Web Content Guidelines
All content must be current. It is the responsibility of the staff, faculty and departments and centers to submit a detailed request to lernercomm@udel.edu when updates are needed. Content that is not current may be removed without prior notice and at the discretion of the Lerner Communications Team.
Role of the communications team
Role of department and center content experts
Requesting Updates
Faculty/staff may request factual updates to the Lerner website by submitting a request via email to lernercomm@udel.edu. For extensive changes or new content, faculty/staff should submit a request that includes the intended audience and goals, so that the communications team can develop content. Faculty/staff should not develop new content and submit it to be posted to the website.
Communications provides standard turnaround and usually fulfills requests within 7-10 business days (depending on the nature of the request and the information provided). If your request is urgent, please note that in your ticket. If a meeting is required, a communications team member will contact you.
The one exception is in updating academic information prior to the Spring and Fall semesters. We require the Content Managers/Subject Matter Experts responsible for these areas to submit their requests 6 months prior to the start of the new semester. This includes any updates approved in the Faculty/Senate approval process.
Content Guidelines
Use of web page templates
All Lerner departments, centers and offices must be represented on the Lerner website. The established web page templates must be used. Page templates provide consistency and ease of use for similar information across the site. Communications reviews these templates on an annual basis to ensure continued usability by our audiences. Consult the Web Page Templates section on the page Web Technical Guidelines for more detailed information.
Requesting site structure, functionality or design changes
For changes to the site structure, functionality or design, faculty/staff should submit a request that includes the intended audience and goals to the Lerner Communications Team for review by the Web Committee. If the request is approved, the communications team will coordinate with the department/center to create a timeline.
Directory guidelines for full-time faculty
Preferred name (required)
- First, middle and last (no courtesy titles)
Title (required)
- Titles are separated by comma
- List teaching titles first
- Format: Professor/Instructor, etc. of SUBJECT, other titles with a dash separating the two parts of the title
Example: Associate Professor of Economics, Director – Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship
Email (required)
- Should be @udel.edu unless unavailable
Office (required)
- Office number and building name/street name only (Do not include Newark, DE and zip code unless they are off campus)
Phone number (optional)
- Format: (302) 831-XXXX
Biography (preferred)
- Up to 300 words in paragraph form (Lerner Communications will review the biography to ensure it meets UD/Lerner editorial style standards)
- Provides a top-level overview of a faculty members background focused on education & career
- Up to 3 links may be included in the bio; links to publications should be specific, not to pages that list multiple publications; links will open in a new tab (broken links or links that do not fit the purpose of the directory will be removed)
- May include up to two awards and honors focusing on the most recent and/or the most prestigious awards (A full listing of awards may be included in the “Awards & Honors” section)
- Dates should be specific and not relative (e.g. “…award received in May of 2018,” as opposed to “last May”)
- The biography should be written in third person
- May not include personal information
- May use Dr. on the second reference within the text of the biography
Education (preferred)
- Bulleted list, most recent first
- Years are not required
- Format: Degree abbreviation “in” subject (not capitalized), institution
Example: Ph.D. in business administration, New York University
Select Publications (optional)
- Maximum of 15, bulleted list
- May include forthcoming publications
- One link per listing may be included
Awards & Honors (optional)
- Maximum of 15, bulleted list
- Grants may not list amount
- A link may be included; links will open in a new tab (broken links or links that do not fit the purpose of the directory will be removed)
- Format: Title or description of the award, year(s)
Example: The Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics MBA Teaching Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2006, 2009
Curriculum Vitae (preferred)
- PDF file will be saved and renamed: Firstname_Lastname_CV.pdf
- When updating CVs, communications will replace outdated CVs and delete the old copy in the website’s media library
Website (optional)
- A link to the faculty member’s professional website – not a business website
Profile Photos (preferred)
- See the “profile photo guidelines” section on this page
Examples
Directory guidelines for adjuncts and staff
Preferred Name (required)
- First, middle and last (no courtesy titles)
Title (required)
- Titles are separated by comma
- List teaching titles first
- Format: Professor/Instructor, etc. of SUBJECT, other titles with a dash separating the two parts of the title. The office or center name will be added for staff members as needed for clarity.
