UTPA Web Policies on Standard and Accessibility

The University of Texas-Pan American is in the process of developing standards for University web designers to follow regarding official web sites concerning standards and accessibility.

UTPA Style Guide

The University of Texas-Pan American is in the process of receiving new university-wide branding which will impact the way the university community perceives UTPA.  This branding will encompass a new mission, vision, values, goals, and a new logo.  After the new logo has been approved, the use of previous versions of the University logo will be not be continued. 

UTPA Handbook of Operating Procedures

The University of Pan American Handbook of Operating Procedures (HOP) section 8.9.2, http://www.utpa.edu/hop/files/pdf/F9165952.pdf, details the computer and information technology use policy.  

Web publishers are responsible for the content of the pages they publish and are expected to abide by the highest standards of quality and responsibility. These responsibilities apply to all publishers, whether they are colleges, departments, student or employee organizations, or individuals. Users must not assume that their information is restricted to the campus community. Faculty, staff, and student users may not use home pages for commercial activity.

UTPA Internet Services Web Site Standards

The Internet Services department is currently working with Yvette Flores, the training coordinator for Project Enhance, to develop a set of web site standards relating to accessibility. We have the following suggestions when creating web sites for UTPA. 

• Alt Text definitions should be defined for images.
• Frames are not to be used on the university sites as they universally handled same across various browsers.
• University web pages are by default set to Arial, Helvetica or Times-Roman fonts. No other fonts are expressly utilized.
• Insure that the website is accessible by Vision Impaired people. This will be done by providing text representations of web pages where images are present and insuring that any image maps have text descriptions as well.
• Insure that any sound bytes, speeches or videos also have a corresponding text representation linked to it to help those who are Hearing Impaired.
• Insure that any new technologies such as FLASH have a corresponding text webpage that can be viewed by those with limiting disabilities.
• Publish documents in the PDF document format.
• Validate web pages with accessibility programs or web site services such as Bobby, etc found on the other tools and links page.

For morel information concerning web publishing standards and policies relevant to the UTPA HOP please visit: http://www.panam.edu/hop/files/pdf/F9165952.pdf. Visiting the UTPA HOP will ensure that your web site strictly adheres to UTPA's standards and policies.

UTPA DMCA Policy

The University of Texas-Pan American DMCA Policy states that UTPA owns, protects and enforces copyright in its own creative materials and respects the copyright properties of others. Upon receipt of proper notice of claimed infringement, UTPA will respond expeditiously to follow the procedures specified in the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) to resolve the claim. Including, where applicable, removing or disabling access to materials claimed to be infringing or by removing or disabling access to links to such material.