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University of Nebraska–Lincoln

Campus Wide Information System

Pioneering New Frontiers

Procedures and Guidelines for Participating in UNL’s Campus-Wide Information System

UNL’s Campus-Wide Information System provides electronic information and services relating to the teaching, research, and public service mission of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. UNL departments, support units, faculty-sponsored students or student organizations, and other official entities may request web space and/or links on UNL’s central website and thereby become a part of UNL’s Campus-Wide Information System (CWIS).

The UNL central website, referred to as NU Frontier or www.unl.edu, is a virtual facility of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and falls under the policy governing the use of any UNL facility. The central website is administered through Information Services in cooperation with the colleges and departments of UNL. NU Frontier has a noncommercial site license and all material on the website or linked to by the website must comply with this document and

Any deviation from these policies by anyone participating in UNL’s Campus-Wide Information System (CWIS) may result in that account being temporarily or permanently deactivated with removal of links to all offending pages.

Who manages CWIS?

The CWIS Advisory Board is made up of members appointed by the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The Board consists of campus representatives from many units. Responsibilities of the CWIS Advisory Board include:

  1. considering and developing recommendations for the CWIS Project Team and Information Services regarding policy issues, campus-wide goals and objectives, CWIS contents, and strategies and directions.
  2. providing input on the information technology architecture plan as it relates to CWIS.
  3. recommending priorities regarding resources and budget related to implementation of the CWIS.

What is eligible content?

Websites participating in UNL’s CWIS provide information and services relating to and supporting the teaching, research and public service mission of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Three levels of information have been defined:

  • Category 1 - Official University information, documents, policies, procedures, and data.
  • Category 2 - Other University information, documents, policies, procedures, and data.
  • Category 3 - Individual pages devoted to scholarly or creative activity of the University.

Content is provided with understanding that there should be open access to any citizen of the state with restrictions limited to legal or licensing issues. The CWIS administration will support any reasonable request from a sponsoring unit to restrict access based on university employment or student status, userid, or IP number.

How is content organized?

To provide an organizational structure for information providers, CWIS is considered to have three levels.

UNL Level - The UNL Level includes the homepage (http://www.unl.edu) and the options available from that page. Information at this level is provided and maintained by the departments of University Communications, Information Services, and the Vice Chancellors. These departments may also be responsible for information at the Unit Level.

Unit Level - Information that is provided by colleges, divisions, departments, or programs of the university is contained in the unit level. The UNL Level may be linked directly to information at the Unit Level or it may indirectly link to the Unit Level information through another Unit Level site. For example, the UNL Level “Academics” page would link directly to the College of Engineering & Technology site which in turn might link to a site for the Department of Electrical Engineering, both of which are Unit Level sites.

Individual Level - Individuals may create and maintain more personal information that relates to research or scholarly activity at UNL. The UNL Level would never link directly to sites at the Individual Level. Unit Level sites may or may not link to Individual Level sites at the discretion of responsible person(s) at the Unit Level.

Information provided at the UNL or Unit Level must include the UNL affiliation and pages at the UNL Level will have a consistent design provided and updated by the University Communications office (please see the UNL Web Developer Network site). Unit Level providers may choose to follow this design standard or may create unique pages. As with non-electronic communication, those responsible for providing information should strive to represent the university and their area with quality and accuracy.

There are three categories of CWIS servers:

  • Dedicated CWIS servers maintained by Information Services will manage the main menu links to other servers, and support FTP and access to UNIX commands. These servers may also contain data that other departments manage.
  • Library CWIS servers maintained by library staff (but not necessarily operated on library equipment) that manage all "value added" Internet resources. A value added resource is defined as the collection and presentation of informational resources made available through the Internet.
  • Other sponsoring unit information and/or services which do not necessarily operate on unit equipment.

All provider websites and registered servers are indexed and searchable through the NU Frontier search engine. In addition, NU Frontier (www.unl.edu) is registered with a variety of “web index sites,” and unit websites are indexed indirectly through the main NU Frontier site. Providers are responsible for contacting any other web indexers if this is not sufficient.

Who is eligible to provide content for the CWIS?

UNL academic, business, and administrative units that are part of the UNL budget.

UNL Organizations - Student, faculty, or staff organizations that are officially recognized by the University.