Example:
- Adjunct – Economics
- Director – Lerner College Career Services Center
Email (required)
- Should be @udel.edu unless unavailable
Office (required)
- Office number and building name/street name only (Do not include Newark, DE and zip code unless they are off campus)
Phone (optional)
- Format: (302) 831-XXXX
Biography (optional)
- Up to 300 words in paragraph form (Lerner Communications will review biography to ensure it meets UD/Lerner editorial style standards)
- The biography provides a top-level overview of background focused on education & career
- Up to 3 links may be included in the bio; links to publications should be specific, not to pages that list multiple publications; links will open in a new tab (broken links or links that do not fit the purpose of the directory will be removed)
- Can include up to two awards and honors focusing on the most recent and/or the most prestigious awards
- Dates should be specific and not relative (e.g. “…award received in May of 2018,” as opposed to “last May”)
- The biography should be written in third person
- May not include personal information
- May use Dr. on the second reference within the text of the biography
Education (optional)
- Bulleted list, most recent first
- Years are not required
- Format: Degree abbreviation “in” subject (not capitalized), institution
Example: Ph.D. in business administration, New York University
Curriculum Vitae (optional)
- PDF file will be saved and renamed: Firstname_Lastname_CV.pdf
- When updating CVs, communications will replace outdated CVs and delete the old copy in the website’s media library
Profile Photos (preferred)
- See the “profile photo guidelines” section on this page
Examples
Non-teaching staff
Profile photo guidelines
Profile photos:
- Your profile picture should be professionally photographed in business headshot style. This style helps maintain a standard look and feel among all Lerner faculty and staff. The person’s appearance is professional, refined and the photo looks composed. The picture is vertical, and the image includes the face, head and shoulders, a plain background, and is not cropped too closely to the head. The picture should be in color, in focus, have proper lighting, good composition and expert color correction and retouching.
- Images that do not fit the standards above can potentially be used for other purposes, but will not be used as a profile picture.
- Our team will resize the image for use on the website. The dimensions are 250 x 375 pixels, 72 DPI, saved as a jpeg.
- If no photo is provided then the default “silhouette.jpg” will be used.
- Examples of unacceptable profile photos:
- Photographs taken with a cell phone.
- Images of people backed up against a wall, horizontal images, and images that have been cropped too closely to the subject’s head.
- Photographs of people at a party, giving a talk, in a meeting, on the phone, sitting at a desk, or in general doing anything other than looking at the camera and posing.
Copyright and legal considerations
Content must not violate federal, state or local laws or University of Delaware policies.
Video
Acceptable videos:
- Promotional/marketing style
- Professionally produced and edited
- Produced by Lerner or the University of Delaware
- Under 2 minutes in length*
*This requirement is based on research on the optimal video length on websites: viewership of videos over 2 minutes in length drops significantly due mainly to short attention spans wistia.com/blog/optimal-video-length
Adding video to the website:
- Videos are added to the blog. Create a blog post with the video first on the page.
- Wrap all video elements in <div class=”responsive-video-wrap”> to preserve the responsive theme. After the video, include a short description of the video beginning, “In this video, …”
- Include a transcript on the page with the heading “Video Transcript.” Bold the speaker’s name and follow with a colon. Do not use quotation marks.
Ex. Georgia Smith: I chose Lerner… - Format for including the video on a webpage:
[lerner-router-row title="" external_link="" image=""]In this video, etc.[/lerner-router-row]
Text style, format and readability
Copy submitted to the communications team for inclusion on the website will be edited as necessary to meet style, form, accessibility and readability guidelines.
Readability of web copy:
- Web copy should be easily understood. Direct, clear writing provides maximum access to the most users (including non-native speakers, those using assistive technologies) on the most devices.
- Target readability scores of grade 12 for the general/undergraduate audience up to grade 14 for the graduate audience.
- Use the Hemingway tool to check and edit text. http://www.hemingwayapp.com/
Correct web copy form:
- Paragraphs are very short to make reading and scanning easier (no more than 100 words).
- Headings are used to identify sections of text.
- Lists are formatted with bullets (not in paragraph form).
- Link text (and the preceding heading) accurately describes the target of the link.
Accessibility
- Text should be written and formatted for web: use sequential headings, simple language, descriptive link text (rather than “click here”).
- Text should be provided on page; images with text should be used sparingly. (Text in an image is also hidden from search engines.) If text is provided in an image, provide the text in the alt tag.
- Non-text elements should use appropriate alt tags.
- Audio and video files should be accompanied by a transcript.
Advertisements and sponsorships
News and events
To request a news story for the website, submit a ticket to the Lerner Communications Team. Approved stories will be written or edited and published to the website for display on the news and other relevant pages.
To add a news feed to a webpage:
- The story must be posted to the blog.
- Limit 5 stories per feed.
- Format for including the news feed:
[display-posts category="" posts_per_page="5" include_date="true" order="DESC" orderby="date"]
Open a Ticket
Please send an email to: lernercomm@udel.edu
This will create a ticket in our system and we will respond to you with questions about your project. Depending on its complexity, your project may be broken into multiple tickets.