Third-Party Website Hosting Policy

Purpose

This policy sets out guidelines for use and is not comprehensive. College staff will use their best judgement when evaluating whether or not a site violates the letter and spirit of this policy.

The primary goal of providing hosting is to support pedagogical and research-based endeavors. This includes class projects that utilize web tools or include the creation of web-based resources, faculty research pages, student projects, research lab websites, and other academically-focused endeavors. 

• Hosted sites should not be used to replicate or replace the functions of the academic and administrative department sites on macalester.edu.
• Personal websites may be created, but there should not be an expectation of college staff support for personal websites. 
• Macalester web hosting may not be used for accepting online payments.

Expectation of Support

• Macalester College makes no guarantee of continued support for website hosting.
• Priority for support will be focused on academic endeavors, including class projects, faculty research projects, and student projects.
• The project initiator/owner is responsible for overseeing the regular maintenance of websites (including system updates) and monitoring the site for issues.
• Community members should consult with ITS, Library, or Communications and Marketing staff to determine support needs for any project.
• A memorandum of understanding outlining support responsibilities and expectations may be created for scholarly publishing projects supported by the Library and larger academic projects. 

Responsibility for Content and Responsible Use

• The project initiator/owner of each site is responsible for both the creation of and updates to the content of that site, including obtaining rights for the use of any media used therein.
• Site ownership may be transferred to another Macalester community member after site creation, with agreement of both parties.
• Site content should remain up to date. We will reach out to site owners annually to ensure that content is up to date and that the site should remain live.
• All sites and projects that utilize ITS-provided hosting must adhere to the Information Technology Responsible Use Policy. Material that does not adhere to the Responsible Use Policy will be removed with notice to the responsible party.

Migration/Removal of Content

• When a site owner leaves the college, the user is responsible for migrating content.
• Macalester College staff makes no guarantee of continued support when a site owner leaves the college.
• Projects should be sunsetted or migrated from Macalester’s hosting within a year of the owner’s departure.
• Projects that are not migrated will be deleted when the site-owner’s Macalester account is deleted.

Domain Names (URL)

• Hosted sites will be created within the sites.macalester.edu subdomain. For example: sites.macalester.edu/myresearchproject.
• Site names can be selected by site creators. Macalester retains the right to reject a selected name.
• Upon request, an individual site can use a domain name purchased by the site creator.