  • Student organizations, for example, have an ASUN-approved constitution and a faculty advisor. The faculty advisor must also sign the Provider Registration Form for the student organization.

UNL Auxiliary Units - Units that are part of UNL financially or administratively but do not share the basic teaching, research, and public service mission of the University. For example: The Nebraska Unions, University Housing.

UNL Ancillary Units - Units not administratively or financially part of UNL but which derive their existence from the existence of the University. For example: Credit Union, Foundation, Alumni Association.

Individual Faculty Members - A faculty member can use the NU Frontier server for any individual website related to the teaching, research and service mission. However,

  • if the faculty member’s department or college has a server, the faculty member needs to contact the person in charge of that server for space for personal websites.
  • if the individual faculty pages contain information about the faculty member, not the college or department, these pages will not be directly linked to from the official or UNL Level of the website. These type of pages, are linked through the faculty member's college or department. The faculty member must work with the person in charge of that page to establish a link.
  • if the web pages support classroom activities, these should go on a web server (my.unl.edu or www-class.unl.edu) provided by the Instructional Technology Group of Information Services. Contact Bruce Sandhorst, 472-4034, for information.

Students - Student accounts are governed by the following conditions:

  • Faculty Sponsored - individual students, or student groups that are under the sponsorship of a faculty member may obtain an account. The faculty sponsor is responsible for monitoring the content of the pages. No links are made to these pages from the UNL-level Student Resources Page. Any links to the student website must be made through the faculty advisor or the respective college page(s).
  • Student Involvement Recognition - student groups that are recognized by Student Involvement and are in compliance with their policies may obtain an account. In addition to completing the CWIS registration form, the group must complete the Student Involvement Student Organization Website Request form (available through Student Involvement).
  • Greek Affairs Recognition - Greek Affairs oversees accounts for Greek Houses and maintains links to the Greek Affairs page. Students from Greek Houses should contact Greek Affairs for questions about their accounts.

How do you register to provide information as a part of CWIS?

UNL’s CWIS has two types of registration:

1) Provider Registration Form PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS FORM MUST BE PRINTED OUT AND SUBMITTED WITH A SIGNATURE. Submission form for eligible departments, colleges, organizations, or individuals that use the NU Frontier server. Providers are expected to either have or contract for staff who have the expertise to maintain their Web pages. A unit will designate an individual who will have primary responsibility for maintaining that unit’s Web pages and serve as principal contact with CWIS. Each provider will receive an account and 10 megabytes of storage on the centrally-maintained system. All providers are responsible for maintaining their accounts in compliance with the CWIS Provider Account Policy. All requests for password changes require a new Provider Registration Form.

2) Server Registration Form Submission form for units who have a server and want to establish a link between it and NU Frontier (www.unl.edu). Registration is required before any links are made from UNL Official or UNL Level pages or for inclusion in the NU Frontier search engine.
NOTE: This does not include student groups. Students must obtain an account on the NU Frontier server.

CWIS guidelines for units maintaining their own server:

  • The managing unit agrees to assume full responsibility for the content of its server, to comply with all relevant local, state, and federal laws (including copyright and trademark protections), and to comply with all relevant University policies and guidelines. Keep in mind that the managing unit or individuals may be legally liable for links to material violating any of these policies, guidelines, or laws.
  • The managing unit agrees to keep its server operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Any malfunctions or maintenance tasks that disable the server for an extended period of time must be brought to the attention of the UNL website manager immediately.
  • The managing unit is free to choose its server hardware and software, but any incompatibility with the UNL website system must be resolved by the managing unit. Information Services can provide assistance in selecting, obtaining, and installing compatible server hardware and software.
  • The University Archivist may ask to work with the managing unit to develop procedures for archiving information on the server that has historical importance.
  • If the managing unit for the server decides to change or add URLs of information accessed from Category 1, the managing unit should notify Mary Ellen Ducey in advance. Otherwise, the UNL website will not be able to access the new URLs.
  • The managing unit may request the assistance of the UNL website if it is necessary for the unit to restrict access to some or all of its information due to unit policy, licensing agreements, or other reasons. However, the managing unit is ultimately responsible for enforcing its own access restrictions, if any.
  • The CWIS Advisory Board, or designee, can remove UNL website links that do not conform to applicable University policies or local, state, or federal laws.

Last Revised: May 14, 2007