Note: This document will continue to be updated as the University of Mississippi website evolves. Last updated: 6-20-23 at 4:37 pm

Structure, Roles & Workflow

Governance Structure

The university website is managed jointly by teams from the Offices of Information Technology (IT) and University Marketing and Communications (UM&C).

As the primary owner of web publishing at University of Mississippi, UM&C is responsible for training, documentation, and fostering opportunities for peer support via the web management team, with the goal of fostering a community, establishing standards, and creating resources to support authors when the UM&C team cannot. As administrators of the university’s networking systems, IT is responsible for website application development and the technical management of the university’s content management system (CMS) that hosts the website.

For web publishing, every aspect of the institution must be represented by a content editor or Content Publisher who is accountable to the UM&C team via established standardized workflows, processes, and protocols, though this structure can account for varied needs across different units. In the instances where UM&C owns publishing for a given section or content type (referred to as “authoritative content”) and works with units as subject-matter experts, the units must work in a timely and collaborative fashion to ensure content remains current.

Similarly, units that have control over their content and publishing are expected to create, maintain, and publish content that is current, accurate, relevant, and appropriate. Failure to comply will result in consequences to be determined by UM&C and/or the Web Governance Council.

User Roles and Governing Bodies

• The Web Governance Council guides the overarching strategy for the website, establishes and reinforces high-level priorities and processes for content development, and ensures the website receives the resources and support it needs to remain successful.
• The Web Content Management Team, made of the Web Editor-in-Chief and support staff roles, define and implement the overarching strategy for the website and oversee all day-to-day content approval and publishing. This body is responsible for the maintenance of authoritative content.
• Content Publishers across campus are trained and empowered to manage areas of the website to which they are assigned ownership, which will be defined and enforced by the UM&C team. Publishers are empowered to independently publish content live to the website, without review by the UM&C team. Some Publishers may review and publish content created by Content Editors.

• Content Editors across campus are trained and empowered to update areas of the website to which they are assigned ownership, which will be defined and enforced by the UM&C team. Content Editors across the school are responsible for writing and editing content subject to review by the Web Content Management Team.

• Content contributors are subject matter experts and relevant domain stakeholders who do not have any access to the CMS, but may have information to share or updates to request. They may work in partnership with the Content Editors and Publishers in their units to provide relevant information. If the unit does not have any Content Editors or Publishers, then the UM&C team plays an operational role, building and updating their web content on their behalf.

• The Web Content Community brings all parties involved in web publishing together to share knowledge, enable peer support, and gain deeper awareness of school priorities and overall digital strategy, process, and guidelines.

 

Publishing Workflow and Process

The University of Mississippi has adopted an established process by which web content will be created and published going forward.

Content Editors are responsible (with guidance from UM&C or input from the Web Content Community) for creating their own internal (offline) workflow for planning, creating, and revising content. The Content Editor should, to the best of their ability, ensure that the content is accurate and complete.

When a Content Editor edits existing content or creates new content, a draft is saved in the CMS. This draft will be reviewed by the Content Publisher, who has the explicit authority to approve and publish it. The Content Publisher should ensure that all draft content is approved and published within 2 business days of its submission by the Content Editor.

Content Publishers should sort out for which groups they will be responsible for review/approval of drafts created by Content Editors. The CMS will provide useful views into pending content to guide action by Editors, Publishers, and Administrators.

Content Editors do not have the ability to create pages or publish content — only Content Publishers can make changes to the website that appear live instantly without additional review or workflow. By having the ability to publish content live directly to the website, an individual serving as Content Publisher commits to maintaining a high standard of editorial quality, accuracy, and consistency across the web content for which they are responsible. This level of access may be revoked if UM&C deems that it is not being utilized with due diligence.

As a matter of best practice, regardless of established workflow or permissions and whether the content is in the CMS or a word processing document, it is recommended to have a second person review draft content for spelling, grammar, and comprehension before submitting it for publication. This is in addition to review via the established publishing workflow for appropriateness, brand, style, accuracy, and relevance, not instead of.

Any requests for changes in CMS access and permissions must be submitted to the UM&C team. Additional training may be required.

