WebPublish

Terms of Service

• Participant Responsibilities
• ITServices Support
• Marketing and Communications Support
• Third-Party Developers
• Service Availability

Participant Responsibilities

Includes:

• Appointing a site administrator. A full-time permanent person must be responsible for the publication's site administrator duties
• Granting access to content contributors and managing access control (adding/deleting users and designating access control)
• Submitting WebPublish issues to the WebPublish mailing list (WebPublish-L@lists.queensu.ca)
• Managing version control on a publication level
• Providing feedback to the WebPublish project team
• Attending user community meetings (three meetings per year)
• Providing or securing web developer services where customization of the Generic publication is desired

Technical Skillset Requirements

For those using the Generic publication the following is an overview of the skills that may be useful for a site administrator to possess:

• An understanding of basic website design
• General knowledge of W3C recommendations as outlined in Queen's Web Standards and Accessibility Guide
• Experience with web publishing and/or content management systems
• Experience with RSS and tagging concepts

If the participants choose to customize their publication, the following is an overview of the additional skills required to successfully build and administer the publication:

• Strong hand coding CSS, XHTML, XML, XSLT
• Knowledge of web development across browsers and platforms
• Experience with Apache Cocoon/Lenya is an asset

Participants must observe ITServices web policies, as well as Queen's Code of Conduct and other relevant policies.

Participants must also maintain the integrity if their publication according to accessibility standards and best practices for the web (see Queen's Web Standards and Accessibility Guide), in keeping with Queen's shared commitment to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and Queen's own Accessibility Plan.

Note: ITServices reserves the right to override or deactivate publications that implement customizations non-conformant with Queen's web standards and Queen's-branded templating.

Violations of any of Queen's policies and procedures within or through a WebPublish publication will be addressed on a case-by-case basis and could result in the temporary or permanent deactivation of the publication.

ITServices Support

Includes:

• Providing the "The Generic Publication", granting access to a designated "Site Administrator", and providing site administrator training
• Providing content contributor training for the generic publication
• Providing documentation for working with the generic publication
• Providing ongoing support for WebPublish users through the IT Support Centre (613-533-6666)
• Responding to global WebPublish issues that affect publications
• Making WebPublish publications available for public access on a Queen's web server
• Monitoring and participating in the WebPublish mailing list (WEBPUBLISH-L@LISTS.QUEENSU.CA)
• Further developing the WebPublish Generic publication: evaluating and working out application bugs and developing new features
• Housing and maintaining the WebPublish server
• Backing up WebPublish files (system accounts) and restore the data in the event of a catastrophic failure
• Providing emergency service for server level failures during business hours.

Emergency repair includes:

• Coarse level diagnosis of problem to determine cause
• Rebooting server, clearing temporary files, etc. to resolve resource shortage or deadlock
• Substituting locally available spare parts
• Correcting minor configuration errors if applicable
• Arranging repairs with hardware suppliers for next business day

NOTE: Account set-up, training, and further development will be scheduled as resources allow.

Marketing and Communications Support

Includes:

• Consulting with site administrator on initial site set up issues (i.e. uploading choice of generic banner with publication title, selecting tabs colour for publication)
• Consulting on site strategy and user-centered design issues
• Developing (with Creative Services Group) customized graphics (involves cost-recovery fee for services)
• Developing custom elements/features (may involve fee for services)
• Further developing the WebPublish Generic publication: evaluating and working out application bugs and developing new features

Third-Party Developers

Participants choosing to contract with third-party developers should ensure there is a written contract between them and the developer and that the terms of the contract are clearly stated, including:

• The contract's length
• Full outline of expectations
• Knowledge transfer and sign off procedure at completion of the contract including who "owns" the code created
• A documented maintenance strategy including who is responsible for content integrity
• The password must be changed at the end of the contract period in order to protect the integrity of the site, unless other provisions have been worked out between the parties
• The consultants must be made aware of all relevant policy documents at Queen's in addition to the contract

Third-Party Developers must observe ITServices web policies and other relevant policies.

Third-Party Developers must also maintain the integrity of WebPublish publications according to accessibility standards and best practices for the web (see Queen's Web Standards and Accessibility Guide), in keeping with Queen's shared commitment to the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and Queen's own Accessibility Plan.

Note: ITServices reserves the right to override or deactivate publications that implement customizations non-conformant with Queen's web standards and Queen's-branded templating.

Violations of any of Queen's policies and procedures within or through a WebPublish publication will be addressed on a case-by-case basis and could result in the temporary or permanent deactivation of the publication.

Service Availability

The targeted availability of the WebPublish service is twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but end users should expect occasional but infrequent service interruptions or slowdowns, both planned and unplanned. Where it is necessary to schedule system maintenance that necessitates a service outage, ITServices will attempt, wherever possible, to do this outside of daytime business hours (Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm) and will provide appropriate notice.

Emergency Response

ITServices response to critical situations such as server not responding, security compromise, hardware failure, disk full, resource shortage will be communicated as follows:

• Email notification to participants through WebPublish-l@lists.queensu.ca identifying the type of emergency and expected resolution time
• System conditions posted at www.queensu.ca/its as a service bulletin

System work such as patch and version controls will follow the process defined for Non-Emergency Enhancements.

Non-Emergency Enhancements

Refinements to the system shall be limited to those necessary to ensure the integrity of the system.

Additional functionality/features will be considered as time and resources permit.

Enhancements and change requests can be submitted to the WebPublish project team through WebPublish-l@lists.queensu.ca; these will be logged by ITServices and prioritized by the WebPublish developer team.

Necessary enhancements and changes that require a service outage of less than one (1) hour to implement will be scheduled on weekday mornings (Monday through Thursday) between 08:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.

Where enhancements and changes require a service outage of one hour or more to implement, participants will be notified by email at least one (1) business day in advance of the planned outage. In the event that service outages are required for the further development of a WebPublish publication, a mutually agreeable testing and outage strategy will be defined.

For additional information regarding web services and policies visit http://www.queensu.ca/its/webresources.html.