Creating and Publishing Web Pages

Purpose:

Access to Oak Park Elementary School District #97's computer network provides an opportunity for students and staff to contribute to the School District's presence lets you choose the mode of communication you wish to employ. The District's web sites provide a venue in which we share with the world information relating to our schools and our mission; school curriculum and instruction; school-authorized activities and instructional resources for the school community; school-generated collaborative projects.

District web pages are:

  • the District 97 Home Page
  • main pages of each site
  • pages that contain district information
  • sub-pages that contain information about the school

Student-teacher web pages are those created by:

  • individual teachers as their professional web pages
  • students and teachers as curriculum projects
  • club/activity members and their sponsors as club and activity project

Publishing 

All pages must follow district guidelines for publishing web pages on the District 97 web site. However, the student-teacher web pages because of the learning curve and creativity involved in their development and also because of their temporary nature, will not always reflect the strict standards of district pages. These student-teacher pages are the direct responsibility of the individual faculty member, the classroom teacher or the club sponsor.

Web Page Development Support 

The choice of web editor is optional. District and school web producers use Macromedia Studio (Dreamweaver) However, Netscape Composer is the editor for which support and training is provided.

Webmasters’ Role 

  • The district webmaster oversees the development of the District 97 web site content. 
  • The webmaster oversees content and may remove inappropriate material at their discretion.
  • The district network manager oversees the operation of the web servers.
  • Only the webmaster, and the network manager have root access to the web server,
  • Local Web Producers have access only to specified files.
  • Certified Teachers do not have access to the web server and publish only through their PUBLIC_HTML folder.

Personal Web Pages

Individual student web pages and personal web pages for faculty and staff are not supported by the district. However, professional pages for faculty are encouraged and may be posted using their PUBLIC_HTML folder.

Hosting School Related Domains

The district will host only those domains that indicate the District 97.org connection. No outside domains will be hosted on the school’s web server.

Creators of web pages practice the following

Content Standards:

Individual users of the district computer networks are responsible for the content of any web documents they load in any district storage areas.

Network administrators may review files and communications to maintain system integrity and ensure that users are using the system responsibly.

Before uploading any student web document to the server, permission must be obtained from students and parents/guardians of students. Publish only original work; watch out for plagiarism.

Subject Matter:

All subject matter on Web pages should relate to curriculum, instruction, school-authorized activities, or general information relating to the School District, or the schools within the District. Professional pages are allowed and strongly encouraged. Personal web pages are prohibited for all students and staff.  

Quality:

All professional Web page work should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Student work should reflect the acceptable publishing standards for the appropriate grade level. Documents may not contain objectionable material or provide links to objectionable material. Final judgments concerning propriety of Web page material, appearance, or content will remain with building or district administrators.

Ownership and Retention:

All Web pages on the District's server(s) are property of District 97. Student Web pages may be deleted when the student graduates or leaves the District. Copyright disclaimers will be placed on web pages at the discretion of each individual Web page author.

All posting of official web material related to the district/school is to be done by district personnel and on district servers.

Student Safeguards:

Before publishing any Web documents students need signed parental permission to have their work and/or photo on the Internet. This does not apply to large group "action" photos in which individuals are not easily identified. Middle School students may give permission for their work to be published; parents should be notified.
Permission: sample 1 | sample 2 or create your own.

Web page documents may include only student first names/last initial. If the student in a photo can be identified by name then no name should be used [examples: the only student, the only girl in a group].

Documents may not include a student's phone number, address, names of other family members, or names of friends.

Web page documents may not include any information which indicates the physical location of a student at a given time, other than attendance at a particular school, or participation in activities.

Policies:

No unlawful copies of copyrighted materials may be knowingly produced or transmitted via the District's equipment.

District Web pages will meet the criteria established in the Acceptable Use Guidelines for Electronic Communications (AUG).

The primary purpose of Web Pages links may not be for commercial or political advertising.

All communications via the District Web pages will comply with the District Acceptable Use Guidelines for Electronic Communications (AUG) and the District Human Dignity Policy.

Any deliberate tampering with or misuse of District network services or equipment will be considered vandalism and will be handled in accordance with the Acceptable Use Guidelines for Electronic Communications (AUG) and other related policies.

Technical Standards:

Each Web page placed on the District servers should follow technical standards to insure consistency, professional appearance and ease of use.

  • Do not include objectionable, abusive, obscene, or profane material.
  • Keep pages grammatically correct and free of spelling errors.
  • Indicate responsibility for the page by including the author’s email address
  • Clearly identify the creation date or date of last update.
  • Review every page regularly.
  • Update every page at least twice during the year, preferably one time during each trimester.
  • Check all links regularly, especially external links.
  • Take down all outdated pages and pages that are no longer relevant.
  • Do not include empty pages that are “under construction.”
  • Provide back-to-links to previous and main pages.
  • Make audio and video clips optional for the viewer.
  • Make your page easy to scan and easy to navigate.
  • With the exception of headings and featured words, use font sizes 10, 12, or 14 - nothing larger.

Web page authors are responsible for editing and testing their page(s) for accuracy of spelling, information, links, and conformance with the standards contained in this policy and with other district policies concerning copyright and privacy.

Copyright:

Work posted on the District 97 server should not violate copyright law or fair use. Fair use does not cover re-posting material to the Internet. Text, graphics, sound should be original when at all possible. Links to other sites or sections of sites are always acceptable, and need no copyright permission; copying the text/ graphic/ sound to your site is not acceptable without permission of the original owner. It is suggested, but not required, that such permissions be quoted or scanned -if paper- and placed in a credits section of the site.

Annotated descriptions to linked sites may quote a few lines of that site's self description as long as quotation marks are used and no changes are made to the quoted portion of the description.

Design elements from other web pages are not allowed, unless they are copied from specific sites for free clip art (be sure they are not just someone's collection of graphics "grabbed" from other sites) or are specifically stated by the site creators to be used when referring to or linking the site (such as a logo).

No use of corporate logos or derivative works. (Which means no posting of a student's drawing of Mickey Mouse!)

Graphics/sounds from contemporary films/TV shows may not be used without copyright permission.

Claiming ignorance is not acceptable; be sure about your right to use material and document it!

Original material is encouraged as being the most authentic and of the most interest to the district / schools' stakeholders.

Read http://www.mectronic.com/scripts/newsletters/jun98/exp.asp#property if ever you are in doubt.

Other:

Directory structure will be determined by the District Web Producer. Given the rapid change in technology, additional consistency standards will be developed by the District as the need arises.

Material on student web pages reflect an individual's thoughts, interests and activities. Student web pages do not necessarily reflect the opinions or ideas of individual schools or the District. Concern about the content of any page(s) created by students or staff should be directed to the District Web Producer jbarnstable@op97.org).

Updated by: Janet Barnstable July 28, 2006

 


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Please contact us if you need additional information.
Gail Crantz: D97 Public Information gcrantz@op97.org 708-524-3000
Janet Barnstable: Web Producer jbarnstable@op97.org 708-524-7837 
Care is taken to link to educationally sound material; however, District 97 is not responsible for content beyond its site. 
District 97 Copyright Information and Email Disclaimer, Crisis Planning & School Closing