will be subject to TPS Standards designed to ensure the continued online integrity of the district.

TPS Websites should:

Look Professional
Navigate Easily
Provide Useful and Current Information
Load Quickly

Editing Websites hosted by TPS:

Each participating site will be required to designate one to two on-campus webmaster(s) -- (TPS employees).
Webmasters will maintain and update their sites and be granted password access to the TPS web server for such purposes.
Under NO circumstances are passwords to be shared with students or other TPS employees.

Websites will be updated monthly.
TPS reserves the right to remove any site not properly maintained and/or updated.
All publishing will utilize FrontPage as the standard.
While in development, employees may use html editors other than FrontPage; however, uploading information to the web server shall be done through FrontPage. Fulton Teaching and Learning Academy provides FrontPage training for interested employees.

STANDARDS

District policy must be followed.
Careful attention must be paid to copyright laws and regulations. Copyright material may only be used with written permission. The campus/department webmaster(s) will keep permissions on file.
Offensive language, questionable links, and any material/communication falling outside the boundaries of acceptable school conduct are expressly forbidden.
Students that are ALWAYS excluded from web photos are:
- Students who are under DHS custody
- Students whose parent/guardian has signed an ‘opt out’ form requesting their child not be included in any directory information
- Students whose parent/guardian has denied permission on a Talent Release form
Special Needs students photographed in close-ups or in small groups require a signed talent release. Also, photos should be made available for parental/guardian approval before posting.
Written parental/guardian consent must be given before displaying a student’s work online.
Talent Release form(s) must be signed before an identified, singled-out student’s picture is put online. (photo highlighting one student with name underneath)
Unidentified or group photos do not need a Talent Release signed by a parent before posting online providing the photo is not used commercially and the student(s) do not fall into the exclusion categories mentioned above.
Copies of signed release forms that correlate to published student pictures/work should be kept on file by the campus webmaster(s).
Students may be identified by first and last name; however, NO personal student information such as email address, home address, phone numbers, family members, etc., shall be made available online.
The principal is ultimately accountable for the content of their school website and is expected to approve all material prior to publication.
Only TPS email addresses for staff and faculty may be published.
Links to personal home pages, including those of students and staff, are NOT permitted.
Business advertising/banners are NOT permitted.
Only hyperlinks pertaining to education are permissible and you must be authorized by the site to establish a link.

GUIDELINES

Titles shall be used for all pages. Enclose the page title inside the <head> tags and between the <title> tags. Ex. <head><title> Page Title Here </title></head> … FrontPage: In page view, right-click work area and left-click Page Properties, under the General tab, type in the title at the Title box.
A Time Stamp should be set on the index (home) page, showing the last update.
All links need to be checked often. Do not keep dead links onsite.
All schools/departments shall have an email address posted on their respective sites for feedback. Response shall be provided to all legitimate inquiries.
Site promotion using meta tags and registering with search engines are permissible as long as banner exchanges are avoided.

Browsers:

All pages should be compatible with both Internet Explorer 5+ and Netscape 6+.

This can be done in FrontPage XP by clicking Tools | Page Options. Under the Compatibility tab, use the Browsers box and select “Both Internet Explorer and Navigator”. Under the Browser versions box, select “5.0 browsers and later”. Press OK. FrontPage 2000 is done the same way except under the Browse versions box you must select “4.0 browsers and later”. There is no 5.0 option.

Design:

No greater than an 800X600 monitor resolution should be used for design. There are patrons who may be using as low as a 640X480 resolution. Be mindful of how pages display at higher and lower resolutions.
Text color should not compete with the page background or surrounding graphics. Text needs to be easily read. Backgrounds should be unobtrusive.
Create and maintain a simple interface for patrons. Information should be easy to find. The main navigation needs to be laid out in a logical manner that is consistent with the content-flow of the site.
Some form of navigation should exist on every page of the website.
If using an image map as navigation, clearly delineate the click-able areas.

Filenames:

Filenames should be easy to remember and follow a few simple rules:
Filenames, when possible, should be no more than eight characters in length.
Filenames should be lowercase.
No spaces or special characters should be used.
If separation is needed, use either the hyphen – or the underscore _.
Ex. dog-pics.htm or tps_fun.html
The main page of a site will be named index.htm unless otherwise arranged.

Graphics:

Avoid using backgrounds that will tile at higher resolutions.
Refrain from the use of excessive graphics.
Use the appropriate format and keep the file size as low as possible.
When appropriate, thumbnails should be used with larger image files.
Use animated gifs sparingly.
Keep graphics stored in the images folder. This will help keep the web organized.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - mainly used with photographs. JPEG’s can store up to 16 million colors and are highly compressed files. JPEG’s are represented by the extension .jpg.

GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) – primarily used for line drawings, lettering, and cartoons. GIF’s can store up to 256 colors and are represented by the extension .gif.

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) – designed to replace the GIF format. PNG’s provide lossless compression while supporting up to 48-bit true color. PNG’s do not offer multiple-image support and are represented by the extension .png.

Scripts and Includes:

Server Side Includes are supported.
FrontPage server extensions that are loaded on the district web server handle the basic scripting tasks such as counters, forms, discussion boards, etc.
If taking a script (Java, JavaScript, CGI/Perl, VB, etc.) from an archive/private site, do not delete authorship statements in the code. Permission must be gained before using any external scripts.