Website regulations

This information does change from time to time. All major revisions – such as those which require changes to departmental websites – are announced directly to all registered website owners. For other changes, please check here regularly.

‘Department’ refers to any University faculty, department, school, institute, centre, group, service, or administrative office. It does not include the Students’ Union or Union societies.

General issues

Websites must comply with all points outlined in this section and:

• be properly authorised and registered
• have a clear association with the University
• display a prominent link to a privacy notice tailored for that website (see the Policy on Privacy Notices)
• link to the University’s overarching Terms of Use or have a specific Terms of Use page
• comply with the University Standards (including the need to use validating code and meet accessibility standards, see Accessibility)
• comply with all the requirements set out in each section of these regulations.

In addition, all web servers must be separately authorised and registered.

Registering your website / web server

In the first instance, web hosting applications and domain name registrations are processed by IT Services.

Read more about website development

Accessibility

The University is covered by the UK directive on public sector website accessibility. All new websites need to meet the international accessibility standard WCAG 2.1 AA by September 2020. The legislation sets a target that all websites will be compliant by September 2020 and mobile apps by September 2021. The legislation covers websites, the content of websites and systems accessed through browsers. It applies to websites built by the University and also any websites or systems purchased by the University.

Update February 2020: The University has published an accessibility statement setting out the extent to which we are compliant, our approach to testing and will be updated to outline our approach to improving accessibility.

Tips and advice on accessibility are available at digitalaccessibility.leeds.ac.uk 

Advertising

Commercial or third party advertising is not permitted on any website that:

• is owned or operated by the University
• uses the University name and/or branding regardless of where it is hosted
• is held on the University network.

It is permissible to advertise under the following conditions and for the following purposes:

• Advertising events, courses, conferences, facilities, services etc. offered by or organised by the University.
• Advertising our involvement in schemes (for example Fairtrade).

All adverts must be approved in advance. Please contact IT Services in the first instance.

Use of the logo/corporate branding

Read our visual identity guidance.

Permission is not required to use the University logo or other forms of corporate branding on pages hosted on the University network. Wherever the logo is used it must link to the University home page: www.leeds.ac.uk.

The logo/branding must not be used on LUU society/club pages.

The University Coat of Arms must not be used on any web pages without the written permission of the University Secretary or Vice-Chancellor. In such cases, written permission must be requested by emailing the Creative team at creative@leeds.ac.uk.

The logo must be used in an approved format and not modified in any way unless agreed in advance. Please email the Creative team at creative@leeds.ac.uk in the first instance. If approved, permission for such use will be granted via the University’s Communications and Engagement team.

Permission must be granted in advance for any use of the logo/branding on sites outside the University network. Please email the Creative team at creative@leeds.ac.uk in the first instance. If approved, permission for such use will be granted via the Communications and Engagement team.

Please note that we take branding and the use of the University logo seriously. The logo is trademarked in numerous jurisdictions and we will issue takedown notices where we discover unauthorised use on external websites. For this reason, it is vital that you register all websites through the process for website development.

Links

Links to material that would be in breach of acceptable use policy are barred.

Hyperlinks to expired content (ie broken links) have a negative impact on the University’s search engine ranking. Regular link testing should be conducted as part of routine website maintenance, ensuring linked content is live and appropriate.

Link checking is the responsibility of the person signed as owner for each individual website and/or the relevant head of school or service.

URL naming criteria

University websites must have a leeds.ac.uk URL (ie web address), such as:

• area.leeds.ac.uk
• leeds.ac.uk

URL naming recommendations will be provided by the faculty marketing team or faculty research communications team to maximise search engine optimisation.

It is not permitted to redirect non-leeds.ac.uk names to University websites without prior permission. Please contact IT Services if you need clarification.

Websites for which the University has only partial responsibility (ie non-University sites) should not use a leeds.ac.uk URL. If your website is a partnership project, the relevant faculty marketing team or faculty research communication team will assess ownership and an appropriate URL during application.

Domains for sites must be acquired by IT Services to ensure they are properly registered. Instances where domains are not acquired in this way may first need to be transferred to University control at extra cost.

Websites hosted offsite

It is not permissible, without prior permission, to:

• host any departmental or corporate page on a server outside leeds.ac.uk
• to use any URL or DNS entry with leeds.ac.uk in it on servers outside the campus network.

Please contact IT Services in the first instance. If approved, permission for such use will be granted by IT Services.

Unauthorised websites will be issued with takedown notices to the relevant service providers.

Data gathering

Please refer to the Data Protection section.

Where personal data is gathered or presented in a website, permission for its use must be sought in advance with the relevant faculty marketing team or faculty research communications team or service.