 

Access, Support and Training

Access to the CMS

Individuals requesting website editing access via the CMS must meet the following minimum requirements

• Possess subject-matter expertise in the purview of the respective unit (or an established relationship with a relevant subject-matter expert)
• Have website content management defined and allocated as a job responsibility, with supervisor’s approval
• Complete all required training and commit to complete future trainings, as needed
• Fulfill all responsibilities and expectations of the assigned role
• Work with any parties necessary within and beyond given unit to fulfill website responsibilities

CMS access requests must be submitted via the Web Content Request form (form to come). Approved individuals may receive login credentials and an assigned workflow role for the CMS upon meeting the following requirements:

• Approval from direct supervisor, dean, or department chair
• Approval from IT and UM&C
• Completion of CMS training
• Completion of web content best practices training
• Signature attesting to review of and planned adherence to this governance policy

In granting CMS access, the supervisor, dean, or chair granting approval must acknowledge that:

• The website is a core business asset for the school, with website maintenance thus being a core administrative function, and;
• The approved individual’s responsibilities in updating a section of www.olemiss.edu are critical to the effectiveness of the website as a communications and marketing tool, and thus support the school’s business and academic objectives and;

The UM&C team may request that the Web Governance Council revoke access to the CMS for any of the following reasons:

• Repeated violations of this governance policy
• Repeated violations of established content and brand quality standards (including the addition of inline styles or other custom formatting that violates the university’s defined visual standards)
• Intentional publication of false, misleading, or defamatory information on www.olemiss.edu
• Violation(s) of other relevant University of Mississippi policies
• The discretion of your direct supervisor, dean, or department chair
• Extended inactivity; if revoked for this reason, training must be completed again before access can be restored

Ensuring Website Support

Every web property at the University of Mississippi must be assigned an owner/stakeholder and/or Content Publisher/Editor. One individual may serve as Content Publisher/Editor for multiple units or domain areas, so long as they are granted sufficient time to fulfill that scope of responsibility.

In some cases, the designated owner/stakeholder and Content Editor may be the same individual. The owner/stakeholder or the Content Editor may also function as the subject-matter expert for the given section of the website.

All units are responsible for their own website content (unless determined otherwise that the site contains authoritative content to be managed by the UM&C team, or has been deemed to need operational support from the UM&C team).

All units are responsible for the timely and thoughtful maintenance of their respective web properties, as well as accountable to follow this governance strategy as approved by the Web Governance Council and operationalized by UM&C.

The owner/stakeholder for each respective digital property (e.g. department/unit section) within the main site must complete a Web Property Charter (available from UM&C). This Charter should be revisited and updated (if necessary) annually.

The owner/stakeholder for each respective subdomain must complete a Website Strategy Brief (available via UM&C). The owner/stakeholder must confirm the accuracy of the information contained therein and sign a document attesting to its veracity and its value as a strategic framework governing content decisions and maintenance for the website in question. This Brief should be revisited and updated (if necessary) annually.

The UM&C team is charged with tracking ownership for all defined unit web properties at University of Mississippi. These assignments should be confirmed to UM&C by the supervisor or director of the respective unit. At the time that these assignments are made, the assigned individuals will be scheduled to receive the appropriate web, brand, and CMS training, if they have not received training already.

UM&C will create and manage an internal list that tracks and identifies website ownership and roles across the institution (including name, unit, job title(s), website role(s), training status and date(s), and date of assignment). This document will be made available for viewing by any content editor, owner/stakeholder, or any member of the Web Governance Council.

UM&C may undertake regular audits to confirm that its records are current. As part of this process, UM&C will (in consultation with respective units) gauge the load of content responsibility for Content Editors to ensure it is distributed appropriately and sustainably, and the team will work with owner/stakeholders, unit directors and leadership to redistribute website responsibility or identify other solutions, if necessary.

Any changes by a unit to its assigned Content Editor and/or Publisher must be communicated to and approved by the Web Content Management Team. University of Mississippi employees may be given CMS access by the Web Content Management Team; units are not allowed to share CMS credentials with untrained and unassigned individuals. Doing so may result in a loss of CMS editing privileges and/or website visibility. Undergraduate students or graduate students assistants may have Content Editor access, but not Content Publisher access. Third-party vendors who agree to accessibility training, all associated web governance regulations, and a one-on-one meeting with the web editor-in-chief may be granted Content Publisher access on an as-needed basis.

