The following technical guidelines augment the Office of Web & Electronic Communications’ standards for websites. Consult the Office of Web & Electronic Communications (webmaster@rwu.edu) for assistance with site organization,  navigational techniques, usability and accessibility issues.

Subdirectories

When webspace is created, the Office of Web & Electronic Communications will work with your university unit to establish a web address. Once that official location is created you are free to create subdirectories as you see fit. When creating sub-directories and thereby determining the format of URLs, however, consider the following good practices:

• Use the official and complete name of your unit/department/division/school to avoid confusion. (e.g. Good: SCHOOL.RWU.EDU/BUSINESS vs. Bad: SCHOOL.RWU.EDU/BIZ)
  
  
• Use only lowercase characters: e.g. /florida/ not /Florida/. Some Web server software is sensitive to case in URLs, so consistency will assist the user to navigate across the multi-server University Web.
  
  
• Avoid underscore characters in favor of minus or hyphen for word breaks: e.g. /wildcat-soccer/ not /wildcat_soccer/. Your visitors could be confused about whether the underscore is a character or denotes a space. The underscore may also be difficult to  find on the keyboard. Because web browsers display links as underlined, the underscore character may be obscured should the user make a note of the URL.
  
  
• Avoid both very long names, and short, cryptic names. Acronyms should only be used if part of the entity's brand identity or are necessary due to the length of the name. (e.g. Good: www.rwu.edu/aero-design vs. Bad:  www.rwu.edu/ad (too cryptic) or          www.rwu.edu/aeronautical-design-program (too long)

E-mail Addresses on Web Pages

• Obtain a departmental e-mail address from RWU and use it on all webpages.
  
  
• E-mail addresses should always be listed with the alias form of something@rwu.edu, not as a specific host e-mail account address. 
  
  
• Do not use personal e-mail addresses on webpages as contacts for the business of your department. If that person leaves the University, automatic processes remove the account and your webpage will become invalid.