Depending on the nature of data gathered, you may also need permission from your school or faculty ethics committee in advance.

Restricted content

Content which is presently available on the corporate/faculty sites does not benefit from being reproduced elsewhere.

Duplication of regularly updated key information (eg course modules, fees) can quickly become counterfactual.

Key information to avoid duplicating includes:

• staff profiles
• course information
• course fees.

Inaccurate online information is potentially damaging to the University and faculty’s reputation. When in doubt, guidance should be sought from the appropriate faculty marketing team.

See Links for regulations for hyperlinking to existing content.

Google analytics

All websites should be configured with Google Analytics codes. These will be set up by the IT Services as part of an initial site build.

For more information see website performance.

Search engine optimisation

Website owners should optimise all content (ie text, images etc) for search engines (ie Google, Bing).

Support in this area is provided in our search engine optimisation guidance and the Writing for the Web training course which is available to book through ODPL.

Use of copyright material

You must have permission to use any material (including photographs etc) on your website unless you can show that the material is in the public domain.

Please be aware that a copyright license may specify the media which can be used so you must ensure you have permission to use the material on the web. You will need to be able to prove you have permission so please keep a record of this.

General

In providing a website or a web server you are bound by the University’s Information Security Policies and the Janet (UK) Acceptable Use Policy. Please review this information. You are also bound by UK law including copyright and defamation laws.

It is not permitted under any circumstances to pass users AD credentials in clear text. Where you have a website which requires users to enter the AD credentials (ie their University [ISS] userID and password), these must be passed via SSL. This means any web server which requires this information must be SSL-enabled (ie https://) and properly certified. IT Services can obtain SSL certificates at cost.

Credit card details must not be accepted or processed by systems within the University except where authorised in advance by the Deputy Finance Director.

Remember that whatever you publish can be seen worldwide. Consider your target audience and remember that what might be acceptable in one jurisdiction may not be in another.

Carefully consider the international nature of the Internet and bear in mind that information published via the web by the University is generally viewed as authoritative. If in doubt, please email the IT Service Desk at leeds@service-now.com

Institute, group and project pages

In addition to the general issues outlined above, institute, group, project and service pages must comply with the following:

• Your front (home) page must have a clearly identifiable link to the University home page (leeds.ac.uk). Links should be through use of the appropriate logo wherever possible.
• Your sub-pages should have some clickable path back to either (preferably) your front page, to the For Staff page, or to the University home page.
• Where possible, all pages should have wording indicating who is responsible for them and when they were created or updated.

Staff and research student profiles

Expanded staff and research student profiles now offer a user-friendly, media-rich provision for personal content and have replaced the need for personal websites.

Staff can manage the majority of profile content themselves, which is processed for approval by the relevant faculty marketing team or faculty research communications team.

Refer to people profile management for guidance.

Students’ Union and Union Club and Society pages

The Students’ Union website and Union club and society sites are governed by the LUU’s own regulations.

Clubs and societies are free to use an ISP to host their sites or to use their specific ISS group account to host their websites on the personal web server. See below for personal page regulations and note that they must not use personal ISS accounts to host society websites.

Regardless of where they are hosted they must not use the University logo or official branding in any way. Please note LUU societies are societies of (for example) Leeds University Union. With few exceptions societies must not call themselves (for example) Leeds University XYZ Society – the proper form is Leeds University Union XYZ Society or similar wording (eg LUU Society of XYZ). Some sporting societies do use the University name in an agreed format and you need to consult with LUU to ensure this is formatted correctly.

LUU websites must indicate their affiliation to the LUU and link to the LUU home page.

The Activities Manager
Leeds University Union
Tel: 0113 380 1414
Fax: 0113 380 1416
g.banks@leeds.ac.uk

Personal pages

Personal web pages are no longer supported or hosted by the University. Our new staff profile pages provide a media-rich, secure platform for content.

See people profile management to find out how to expand your profile with content.

In no case may a website for a department or any other group (other than LUU societies as set out above) be held within a set of independently produced personal web pages. This means that under no circumstances may a personal website be used to support a group of people – personal means ‘your’ page, not a group page. If in doubt, please ask your faculty marketing team or faculty research communications team.

Personal, private web pages do not require formal authorisation. Authors of personal pages are personally responsible for the content of their sites.

Web pages which are purely personal in nature must not contain any departmental or corporate information. Such pages must not use the University logo or any form of corporate branding.

Please remember, any personal pages are about you and must not be used for any other purpose. To illustrate; a lecturer might hold pages of personal lecture notes, but it would not be appropriate to hold a page detailing the work of a research group, as that should have a properly authorised and hosted website.