Website Content Guidelines

Remember that it is school system practice not to identify a student by name in photos that appear on the web.

• Student Photos/Identification on the web

  • When using photographs of students, be sure to obtain prior written permission from a parent or guardian. Photographs may not identify students by name. (See photo release form.)
   
• E-mail addresses of former students, age 18 and older, may be included upon permission of the former students. E-mail addresses of current students may not be included.  
   
• Effective pages draw in outside visitors. Be sure to ask the members of your school community: “What content are we offering our school community and people outside our community?” and “Do our pages reflect the uniqueness of our community?”
   
• Developers of pages are welcome to use plug-ins such as Shockwave or Flash. Be sure to indicate to users that these plug-ins are required to enjoy your home pages. If you use lesser known plug-ins such as Hyperstudio, you should provide a link to the helper application.

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Graphics

• Page layouts should be simple, clean and attractive. When using graphics, be sure to consider the amount of time required to load graphics.
   
• For speed of loading, try to keep your graphics to a reasonable size. Consider keeping the number of graphics on one page to a minimum and compress graphic files whenever possible.
   
• For graphics larger than the above specifications, consider using a separate thumbnail link and be sure to inform the user of the original size of the graphic.
   
• Whenever possible, it is always best to use original graphics. Graphics and clip art obtained from the Internet must be properly referenced.  Be aware that web pages are subject to current copyright laws.  Copyright guidelines are available from your school media specialist.  In general, graphics should be related to school activities or student projects.
   
• Provide a text alternative  <ALT="description of image"> tag to images for those users who cannot or choose not to use graphics (section 508 specifications)

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Outside Links

While we recognize the interactive nature of the web, we are also aware of the school system's responsibility to provide a reliable, safe learning environment in which students can work. Outside links from school and central office web pages are allowed, based on the following established criteria for selection of outside sites:

• education instructionally based sites (well-known - not run by an individual), 
   
• sites of non-profit partnerships/educational institutions/governmental agencies (i.e. Department of Natural Resources, Johns Hopkins University);
   
• PTA/PTO/PTSO sites as long as the sites do not link to businesses or for profit fundraising companies or contain advertising.  It is the obligation of the public schools not to promote commercialism;
   
• regularly updated sites that provide daily or weekly updated information such as homework assignments, changes in athletic schedules; sports scores for school teams. These sites should have no other outside links.

It is the local school's or office's responsibility to ensure that outside sites to which you are linking do not require permission. If permission is required, it should be in writing.

When using hyperlinks where you are not sure of the changing content, the following approved language can appear when the user clicks on the link:

You are leaving the AACPS website. The link you have just selected is an independently managed World Wide Website and is not affiliated with Anne Arundel County Public Schools. While every effort has been made to evaluate the sites to which we link, we cannot control the content that may appear on these sites or on related links. Please be advised that you are leaving the official Anne Arundel County Public Schools' website and materials found on these associated links are not approved or sanctioned by the school system.

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You can use the following code in your hyperlinks (you do not have to include the language above if you use this code).