Requirements for London Met websites

This document sets out the minimum requirements for any London Metropolitan University website. For the purposes of this document, a 'London Metropolitan University website' is considered to be any website which displays the university logo, regardless of whether or not its domain name includes 'londonmet.ac.uk'. Consequently, the presence of the university logo, used in accordance with guidelines issued by Marketing, Communications and Alumni Relations, should be taken as an implicit requirement. The logo should function as a link to the home page of the university's website, www.londonmet.ac.uk.

1. Setting up the website and domain name registration
The web team must be notified that a website is being set up. For websites whose domain names are registered externally, it is important that (a) the contact email address for the registered site owner should be given as webteam@londonmet.ac.uk, and (b) the contact address for the registered site owner should be that of a university building. Observing these conventions will ensure a continuity in service provision in the event of staff leaving university employment.

2. Company information
A link to the university's 'Company Information' is a legal requirement and therefore must appear on all pages in the website. This will normally be at the bottom of the page, and should link to: www.londonmet.ac.uk/staff/finance/topics/companies/home.cfm

3. Copyright notice
A copyright notice, with the current year, should appear at the bottom of each page, eg:
© 2011 London Metropolitan University

4. Privacy statement
If the website contains any means of collecting personal data from visitors (via online forms, for example) then the website should carry a link to the University's Data Protection pages (www.londonmet.ac.uk/data-protection/) stating that all data is handled in accordance with the Act and the University’s registration with the Information Commissioner.

5. Terms and conditions of use
Each page should carry a link to:
www.londonmet.ac.uk/help/terms-and-conditions.cfm
or to a page containing the same information relating to (a) copyright , (b) privacy and (c) the same disclaimer notice.

6. Contact information
Some mechanism must be provided to allow website visitors to contact the person or persons responsible for maintaining the website. As a minimum, a current, valid London Met email address should be provided.

7. Technical specifications
External contractors employed to produce web page templates must conform to the following minimum standards:

XHTML 1.0 Transitional (which must validate at http://validator.w3.org/)
CSS 1 (which must validate at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/) CSS styles should anticipate and enable the consistent display of commonly occurring HTML elements
WCAG 1.0 Double-A (i.e. Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints defined in WAI guidelines at http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/checkpoint-list.html) These can be checked at (for example) http://wave.webaim.org/index.jsp, http://www.totalvalidator.com/validator/ValidatorForm, or http://www.tawdis.net/taw3/cms/en
Relative sizes should be used in preference to absolute sizes for fonts. Similarly, relative rather than absolute positioning should be used for page display elements.
Within a template, areas of fixed content (which are consistent in all pages which use the template) should be clearly identified with commented labels to distinguish them from areas of user-editable content.
We would expect pages to render consistently in the current popular browsers (Firefox/Mozilla, IE6 and later, Opera, Safari) on both Windows and Mac (where applicable) and 'gracefully' degrade on older browsers. There is no need to consider Netscape 4.7.
A non-displaying link to the main page content should be provided for screen readers, allowing users to skip over navigation menus.
An alternative 'print' style sheet must be provided to enable pages to print clearly and legibly in A4 portrait format.
Any supplied graphics should be optimized for web use, ideally GIF/JPEG/PNG format and with 72pix/inch resolution.

8. Google Analytics
Although not obligatory, the use of Google Analytics is strongly recommended for generating statistics on website use. The web team will be able to provide the appropriate Javascript code for page templates. If Google Analytics are used, each page should carry a link to a Help page which explains how Google Analytics are being used, and what data is being collected from visitors.

Web Team
May 2009

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London Metropolitan University Websites : Requirements