Units are responsible for communicating to the Web Content Management Team when an assigned editor/publisher leaves, or roles change in some way, so they can work with the Web Content Management Team to identify and train a replacement within a reasonable timeframe. If a unit fails to notify the Web Content Management Team of such changes and has no active editor/publisher, the unit risks losing access to edit its section of the website, having its section removed from the live website and archived, or other consequences as determined by the Web Content Management Team in consultation with the Web Governance Council.

If UM&C learns about staffing departures or changes via HR announcements or other internal communications, the team may use that opportunity to inquire with units about ensuring continuity of website ownership and maintenance.

Training, Education and Documentation

Ongoing training and updated, accessible documentation is essential to the success of olemiss.edu and the maintenance of our culture of content.

Relevant trainings will be scheduled once in the fall, once in the spring, and once in the summer.

All users are required to complete the following trainings before gaining access to the CMS:

• Web Accessibility
• Cascade

UM&C is responsible for regularly scheduling training sessions and promoting them to the University of Mississippi community. UM&C is also responsible for maintaining, updating, and distributing all relevant documentation for CMS usage, best practices, style, and other content guidelines, and making that documentation accessible to all relevant Content Editors and Publishers. Whenever possible, relevant documentation and content guidelines will be integrated into the CMS authoring interface, to better guide the efforts of Content Editors and Publishers.

For more information about upcoming trainings, please reach out to Dennis Irwin, web editor-in-chief.

 

QA and Review

Content Quality Assurance

The Web Content Management Team and Web Governance Council will oversee a thorough content quality assurance (QA) process to guarantee that access to the website results in active, thoughtful, and appropriate maintenance of relevant content.

The Web Content Management Team and members of the accessibility team will initiate regular checks on web accessibility and SEO and will share applicable reports with the corresponding content editor and publisher who will be expected to take action as needed.

It is incumbent upon the person responsible for the page to remedy the issues (e.g. broken links, spell/grammar check, website performance, content recency) identified within 2-3 business days.

In addition to these manual content QA processes, an additional independent and automated check is performed using a third-party service called Dubbot. Dubbot complements the efforts of the Web Content Management Team and accessibility team by conducting regular scans on various aspects of our websites, ensuring their ongoing quality and compliance. It systematically examines six key areas, including broken links, spelling and grammar checks, website performance, content recency, web accessibility, and SEO. Dubbot generates periodic comprehensive reports on these aspects, which are shared with the respective content editors and publishers for further action. It is the responsibility of the individual responsible for the webpage to address any identified issues, leveraging both the insights from the manual content QA process and the automated checks conducted by Dubbot. This collaborative approach ensures that our websites maintain active, thoughtful, and relevant content while upholding accessibility standards and optimizing their performance for improved user experience.

Review and Compliance

The Web Content Management Team will conduct spot checks of pages, sections or sub-sites of www.olemiss.edu for compliance. If content is discovered that is irrelevant, off-brand, inaccurate, outdated, or of poor quality, the Web Content Management will reach out to the content owner to devise a timeframe and a plan for addressing the concerns. Failure to adhere to the agreed-upon plan and timeframe may result in a loss of CMS editing access or website archival.

Pages which do not meet www.olemiss.edu content standards or have errors will either be referred back to the original author for revision or corrected by the Web Content Management team with communication to the original author about being more attentive to quality.

Once the web editor-in-chief has exhausted all resources, authors who consistently submit low quality or error-filled content may be referred to the Web Governance Council for review. At the council’s discretion, the author may lose CMS editing privileges until they receive more training or otherwise address the concerns.

Content Ownership

Authoritative Content

Publishing access to certain sections of www.olemiss.edu is, as a matter of policy, strictly limited to specific editors and publishers because of the strategic value of their content and the critical business need to ensure content quality and accuracy. These sections are deemed authoritative content.

