Lafayette WordPress accounts, used to create and maintain Web sites using the WordPress MU content management system, are available to all Lafayette College students and employees. Accounts must be used in accordance with the college's Acceptable Use Policy, and ITS reserves the right to limit the use of technologies that might compromise the security and integrity of the college's IT resources. In particular, any mechanism that sends email must be registered with and approved by ITS.

Web sites can be requested for:

• Departments/Offices
• College committees
• Student organizations
• Personal sites
• Events
• Courses/Class projects

Requests for WordPress accounts should be made using the Web Site Request form. The individual designated as the site administrator will be contacted within 3 work days with information about the account.

Web site types

How a site is designed and developed, its URL, and how it will be linked to from the College Web site depend on the site's function.

• Departments/Offices: Sites for academic departments and programs and administrative offices will be provided with a WordPress theme that conveys the site’s official institutional affiliation. The sites will have Lafayette subdomain Web addresses (e.g., engineering.lafayette.edu, govlaw.lafayette.edu). For more information, visit depts.lafayette.edu.
• Student organizations/College committees: Sites for student organizations and college committees are expected to represent the organization as a whole. Although pages on the site may be developed by any member(s) of the organization, the organization president or committee chair will be responsible for all content. These sites will reside on sites.lafayette.edu and will have addresses that identify the organization or committee (e.g., sites.lafayette.edu/asb, sites.lafayette.edu/squash).
• Personal pages: Sites that represent a student's or employee's personal and academic interests are the creative expressions of the authors. These sites will reside on sites.lafayette.edu and will have addresses that include the Lafayette Network ID (e.g., sites.lafayette.edu/bentleyc, sites.lafayette.edu/okeefej).
• Events: Sites can be requested for one-time or recurring events. These sites will reside on sites.lafayette.edu and will have addresses that identify the event (e.g., sites.lafayette.edu/stemconference2009).
• Courses/class projects: Faculty can request WordPress sites for courses and/or projects. An entire class, groups, or individuals can be given access to a site's maintenance tools. These sites will reside on sites.lafayette.edu and will have addresses that identify the course (e.g., sites.lafayette.edu/eng240-fa09).

Developing your site

While ITS staff cannot author or maintain your Web sites, the department provides resources to help you develop and maintain your site.

• Training: Workshops on WordPress are offered throughout the year. One-on-one training is also available by contacting a member of the Instructional Technology staff.
• Online Help: A growing collection of help documents on how to get the most out of (and into) your WordPress site is available at its.lafayette.edu/help/wordpress.
• Software: Applications for developing multimedia content to include in your WordPress site are available on most college-owned computers. WordPress site maintenance does not require any special software — all content management is done in a standard Web browser.

The Communications Division provides assistance with content development and editing to departments and offices as time permits; complete the Additional Services Request Form. Faculty requesting sites for courses and class projects will be contacted by an Instructional Technologist who can provide site development assistance.

Getting your site live and linked to from the college Web site

When your WordPress site has been tested and published and is ready for public access, complete the appropriate Web site promotion request form:

• For Student Organizations
• For Academic and Administrative Departments

Staff in the Communications Division (for academic and administrative department sites) or the Office of Student Life (for student organization sites) will link to your new site from the appropriate pages on the college Website. If your site is replacing an existing site on ww2.lafayette.edu, ITS will put redirects in place so visitors using your ww2 address will be automatically forwarded to your new site.

As soon as your WordPress site is ready for public access, you should contact the administrators of sites that you know link to your site so they can change their links before the ww2 redirects expire (December 2010).

Be a responsible Web author

The contents of your Web site help represent Lafayette to the world. Accounts must be used in accordance with the college's Computing and Networks Acceptable Use Policy and any other applicable college policies. Site administrators are responsible for keeping site content current and removing content from the server when it's no longer needed.