Los Angeles City College

Instructional Technology Committee

WEB SITE POLICY

 

Los Angeles City College operates servers and technology necessary to provide a site on the World Wide Web (the site) and the Internet. The site is operated and maintained in accordance with this following policy.

PURPOSE
The purpose of the Los Angeles City College (LACC) web presence is to provide information via the Internet about the college's mission, academic and vocational programs, course offerings, specially funded programs, and student services to those interested in learning more about the college. Certain parts of the site may contain information and services intended to support distance learning and technology-enhanced learning. The primary site and departmental sites within the primary site shall reflect positively the image of integrity and quality to which the college adheres.

MANAGEMENT
The operation of the site equipment and software is the sole responsibility of the Dean, Educational Technology. In cooperation, the Dean, Educational Technology manages the operation of the physical resources in the academic computing area, and Department Chairs or designee, under direct supervision of the chair who is responsible for the department web site, shall have access to department web sites to monitor, update, and make changes in the content of department web pages. The Marketing Director shall oversee the content of the site's pages according to these guidelines and policies. Final authority over content lies with the college president.

In addition, other individuals may be involved in the routine maintenance of site contents. These are:

 

·         Individual faculty who maintain their own sub-sites for the support of their academic programs.

 

·         Staff or faculty who maintain sub-sites for offices or programs that is an official part of the offerings of the college.

 

·         Faculty who maintain sub-sites on servers for the display of student creative work and for teaching world-wide web and Internet skills and technologies, when such work is part of the educational programs of the college.

 

In all cases above, the site contents shall be subject to the policies stated herein, and the college president shall have final authority of these contents.

With a single exception, the copyrights of all contents of the LACC web sites residing on the LACC servers and infrastructure belong to the college. No individual may state ownership of copyright for any of the artwork, graphics, textual content, programming, or other aspects of the visible or audible results of selecting the site via the Internet or on-campus systems.

The sole exception is in the case of the creative work of individual faculty members, individual classified staff, and individual students, which would be considered that individual's intellectual property. This includes artwork, programming, textual matter, animation, music or demonstration material created by the individual for the purpose of supporting teaching efforts, or as a means of display of student work which is the product of class activity. In this case, the individual retains copyright, and may so indicate with an appropriate notice.

In a case where by hyperlink or other means an LACC site contains references to or incorporates material of any kind, remote from LACC, copyrighted by others not related to LACC:

1. Permission to use the material must be obtained in writing from the copyright source, and filed with the Dean, Educational Technology and the Vice President of Academic Affairs (if it applies to an academic department) or the appropriate Vice President (if it applies to non-teaching faculty.

This requirement for permission does not apply to information linked to another site.

2. A copyright notice must be included in any location on an LACC web site where this material is displayed.

The issue of copyright may be affected by collective bargaining agreement and this document will be updated accordingly.

STUDENT USE OF THE SITE
Students are expected to use the site contents to enhance their learning efforts, communicate with instructors and offices of the college, and to explore the Internet as may be needed to participate in the college's academic and vocational programs. The Dean, Educational Technology maintains servers for the purpose of loading and display of work done by students such as hypertext pages, graphics, text, and programming created in the course of the students' participation in regular classes. Such use is subject to the following:

A faculty member to ensure that they are following standard guidelines will monitor the operation of the student server. This faculty member works in cooperation with TSS to ensure that such operations do not negatively affect the overall operation of the LACC site.

Students may load their work onto, and communicate with, normal Internet protocols as required to fulfill their coursework obligations.

The involved faculty will monitor the use of the system by students and ensure that they are following standard guidelines for system operations and communications. Further, the faculty member will ensure that the contents of the sites are within the guidelines set forth below, and do not contain any material that may be considered offensive or inappropriate to the college's site.

Students are obliged to adhere to the laws of copyright and the policies stated above. Students are strictly forbidden to obtain and install on the Los Angeles City College site any music or music duplication from sources outside Los Angeles City College without previous approval of the publishing source. Such material found on any Los Angeles City College server will be removed without notice. Discipline, up to individual expulsion, may be imposed upon any student violating this policy. The faculty shall review student web pages and/or sites prior to posting of student material or review student posted materials within ten days of posting.