Generally speaking, the Web Content Management Team is the owner accountable for authoritative content. Other departments and units at University of Mississippi, unless specifically granted permission by the Web Content Management Team, should be prohibited from re-creating information that appears within sections of authoritative content on their own sections, in order to avoid the posting of conflicting or duplicate information on www.olemiss.edu. Content found to be in violation of this approach will be removed.

All Core content (as defined below) that falls outside the purview of authoritative content as defined by UM&C will be managed by its designated content editor, and reviewed by the UM&C team before publishing live to the website; non-Core content will be the responsibility of the assigned Content Publisher. The UM&C team will track ownership to ensure all sections of the site are owned and actively managed by a trained content editor.

Authoritative content on olemiss.edu includes:

All top-level landing pages (Academics, Admissions, Student Life, Research, Who We Are)

• Admissions section
• Academic program detail pages
• Select second-level pages, including:
  • Colleges & Schools page within the Academic section
  • Our Impact within Research section
  • Research Centers & Institutes within Research section
  • Living on Campus (Student Life section)
  • Oxford, MS (Student Life section)
  • Student Involvement (Student Life section)
  • Student Support & Resources (Student Life section)
  • Regional Campuses (Student Life section)

Core content on www.olemiss.edu includes:

• Any page within the main site navigation that is not considered authoritative content as defined above.

Non-core content on www.olemiss.edu includes:

• Office, department, and center detail pages in the utility navigation

 

Authoritative Content Partnerships with Other Groups

Admissions, Financial Aid, and Tuition & Fees

Designated Content Publishers within the Admissions and Financial Aid teams, in close consultation with the Web Management Team and Web Governance Council, share responsibility for mission-critical content within the Admissions and Financial Aid sections, such as:

• Application requirements and deadlines
• Admissions requirements and standards
• Tuition and fees
• Information request forms
• Campus visits
• Financial aid deadlines, policies and protocols

The UM&C team will work with these Content Publishers to ensure this content is updated in a timely and accurate fashion, in line with overall site strategy and school branding priorities.

Homepage & top-level marketing sections

The homepage is the primary digital front-door to the University of Mississippi and is designed in line with the website’s primary purpose as a platform to reach recruiting prospective students. The messaging, imagery, style, brand, calls-to-action, and content reflected on the homepage are primarily geared toward the prospective student audiences. Other audiences, such as current students or faculty, can find clear paths to relevant content via the homepage.

The homepage content is owned and managed by the UM&C team, with direct influence only from the Web Governance Council (and indirect influence from the Web Content Community and the general University of Mississippi community). Members of the school community are welcome to contribute news, information, or ideas they may feel are appropriate for the homepage, but ultimate decision-making for homepage content rests with the Web Content Management Team.

The structure of the homepage reflects high-level branding and pathways to mission-critical information, which will either be updated manually or dynamically via taxonomy. Any curation criteria or applicable taxonomy should be determined by the Web Content Management Team.

Closely associated with the homepage of www.olemiss.edu are the top-level sections, including the sections contained within the main navigation, global calls-to-action, and other high-priority website destinations as determined by the Web Content Management Team, which will own and manage these top-level pages in partnership with relevant subject-matter experts. Because of the high-priority nature of these landing pages, subject-matter experts will be expected to work promptly and collaboratively with UM&C staff to ensure their timely and accurate maintenance.

Headers, Footer, and Global Calls-to-Action

The content, information architecture, and design reflected in these site-wide elements are determined at the discretion of the Web Governance Council and the Web Content Management Team.

Program Pages

The Web Content Management Team should oversee the process of maintaining and curating program content, working closely with relevant subject-matter experts and content owners to collect necessary information to update these pages. The pages will be revised twice annually, at a minimum, or whenever necessitated by changes in name, key processes, offerings, or other key factors, as influenced by Web Governance Council or academic leadership.

Academic leadership and admissions staff will also provide guidance around when certain program page content should be updated to reflect changes in the catalog and/or admissions deadlines. This includes revision of copy, photography, and other content (e.g. embedded videos, graphics).

While a range of academic leaders and subject-matter experts may be consulted to confirm accuracy of information, the final authority for publishing program page content should rest with the Web Content Management Team. This is to ensure that program page content remains consistently accurate and on-brand in explaining and marketing University of Mississippi areas of study to prospective students.

