Your Responsibilities as a Web Site Owner

Part of building a Web site is understanding your responsibility as the owner of that site. This is especially important when your page is going to reside on a University of Alabama server. The University computer network, equipment, and resources are owned by the University and are provided primarily to support the academic and administrative functions of the University. The use of these resources is governed by federal and state law and University policies.

There are some activities that are not allowed on bama.ua.edu or most other University servers. These include, but are not limited to:

  • Commercial sites of any kind
  • Anything for personal gain, such as advertisements
  • Anything that provides information about bama.ua.edu users to others (such as listing users that are logged on, programs running on bama, etc.)
  • Anything that is considered to be providing computing resources to outside users, like chat or irc facilities

You should read the terms of use for computer accounts before beginning your Web site.

Also, users should note the following from The University's Web Policy:"To the average person applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of any Web site shall not appeal to prurient interest."

All sites on University servers must display the appropriate disclaimer. For personal, nonofficial sites, use the disclaimer from the University's Web Policy:

The views, opinions, and conclusions expressed in this page are those of the author or organization and not necessarily those of The University of Alabama or its officers and trustees. The content of this page has not been reviewed or approved by The University of Alabama, and the author or organization is solely responsible for its content.

For official (i.e. departmental) sites, link to http://www.ua.edu/disclaimer.html or use the following disclaimer:

Although the authors of this Web site have made every reasonable effort to be factually accurate, no responsibility is assumed for editorial or clerical errors or error occasioned by honest mistake. All information contained on this Web site is subject to change by the appropriate officials of The University of Alabama without prior notice. Material on this Web site does not serve as a contract between The University of Alabama and any other party.

Developers of official Web sites should also be aware of the University's Web standards and recommendations. Information can be obtained at http://webguide.ua.edu/.

All Web site developers should be aware of the importance of copyright. All creative work is copyrighted as soon as it is put into tangible form, regardless of whether it displays a notice or not. If you do not have permission from the copyright holder, do not put copyrighted material on your Web site. Do not assume that something is in the public domain simply because you see it on someone else's site. If you are not sure, don't use it! Faculty members using copyrighted material under Fair Use guidelines should password protect that material. Please see the Password Protecting Web Directories FAQ for more information and a link to the Web form for setting this up.

For more information about the University's policies regarding Web sites, please see the following: