Transforming UB’s digital communications.
The UB Content Management System (UBCMS) is used by authorized members of the university community (see section on Eligibility) to manage the Web presence of decanal and administrative units. All users should be familiar with these Terms of Use.
University Communications (UC) and UB Information Technology (UBit) are primarily responsible for the system as a whole, with UC providing leadership in strategy and design, (as the ‘business owner’), while UBit provides technical support.
The UBCMS allows individuals to create, edit, manage and publish Web content in a consistent, well organized fashion. Adobe AEM is the UB Content Management System. The UBCMS supports administrative, scholarly and curricular communications conducted by eligible members of the university community. Published Web content pages are, by default, visible to the public.
Individuals, hereafter known as “Authors,” are responsible for the content entered into the UBCMS repository and displayed on their assigned pages or where displayed elsewhere as “shared content” by another UBCMS user. Individuals, hereafter known as “Publishers,” are responsible for final review of content posted by their assigned Authors, as well as “activation” of content that is thus published to their assigned live Web pages. Author and Publisher roles may be assigned to the same persons.
One individual, known as the Unit Web Leader (UWL), is designated by the responsibility officer of the decanal or administrative unit. The Unit Web Leader authorizes requests for UBCMS user accounts and permissions for their unit, and works with University Communications to coordinate UBCMS activities.
Each UBCMS user must comply with all federal and state laws; university rules and policies, including UB’s Computer and Network Use Policy, the SUNY Patents & Inventions Policy (8 NYCRR § 335.28) and the New York State Policy NYS-PO8-005: Accessibility of Web-Based Information and Applications; all applicable contracts and licenses; and these Terms of Use, which describe rules and standards (?) specific to the UBCMS service. UC reserves the right to change, at any time, at its sole discretion, the provisions of the service and these Terms of Use, and will communicate any significant changes to all registered users.
Note: Regulated Private Data must not be stored or posted as content in the UBCMS (see UBit’s Protection of Regulated Private Data Policy for a definition of Regulated Private Data). Protected or confidential data must not be posted, collected or shared without appropriate security safeguards in place. Please contact the Information Security Office for clarification regarding appropriate safeguards.
Faculty, staff and authorized students may request access to the UBCMS through their Unit Web Leader or designee, who will submit requests using an online form. Requestors must have an active UBITName. Once approved, the individual will receive access to the “Authoring” (production) environment and is expected to complete training to create and maintain content on the UBCMS.
Non-UB personnel (e.g., consultants or employees in affiliates) who do not have an active UBITName must be sponsored for UBCMS access by the Unit Web Leader and will need to be given a UB appointment (e.g., volunteer status). Once their UBITName is obtained, they will be eligible to apply for access and training through their Unit Web Leader.
University units that choose to create or migrate their Web content to the UBCMS are expected to go through the DCT process steps, and will be classified into one of three tiers. These tiers are:
The Unit Web Leader often designates additional eligible individuals as contributing Authors for their administrative academic unit. Each Author is responsible for the information posted to the UBCMS, following the business practices of his or her office.
To comply with copyright, UBCMS Authors and Publishers are responsible for obtaining all permissions that may be necessary to incorporate works of third parties into their Web pages. Use of such works may be permitted by principles of fair use, consistent with copyright laws (see the UB Libraries Copyright and Fair Use page for examples).
Content within the UBCMS should reflect the positive and respectful learning and working environment of the university, within which basic rules of conduct for the entire university community, as well as the general community, prevail. Such rules of conduct are discussed in Human Resources Policies, and University Student Rules and Regulation.
UC does not pre-screen, monitor or regularly review UBCMS content. However, UC reserves the right to deactivate, at any time, any content that it considers to be in violation of these Terms of Use or the terms of any other campus user agreements that may govern use of the campus networks, or that it deems in violation of university policy or state or federal law. UC reserves the right to NOT activate (or deactivate) sites that do not meet our optimization standards or are incomplete. UC reserves the right to review and/or approve content for publication where deemed appropriate and in line with existing university policies and terms of service. Should the university receive reports regarding a website on which it is felt that inappropriate content has been posted, UC will investigate and contact the site’s Unit Web Leader to discuss the issue. In exceptional cases, where the content is obviously unacceptable, UC will immediately deactivate the content, prior to contacting the site’s Unit Web Leader.
Reports regarding inappropriate content may be filed using the online contact form or sent directly to the Computer Abuse Office at abuse@buffalo.edu.
Information on how to use the various UBCMS components and features will be supported and made available primarily via the DCT website.
Availability of the UBCMS service may be interrupted for maintenance and other updates during maintenance windows as outlined in the UBCMS Service Level Agreement. Announcements and alerts are posted to the DCT website and communicated via the UBCMS-Announce-List Listserv.
The Digital Communications Transformation (DCT) website has training and support materials to guide UBCMS users through the various stages of content preparation, development and stewardship. Online self-help is provided in the form of pre-recorded tutorials and documentation. See the entire curriculum.
UC also provides a Help Desk to triage problems, requests and general questions. Users should submit these concerns using the appropriate forms on this website. Problem reports are incidents where the UBCMS fails to operate as documented, or when service features are unavailable or inconsistent with service expectations. Users should also use these forms to request additional assistance or training.
The UBCMS offers a set of global features that are available to all Content Authors for use on their pages. Suggestions for additional features and changes to existing features are welcomed and will be researched and prioritized by the Solutions Advisory Group (SAG). Submit these requests through the DCT Site.
In the spirit of access, any party that suggests or independently creates a feature must make it available to other sites on the server. To keep development costs low, no feature will be considered for which there is a reasonable workaround.
The user interface for the UBCMS is based on the principles of Flexible but Consistent, and informed by extensive best practices research and testing.
UB’s Domain Name System (DNS) policy mandates that UBCMS website names and URLs comply with our naming standards.
Specifically, website names:
Website names and URLs can be categorized by purpose:
Decanal sites
These constitute the bulk of the campus Web content. This type includes the divisions, programs and services that make up the decanal area. We recommend that decanal sites be named as school.buffalo.edu, where school is descriptive for Web visitors.
Names of divisions or programs within a decanal area become
school.buffalo.edu/division.
Examples include…
If there are programs within divisions so that URLs become long, the URL could appear as:
school.buffalo.edu/division/program
or
school.buffalo.edu/div-program
Examples include…
Services within decanal units are named with the school root:
school.buffalo.edu/service
Enterprise Service or Initiative Sites
We recommend that these sites be named as:
www.buffalo.edu/service
www.buffalo.edu/initiative
Examples include www.buffalo.edu/president, www.buffalo.edu/ubit, and www.buffalo.edu/ub2020.
Product Presentation Sites
These sites market a constituent-based commodity on behalf of UB enterprise operations. The constituency could be the public or a subset of people, such as UB alumni in general. Alumni of a particular school do not meet the test of enterprise and should appear under the school’s URL.
By contrast, “Athletics” does meet the enterprise test because its audience is the world and it markets to the world. As such, it may be named as:
athletics.buffalo.edu
All requests for website names are subject to review by UC and ultimately approval of the CIO or designee.
Other websites
Other websites generally will fall under www.buffalo.edu/[name], including the following categories of websites:
For more information, or if you have specific questions regarding the UBCMS Terms of Use, please contact:
University Communications
330 Crofts Hall, University at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260-7015
Phone: 716-645-6969
Email: DCTHelp@buffalo.edu or jeff@buffalo.edu
The organization of this document and specific content was copied with permission from NYU's Content Management System Terms of Use.