UM&C may, at its discretion, use document templates or third-party tools to facilitate information collection for area of study pages from relevant faculty or staff.

The authority and advocacy of the relevant dean or other executive leadership may be invoked in order to encourage timely maintenance of area of study content, as deemed necessary by the UM&C team.

Institutional Information

Due to its high informational value and institution-wide relevance, institutional information (e.g. leadership, history) will be owned by the UM&C team, in consultation with relevant subject-matter experts and stakeholders.

Audience sections

The UM&C team, in consultation with relevant stakeholders, assumes responsibility for any audience-based content hubs, such as for current students or faculty and staff.

News

Editorial and promotional content will be managed by the UM&C team. (Members of the University of Mississippi community, as well as members of the community at large, are welcome to submit topics and story ideas for consideration (Link to come)). The UM&C team will help determine the most appropriate means of promotion, which may be a news story, event listing, a media pitch, Facebook post, or placement in another internal or external publication.

News content can be published in relevant context across www.olemiss.edu according to designated taxonomy. The taxonomy and categorization for news and events is informed by the website’s information architecture to ensure effective content reuse.

Do not publish time-sensitive news or event information relating specifically to your unit as content on your website, whether in a new page or within the content of another page. By doing so, you would:

• Undermine the structure of your website by creating stray pages that will be irrelevant once your event passes or news becomes outdated
• Inhibit the ability of your audience to find your content by placing it somewhere other than universally promoted University of Mississippi news and event sections

Instead, work with the UM&C team to find the appropriate means to promote your news or event through established channels and link to it from your site.

Some units may publish their own stories, features, or blog posts without revision from UM&C. Note that any news story published on a subsite MUST follow all content and editorial guidelines. However, only university news approved by the University Marketing & Communications News & Media Relations team will be published on the News section of the main site. If a Content Editor or Content Publisher is preparing any content that they wish to publish on the News section of the main site, they must reach out to UM&C in advance of publication to coordinate with the News & Media Relations team. More planning time may also allow for added promotion across a suite of other university-sponsored channels including but not limited to email newsletters and social media.

In the Media Relations and Communication Policy, official university news is defined as follows:

“University news and media advisories, also referred to as news or press release, means a communication directed at or distributed to local, national or international media outlets for the intended purpose of announcing or sharing noteworthy matters pertaining to the university and encouraging media coverage of the matter described in the advisory. These items may be written, recorded or spoken through electronic or print mediums.”

UM&C will periodically review story content published by other units to ensure compliance with this requirement. Violations of the aforementioned policy may result in the UM&C team requesting that the Web Governance Council revoke access to the CMS.

Directory

Decisions around how to present or integrate staff and faculty data the purview of the Web Governance Council, working with partners across the school to manage the data effectively, confirm its accuracy, and ensure appropriate usage.

Faculty Bios

Content Publishers, with the guidance of UM&C and the advocacy and authority of relevant academic leadership, will be held responsible for updating faculty bio pages, including the maintenance of up-to-date biographical information.

Faculty information should be updated on at least an annual basis. It is recommended that Schools and colleges maintain an editorial calendar to coordinate necessary updates. The addition of pages for new faculty or archiving of pages for former faculty should be completed as soon as the change is finalized, in partnership with UM&C. University of Mississippi’s academic leadership is charged with encouraging timely faculty participation in the faculty bio update process.

If the UM&C team notices that faculty information seems out of date, someone will contact the relevant Content Publisher to pursue swift resolution of the issues.

UM&C will, whenever possible, pursue opportunities for efficiency by identifying and integrating dynamic data sources or using third-party applications to populate faculty detail pages. When such integrations are considered or implemented, UM&C will consult and notify all relevant Content Editors and stakeholders.

Taxonomy

The Web Content Management Team and Web Governance Council are responsible for maintaining the site taxonomy, which governs content tagging, organization, and re-use sitewide, as well as any complementary taxonomy in use for events, news, or other content types. Taxonomy will be managed and monitored vigilantly to:

• ensure it is appropriately supports a site-wide content reuse strategy and to
• ensure that for more variable areas like “topics” (for News and In the News content), the “topics” remain relevant and no redundancies emerge.

