GUIDELINES FOR DESIGN AND CONTENT WITHIN THE MMM WEB SITE

The Computing Advisory Committee, CAC, is charged with establishing the guidelines for Web Content within the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology (MMM) Division. The following are the proposed guidelines.

Web Page Design:

The design of Web pages should be consistent throughout the MMM Web site and should include the following: Templates are available to help users when creating new Web pages.

Photographs (including animation sequences):

One must obtain permission to use photographs not owned by UCAR or the individual. Photographic credits should be included in the Web posting.

Data, Data Products, and Software:

Permission should be obtained before posting any data or other products such as radar and satellite images. The posting should credit the source of such data and products.

Non-commercial (free) software should not be redistributed unless permission is given by the originating source. UCAR policy explicitly prohibits the redistribution of any commercial (purchased) software. Permission should be obtained before posting any data or other products such as radar and satellite images. The posting should credit the source of such data and products.

Links to commercial websites:

The following disclaimer is required: "Any links on the personal pages of the MMM staff does not imply an endorsement by UCAR."

Site Maintenance:

Web files should be owned by someone currently in MMM. Automated tools for checking problems and errors within Web documents should send e-mail to the person who owns the file and to the MMM Systems Group. Ownership and maintenance of pages previously owned and maintained by an individual who has left NCAR must be transferred to a current employee or such pages will be removed.

Files in the MMM Web site:

Files under "/web/htdocs" on Box, should all be directly related to the Web documents made available by our Web server. The site must not be used for storage or for files used to create Web content such as tar files or NCAR Graphics metacode. Such files should be removed as soon as possible.

Active Web content:

MMM's Web server supports a number of facilities that employ some form of active Web content. All of these systems provide new, useful, interactive services, but may pose security problems. CGI scripts, Java Servlets, and other technologies which provide active Web content must be reviewed and installed by Systems staff. This is required by UCAR's Network Security Policies. Individuals within the division who want to run small local Web servers to facilitate tasks, need to get approval from their supervisor and the Computing Advisory Committee which includes the Systems Management Group.

Individual Web Page Guidelines:

The following disclaimers are to be included: The contents of individual Web pages should relate to the individual's work at UCAR. In addition, individual pages should include appropriate header information such as: