Web Content Guidelines

Management of the Lerner website is the responsibility of the Lerner Communications Team, which coordinates with offices within Lerner and UD as necessary and provides expertise and skill in website design, layout, functionality, copywriting, editing and technology selection. This centralized website management maximizes quality, consistency and cost-effectiveness.

Each Lerner department and center is responsible for keeping its information on the web current and accurate, including department and center information appearing on the Lerner website, UD websites and selected third-party services. The department/center will designate a content expert who serves as a point of contact for Lerner communications.

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.

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
• All titles are approved by the Dean’s Office. Should you have any questions, please contact Michele Mercurio at mmercuri@udel.edu

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

• Rick L. Andrews
• Andong Cheng

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.
• All titles are approved by the Dean’s Office. Should you have any questions, please contact Michele Mercurio at mmercuri@udel.edu

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

• Jill Pante

We highly recommend having your photo taken by UD Photo Services. When you receive your digital photo by email, please forward it to lernercomm@udel.edu and we will arrange for it to be posted to your profile webpage.

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.

All content appearing on the Lerner website and myLerner intranet is copyrighted by Lerner College and may not be reproduced elsewhere without written permission from the College. Requests to include copyrighted content from an outside source on the website must be accompanied by written permission from the copyright owner to do so.

Content must not violate federal, state or local laws or University of Delaware policies.

Video which enhances the message of a page is encouraged. See the University of Delaware Video Branding Guidelines for instructions on creating 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

Web and intranet copy follows the UD brand style guides and Lerner guidelines. Where not specified, it follows AP style.

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.

The University of Delaware’s legal notices (at http://www.udel.edu/home/legal-notices/) specify that the university “targets WCAG 2.0 and ARIA 1.0 in order to allow Web content and assistive technologies to convey appropriate information to persons with disabilities.” As far as possible, the Lerner website and myLerner intranet will comply with these accessibility requirements.

• 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 may not appear on the Lerner website. Sponsors may be recognized with a brief text acknowledgement of the sponsorship and a link to the sponsor’s website if the association elevates the Lerner brand.

To display on the Lerner website or myLerner intranet, upcoming events must be in the UD Events system and properly tagged. Departments/centers may request editing access to the UD Events system from the Lerner Communications Team for one faculty or staff member.

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.