Policies

While individual units may create and publish policies relative to their respective digital property, any school-wide curation of policies must be organized, completed, and vetted by the General Counsel’s office, with UM&C acting solely as Content Publisher. The Web Governance Council cannot be held accountable for amendments to school policies outside the realm of the school’s website or communications strategy.

Requests

Requests to Host and CMS Usage

Departments, professional organizations and affiliated events within the University of Mississippi are required to use the university-supported CMS and hosting services. Consolidating on the approved platforms enables the university to make the most efficient and effective use of limited resources, ensures consistency of user experience and brand expression, and supports critical needs such as accessibility, security, and legal compliance.

In extremely rare cases, circumstances may merit use of external platforms. Such cases may include, but are not limited to:

• Use of IT-approved web applications that are incompatible with the approved CMS
• Collaborations with external organizations that require the use of a different platform
• Student academic and research projects

Exceptions to this approach must be approved by the Web Governance Council. No unit within the university may create a website on any other platform without Web Governance Council approval.

Requests to host registered student organization websites will not be approved.

Web Requests

If you have an IT-related issue, please submit a ticket.

Please complete this form (form to come) if you require assistance from the Web Content Management Team in any of the following areas:

• Web Content Requests
  • Suggested edits/updates to authoritative content
  • Suggested edits/updates to sites with no assigned Content Editor or Content Publisher assigned
  • Requests for new sites or pages
  • Requests for photos to be added to the DAM
• Support, Access, or Training Requests
  • Requests to join the Web Content Community
  • Requests for CMS access or training
  • Requests for access to Localist
• News Tips
  • Tips/ideas/suggestions for news stories
• Emails
  • Request for access and appropriate training to send emails via myEmma platform

Subdomains and Redirects

Only vendor-affiliated websites (ex: “map.olemiss.edu” or “office365.olemiss.edu”) will be granted subdomains by Information Technology and the Web Content Management Team. The URL structure for all university-affiliated websites will be consistent. Redirects will be deployed to all sites as necessary for a period of at least one year.

Content Guidelines

Written Content

Before beginning to create content within the site, all users must have completed all appropriate trainings and a Web Content Request form must be on file attesting that the person should be granted the appropriate access to the platform.

Folder Structure

Each page on the site lives within a folder on the CMS with an “index” page within it. Only one page lives in each folder, though each folder can contain multiple subfolders, indicating that pages are one level down. For example, the “academics” folder will contain its “index” page (the ‘Academics’ landing page) as well as subfolders for the Program Listing, the Colleges & Schools page, the Special Programs page, etc.

Each page’s folder will also include an “assets” folder. It is recommended that each Content Publisher also create an “images” subfolder within the “assets” folder to organize and house graphics, documents, and other assets needed. Note that pages should not be placed in the “assets” folder and ONLY images should be uploaded to the “images” subfolder.

Creating Pages

Only Content Publishers have the ability to create pages and will only be able to create General Pages. Requests to create other types of pages should be submitted to the Web Content Management Team.

Photography Guidelines

At a minimum, visual content must meet the following requirements:

• High resolution
• Content must be owned or produced by the institution and not violate existing licenses
• All necessary information should be provided and accompany the photo(s), including title and description (including text and relevant links). UM&C reserves the right to edit or add to this information for search engine optimization (SEO), clarity, or other purposes.
• Acceptable subjects include
  • Events (e.g. lectures, concerts, ceremonies)
  • Images of students, alumni, faculty, and/or staff
  • Campus scenes and facilities
  • Marketing/promotion of University of Mississippi program, center, school, facility, etc.
  • Research or scholarship by University of Mississippi students or faculty
  • News related to University of Mississippi

Unacceptable content would include:

• Commercial advertisements or promotions
• Content not related to University of Mississippi people, events, facilities, or programs
• Event promo flyers or banners
• Photos with text overlay

Have a question about web governance or wish for guidance on a topic that isn’t addressed above? Please let us know at marcomm@olemiss.edu.