Governance

If you have questions about web policy, you can find the answer here.

Our Structure

The university website is managed jointly by teams from the Offices of Information Technology (IT) and University Marketing and Communications (UM&C).

As the primary owner of web publishing at University of Mississippi, UM&C is responsible for training, documentation, and fostering opportunities for peer support via the web management team, with the goal of fostering a community, establishing standards, and creating resources to support authors when the UM&C team cannot. As administrators of the university’s networking systems, IT is responsible for website application development and the technical management of the university’s content management system (CMS) that hosts the website.

For web publishing, every aspect of the institution must be represented by a content editor or Content Publisher who is accountable to the UM&C team via established standardized workflows, processes, and protocols, though this structure can account for varied needs across different units. In the instances where UM&C owns publishing for a given section or content type (referred to as “authoritative content”) and works with units as subject-matter experts, the units must work in a timely and collaborative fashion to ensure content remains current.

Similarly, units that have control over their content and publishing are expected to create, maintain, and publish content that is current, accurate, relevant, and appropriate. Failure to comply will result in consequences to be determined by UM&C and/or the Web Governance Council.

 

User Roles and Governing Bodies

Our model is contingent upon each person in the community doing their part to support the overall mission: creating great content. Get to know each type of user role.

Made up of faculty, staff, and administrators, this group guides the overarching strategy for the website, establishes and reinforces high-level priorities and processes for content development, and ensures the website receives the resources and support it needs to remain successful.

Led by the Web Editor-in-Chief, this team defines and implements the overarching strategy for the website and oversees all day-to-day content approval and publishing. This group of individuals in University Marketing & Communications is responsible for the maintenance of authoritative content.

This is a small group of users across campus who are trained and empowered to manage areas of the website to which they are assigned ownership, which is defined and enforced by the Web Content Management team. Publishers are empowered to independently publish content live to the website, without review by the Web Content Management Team. Some Publishers may review and publish content created by Content Editors.

A group of users across campus who are trained and empowered to update areas of the website to which they are assigned ownership, which is defined and enforced by the Web Content Management team. Content Editors are responsible for writing and editing content subject to review by the Web Content Management Team and respective Content Publishers.

Subject matter experts and relevant domain stakeholders who do not have any access to the CMS, but may have information to share or updates to request. They may work in partnership with the Content Editors and Publishers in their units to provide relevant information. If the unit does not have any Content Editors or Publishers, then the Web Content Management Team plays an operational role, building and updating their web content on their behalf.

Our shared community of web content experts. The Web Content Management Team will bring this group together to share knowledge, enable peer support, and gain deeper awareness of school priorities and overall digital strategy, process, and guidelines.