Web Guidelines

Responsibilities

Each college department is responsible for keeping their website content current and accurate. Departments should regularly review their website areas and notify Public Relations to make any updates by submitting a Web Request.

Content Rules

  1. Sensitive information related to students is prohibited on any publicly accessible servers managed by Public Relations & Marketing. This includes student home addresses, phone numbers, personal emails, grades, Social Security numbers.
  2. No course-specific material is allowed on publicly accessible servers managed by Public Relations & Marketing. This includes any materials for course instruction. If you need to distribute course material, please contact the Digital Learning department for assistance in managing your courses via Blackboard. This excludes course syllabi, which are posted online as required by Texas HB 2504.
  3. Any materials that could be considered offensive, such as nudity or vulgarity, are prohibited on the STC public website.
  4. Using the publicly accessible server for distribution of unlicensed software, music, movies, or images is strictly prohibited and will result in web account termination. For more information, please refer to our DMCA policy.
  5. Any web content created with college resources is owned by South Texas College as stated by Policy CT - Intellectual Property.
  6. Copyrighted content that is hosted by STC must be licensed or have the approval of the copyright owner.
  7. Website content must adhere to STC branding and style guides.
  8. All website content and documents (including Word documents, PDFs, etc.) must be accessible.

Student Organizations/Clubs

The office of Public Relations & Marketing does not support student clubs or organizations. Academic programs with an associated honor society may include the basic contact info on their program webpage:

  • Name of Organization
  • Organization Description
  • Contact Person/Phone/Email
  • Link to website or facebook

A list of current student clubs and organizations is maintained with Student Activities and Wellness.

Events Calendar

The Events Calendar is for promoting college events that are open to the public (but not for student clubs or organizations). The calendar system can also share a category events to be displayed on other webpages.

Program Marketing Pages

The marketing pages for each program are designed for students to discover academic opportunities and connect them with the enrollment process. These pages are not intended to serve as department pages, and will not contain a) course-specific material, b) archives of documents, presentations, or meeting notes, c) faculty CV or profiles. These pages are intended to promote the program as a whole, and not specific courses or sections.

Options for departmental communications may include OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook Groups, or General Emails. Blackboard is the approved system for distributing any course material such as notes, presentations, reviews, etc.

Selective or Competitive Entry

Some degree programs have selective or competitive entry applications for students. This information must be conveyed properly on Program Marketing Page.

Faculty/Staff Photos

At this time only Program Chairs and other leadership positions may have a headshot photo on program/department websites. Photos of every faculty or staff member are not included.

Accessibility

In order to provide the best experience to all website visitors, we comply with the standards set by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. For more information regarding accessibility or how to create accessible content, please refer to our accessibility guide.

We will not upload documents that fail to meet our accessibility standards (WCAG 2.0 AA) and it's the responsibility of the contributor to ensure compliance of any documents they wish to upload. Website content is routinely audited for accessibility issues and we will remove content that fails to meet the standards.

Alt-Text

All images that are published to the STC website must have a description associated with it. This allows individuals utilizing assistive technology to better perceive the content.

Files and Documents

Brochures and fliers that are designed for printing are not allowed on the website.

Necessary files and documents may be hosted on the website, but critical information should also be included directly on webpages whenever possible.

Contrast

Individuals with limited visual ability may have difficulty understanding text that uses bright colors or lacks contrast from its background. Documents that use bright colors or fail our contrast tests will not be published.

Forms

All forms must be fillable. Forms are a critical component to an organization’s business operations, therefore it’s important to ensure everyone is able to view and complete documents that require data inputs. If your department routinely develops forms, it’s important to obtain a copy of Adobe Acrobat DC.

Video Captions

All video content hosted on the public website and social channels must have video captions enabled. This will allow individuals with hearing impairments to better perceive the video.

PDFs

All PDFs must be machine-readable and tagged properly. Scans of documents will not be published and may be removed during the accessibility auditing process.

SACSCOC Accreditation

Any reference to Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) must be appropriately attributed with the statement below:

South Texas College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award Baccalaureate and Associate degrees. South Texas College also may offer credentials such as certificates and diplomas at approved degree levels. Questions about the accreditation of South Texas College may be directed in writing to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, GA 30033-4097, by calling (404) 679-4500, or by using information available on SACSCOC’s website (www.sacscoc.org).

Unauthorized usage of the SACSCOC logo is strictly prohibited.

External Websites

All departments and units of South Texas College must use the college domain, SouthTexasCollege.edu, for all websites. The College does not support other websites hosted externally.

Programs that are formally joint activities with an outside entity e.g., another College, state agency, local government may be permitted to use an alternate address, subject to approval by the Office of Public Relations and Marketing and the Marketing Advisory Committee. Any affiliated corporation, partnership, or other activity determined by the committee to be sufficiently independent of the College by the nature of its mission may also be permitted to obtain an alternate address. If a situation should arise where a site must be hosted by an outside entity, the committee may approve the acquisition of an alternate address which should include “South Texas College” or "STC" in its domain name.

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