Guidelines

The guidelines and procedures will ensure a consistent look and feel for BCC’s website through standard roles, responsibilities and best practices. A consistent unified site with clear, on-brand messaging and an enjoyable and stress-free user experience strengthens the College and supports our constituents.

It is important to note that all sites that fall within the www.bcc.cuny.edu domain are strategic assets that belong to the College, not individual departments or divisions. Departments serve as caretakers of their pages, experts in their content, and stewards of our brand.

The Office of Communications and Marketing is responsible for ensuring that the guidelines are properly followed. In collaboration with the Office of Information Technology, Communications and Marketing:

• Establishes the site’s strategic direction.
• Ensures that it complies with current regulations regarding accessibility, privacy and any additional requirements mandated by The City University of New York.
• Ensures that the Website reinforces and effectively supports the College’s mission, brand, messaging and goals.
• Addresses issues and concerns that may arise regarding the website’s proper functionality.

Working closely with IT, the Electronic Media Manager will oversee the website and has been given the authority to flag, remove or replace any content that is inaccurate, inappropriate or does not follow the best practices outlined in these guidelines.  The Electronic Media Manager will work with units to help bring their pages into compliance. Please feel free to contact the Electronic Media Manager with any questions or concerns at webmaster@bcc.cuny.edu.

Procedures

At the beginning of each fall semester, the department head of each unit with website pages is responsible for identifying two individuals to manage their respective sections. Those names should be passed on to the electronic media manager.

New content contributors must attend mandatory training sessions. The training is required before content contributors begin working on College web pages. In addition to learning the basics of WordPress, BCC’s content management system, content contributors will receive information during training about the support process and best practices for content writing and accessibility.

All College departments/divisions are required to use WordPress to maintain the content of their respective sections.

All content must adhere to BCC’s web and editorial guidelines. The electronic media manager has full access to all areas of all of the College’s digital properties, and has broad authority to oversee, edit and remove content that does not comply with these policies.

The official BCC branding is the only visual identity system you may use for your site. You cannot alter the existing BCC logos and branding, and in no cases, may you create your own.

Your WordPress account is for your use only. Under no circumstances should you share your ID or password. The electronic media manager will perform periodic audits of all content contributors’ activity to ensure that the site is being updated on a consistent basis. If the account is inactive for an extended period of time, the electronic media manager will attempt to assist, re-train the existing content contributor. If the issue continues the department head will be asked to assign a new content contributor.

Copyright violation is a serious offense that comes with strict penalties for which the College itself could be held liable. It is your responsibility to ensure that all of your content, including text, images, video and music, complies with all copyright laws. Any content on the BCC website that infringes on copyright will immediately be removed. We ask all members of the College community to inform us of violations.

Careful consideration should be taken when linking to external sites from the Colleges Website. While we are not responsible for content that is not under the bcc.cuny.edu domain, it is important that we don’t give a bad impression by association.

The college uses Google Analytics to measure traffic to the BCC website and other metrics. All departments may access this data for their site. To request a report or assistance tracking specific campaigns, links or pages, email the electronic media manager at webmaster@bcc.cuny.edu.