The college agrees that student work is just that, and makes no claim to the contents of the work installed on student servers. At the same time, the student agrees that, according to stated policy, the copyright of all contents for any college site server belongs to the college, with the exception as noted above in which a student's intellectual property may be showcased as part of a classroom activity.

The use of servers provided for student classroom support is short-term. At the end of a class period, such as the end of a semester or teaching cycle, the material will be removed from the server and access to the server for individual students will be removed.

In all cases, the college president has final authority over contents and operation of the college resources.

Los Angeles City College does not provide dial-up service to students.

COMMERCIAL USE OF THE SITE
The site is maintained as an information source and as a communication medium only for students, faculty and staff. It does not provide a commercial presence; solicit any product or service of a commercial nature, nor the services of individuals or any other for-profit or for-marketing entity.

REVIEW OF WEB SITE CONTENTS
Web site authors will adhere to the guidelines and policies stated herein.

Academic and non-academic departments that have a web site on the college server will maintain it by periodically inspecting the sites to ensure that the information is up-to-date, accurate, and the site maintains compliance with ADA recommendations and the LACC Web Site Policy. Faculty will maintain their individual web sites. The Teaching Learning Center and TSS shall offer assistance to faculty and department heads in maintaining or updating their web pages.

All campus web pages will be reviewed annually each fall by the Instructional Technology Committee (ITC).  A report will be made to the department chair or manager at the October.  Those departments with web pages that do not adhere to the guidelines and policies will be given 30 days to correct and update.  After 30 days, if left uncorrected, the site/pages and links to pages will be removed.

Should the responsible parties wish to appeal a correction notice or removal of site contents, they may submit such an appeal in writing to the Dean, Educational Technology for referral to the Instructional Technology Committee. The committee will review the pertinent facts and return a decision, which may include instructions for modification of the site. Such review and instructions will occur in a timely manner. Should the responsible parties wish to appeal the decision and/or directions of the Instructional Technology Committee, they may submit an appeal in writing to the college President who has final authority on web site contents. The decision of the President is final.

DISCLAIMER
Los Angeles City College
intends to provide accurate, timely, and unbiased information. However, the college can make no guarantees as to the currency, accuracy, or quality of information stored on its systems, nor can the college accept responsibility for the information listed on or archived on others systems to which links from the college systems may point.

Los Angeles City College makes reasonable effort to ensure that the content of servers provided by the college are used in the best interests of the college and its programs, and are not intentionally offensive to the average user. However, Los Angeles City College accepts no responsibility for the use of the Internet by individuals for any purpose that can be construed as abusive, profane, harassing, or sexually offensive to the average person. Any infringement of copyright laws and any posting of obscene, harassing, or threatening materials on the LACC web site are the sole responsibility of the site author, and may subject the author to investigation of local, state, national, and international laws and litigation, and to district disciplinary action, up to and including expulsion (student) or termination (employee).

GUIDELINES
 The purpose of the LACC web site is to inform, educate, and provide a means of communication between students, faculty, staff, and prospective students. Accordingly, the contents of the site follow these points:

1.       Web pages must contain a to return to the main LACC home page

2.       Web pages must contain the of the last revision of the page.

3.       To ensure the most up-to-date information, web pages that provide the reader with information on course offerings or descriptions should provide links to the online schedule and catalog information rather than duplicating it.

4.       To protect the academic content and intellectual property of the faculty and to provide for copyright safeguards, access to course web sites shall be limited to enrolled students. Access shall require a password.

5.       Materials on the web sites should comply with the recommendations contained in "Distance Education: Access Guidelines for Students with Disabilities", August 1999 provided by the State Chancellor's Office. Click here  to access the document.

DRAFT - Policies and Guidelines for the Use of the LACC Web Site November 29, 1999
Revised 1/10/00, reviewed 2/10/00, revised 2/22/00, revised 3/15/00, 8/30/00, revised 11/8/00, revised 10/16/03.3/26/2004,
5/4/2005