Quick checklist

Here's a quick checklist so you can easily assess whether your site complies with the VCU web standards & guidelines.

General regulations

  • Your site complies with the VCU copyright policies.
  • You are not using your site to promote commercial activity outside of official university business.
  • If your site contains sexually explicit content, you have a written warning statement, and the content is accessible only through a password mechanism.
  • Sensitive student and health data is protected by secure passwords. Sensitive data that may be requested through forms on your site is transmitted over a secure connection.
  • Your primary domain is hosted at VCU (or has been approved for hosting outside of the university).

Accessibility

  • Your site passes the federal government's Section 508 accessibility guidelines.
  • You provide alternate text or content for all images and interactive media on your site, including transcripts or captions for audio and video.
  • You have checked visual feedback cues to make sure they will make sense to color-blind users.

Design & branding

  • You have both the VCU logotype and VCU bar visible within the initial screen load (above the fold) in a default resolution of 1024 by 768.

Required content

  • Every page on your site has a link back to the site's homepage.
  • Every page should have a signature block with the following:
    • A link to the VCU homepage with "Virginia Commonwealth University" spelled out
    • A link to the parent organization for your department or school (if applicable)
    • Contact information (an email will suffice) for the group responsible for maintaining the site
    • Contact information (address, phone, email) for your organization (This can be placed on a separate contact page that is linked from every page.)
    • The most recent date the site or page was last updated or reviewed
  • You review and update your site annually and notify your visitors by updating the last updated date mentioned above.

Web development

  • If your website takes user input (most often for storing in a database), you have had it scanned for vulnerabilities by the Technology Services Information Security team.
  • If your website or web application requires user authentication, it uses the Central Authentication Service (CAS) to handle logins.

Additional suggestions

The following are not required for your site to be in compliance with the VCU web standards and guidelines. They are suggestions to help improve the experience for your visitors.

  • Test your site in a variety of browsers, operating systems, and at different resolutions and sizes.
  • Test your site with Javascript, Flash, and images disabled.
  • Optimize your site to decrease the time it takes to download.
  • Use high contrast colors in your designs for improved readability.
  • Observe and document actual users interacting with your site. Fix problems where they may occur.
  • Code your site to meet web standards as much as possible.