Website Update Guidelines
Website Update Guidelines
One of the services provided by Marketing & Communications at WPI is the updating of pages on the WPI website. We have developed the following guidelines to assist in sending in any website change requests you may have. Your adherence to these guidelines will assist us greatly in making your requested changes as quickly and accurately as possible.
For additional information, please visit our FAQ page.
Please note:Content Management System/RedDot
If your site has been converted to the Content Management System (CMS), also known as RedDot, you should have access to make any changes yourself. If you are having trouble making changes in the CMS please e-mail webmaster@wpi.edu and include "CMS" or "RedDot" in the subject. The body of your e-mail should describe the problem you are having in detail. This will ensure that your request is sent to the appropriate staff.
View a list of all sites currently in CMS
If your site has not yet been converted into the CMS, and you require changes to your site, please follow the guidelines below as closely as possible to ensure your changes are made accurately and in a timely manner.
General Information
Our staff, who may be working on your change request, consists of full-time WPI employees, and student web developers. While our staff generally remains consistent, our student developers may change from term to term. Please bear in mind when sending changes, that although the changes seem obvious to you, it may be something that our developers have not worked on previously. Therefore, it is important not to assume all of our developers have worked on your site and know its intricacies. Often times, this is not the case.
- General Website Change Request Guidelines
- Web Writing Guidelines
- Small Copy Changes (Edits)
- Large Copy Changes and New Pages
- Photos
- Presentations
- PDFs
General Website Change Request Guidelines
- Timing
- Due to the amount of requests we receive, Website changes generally take between 5-7 business days to complete after we have received them, this assumes that you have sent all the information that we need and we don’t have to contact you for additional information. Please plan accordingly when sending in your changes. We understand that sometimes urgent things come up and we will certainly do our best to accommodate you, but in general we do need 5-7 business days.
- All website change requests should be sent to the e-mail address webmaster@wpi.edu. This is the fastest way to ensure that your change is seen by the appropriate people in a timely manner. Please do not e-mail your changes directly to an individual in our department. Or if you do, please cc webmaster@wpi.edu.
- The most important thing to include in your change request is the url, the address of the page you need updated. If your request is sent in to webmaster@wpi.edu without the url, the request will be sent back to you. Thus slowing down the process.
- When submitting new copy, please do not use the "hyperlinks" feature of Word to make things links. Instead, just write the text out that you want linked and put the link in parenthesis next to it. We do not use the phrases "click here", "click here to learn more" or "follow this link," as links, so please be sure to word your copy to avoid this language. For example, what should be done is: Contact the Department of Management (link: http://www.mgt.wpi.edu/) for more information.
- Please do not rely on the features of Outlook (font, color, bolding) to indicate changes that need to be made - we use a ticketing system that cannot preserve these characteristics. Instead, attach an MS Word document if you want to use these features.
- Please do not e-mail us HTML files from the server, or ones you have created (including those from FrontPage or Word). We will need to recreate the files from scratch anyway, and that's more work for us. If you're doing things electronically (preferred), e-mail us the Word documents with only the text updates you wish to have completed.
Web Writing Guidelines
- We do not use the phrases "click here", "click here to learn more" or "follow this link," as links, so please be sure to word your copy to avoid this language. For example, what should be done is: Contact the Department of Management (link: http://www.mgt.wpi.edu/) for more information.
- We also do not print URLs (addresses) on pages; for example we don't put "For more information, go to www.wpi.edu" but rather we would use "For more information, visit the WPI Homepage. Observing these practices when you write copy for your site will decrease the time required to make your changes.
Small Copy Changes (Edits)
The most important thing is that you include the URL (address) of the page you are updating.
- E-mail: You can edit your text in MS Word (use track changes for best results, or change your font to RED) and e-mail the file to webmaster@wpi.edu. If it's just a small edit, you can simply e-mail instructions to us, for example "In the second paragraph, change 2003 to 2005." Please do not, however, use "In the second line of the second paragraph..." because copy can wrap vastly differently from computer to computer - instead, just try to be as clear as possible without referencing lines (sentences would be fine, as in "The third sentence of the second paragraph"). Be sure to include the URL in the e-mail message.
- Please bear in mind that our ticketing system will only allow for three (3) attachments per request. If you include more than three attachments they will not make their way to us, and we’ll have no way of knowing that the attachments have been left off.
Large Copy Changes and New Pages
- If you are completely rewriting a page or adding a new page, e-mail the content as a Word file attachment to webmaster@wpi.edu. Do not include photographs in the Word file - if you have particular placement in mind, you may insert photos into the Word file, but we also need the original files (see "Photos", below). Be sure to tell us the URL (address) of the page you are replacing, if applicable, or the URL you want the new page to be linked from, and what text you would like to have serve as the link.
Photos
- Please do not e-mail large photos or large quantities of photos to webmaster@wpi.edu. Instead, please put digital photos on a CD-R and either mail or deliver it to our office. If you want the CD back, please indicate that on the envelope, as well as the department name and your name. Also, include any instructions as to what we should do with the photos. Also, please do not send photos in Word or PowerPoint files - we need the original files in order to put photos on your site.
- Paper/Slides: If you have photos or slides which need to be scanned to go on your site, we prefer scanning them ourselves so that we can get the adequate quality. Be sure to put photos and slides in an envelope clearly marked with any instructions, your name and the department name. We do not recommend you mail photos - they tend to get bent. Instead, have them delivered to our office.
- Captions: The easiest method to use is to number your photos and e-mail us a Word document with the captions (as well as any additional text you might want on the page) clearly labeled. You can also use the filenames of the photos, if they are digital.
Presentations
- In general, when we post PowerPoint presentations online, we do like to include them in PDF, for those users who do not have PowerPoint available to them. If you wish, you can submit presentations in both formats, otherwise we will convert them to PDF for you.
PDFs
- When we create PDFs for use on your site, we do not keep the original files. This means that, if you wish to edit the file after it's been converted, you will need to make the edit to the original file and resend it to us. Editing PDFs is not merely extremely difficult and time consuming, it is often impossible, particularly if you want to preserve the fonts or add an additional line of text or field.
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- Due to the amount of requests we receive, Website changes generally take between 5-7 business days to complete after we have received them, this assumes that you have sent all the information that we need and we don’t have to contact you for additional information. Please plan accordingly when sending in your changes. We understand that sometimes urgent things come up and we will certainly do our best to accommodate you, but in general we do need 5-7 business days.