The Boise School District's web site affords staff
and students the opportunity to publish educational
information.
This document is intended to acquaint authors with
the procedures governing material published on, or
associated with, the Boise School District's web
site. It is to be understood that all sections are
District rules and will be adhered to by anyone contributing
to the District's web site. While we are aware
that this document is lengthy, it is the responsibility
of the author to comply with these procedures.
Larry Richter, a District elementary teacher,
has written a "student
friendly" guide
to Copyright and Fair Use. Addressing both
Internet and non-Internet copyright concerns, this
document
will be helpful to teachers as they instruct students
in adhering to Fair Use Guidelines.
Provide patrons a resource for obtaining
information about the District.
Provide teachers a forum for enhanced teaching
and for informing patrons about classroom
activities and policies.
Provide students a place to demonstrate
what they have learned.
General statements
Student and teacher web pages will meet
the above goals.
Web publishing is an opportunity to demonstrate
technical and graphic arts skills. These
skills should be used to support and enhance
information, not to overpower that information.
All pages must be content oriented.
Every web site will start with a plan that
evaluates the real needs of students, teachers,
schools and patrons. Evaluation is to be
followed by a careful design stage, then
the construction of the site.
District pages will be updated and maintained
as needed to evolve and stay current.
You may not be compensated for advertising
another site or a product on your web site.
You may not run a business from the District's
web site.
You may not create a link to an external
site (commercial and/or personal) unless
that site clearly supports the educational
content of the school's site.
A link to a school's Partner In Education
business web site is permissible. The
link must be clearly labeled as a "Partner
in Education".
Fund Raising
Links and promotional logos associated
with short term fund raising projects that
directly benefit your school may be placed
temporarily on your site, but may NOT be
displayed prominently on your home page.
A text link to the material from your home
page is the only acceptable alteration of
the home page.
References to the fund raising project
must be removed from your site immediately
at the conclusion of the campaign.
The front page of each school's site will be
uniform in layout and may not be altered by individual
users without permission from the Technology
Administrator or Webmaster.
Designated webmasters at each school will be
faculty or staff members.
Students should not be given rights to upload
files to District servers.
Building principals, building technical coordinators
and program administrators are responsible for
being knowledgeable about the content of their
building/program web pages.
Any deliberate tampering with or misuse of
District web pages will be considered vandalism
and will be handled in accordance with the District's Network
Acceptable Use Procedures.
All web pages on the District's server(s) are
the property of the Boise School District.
Students may create and publish web pages to
be hosted on the District's server for educational
purposes directly related to a course that the
student is currently enrolled in. It is the responsibility
of the instructor to ensure that student web
sites are in total compliance with District rules
and procedures before the material is published.
Student web pages will be deleted when the student
completes the course.
Only active files that are required for the
proper operation of a web site will be stored
on the District's server. It is the responsibility
of the page's author to maintain and/or delete
files.
Staff web pages will be deleted when the
staff member leaves the District.
Out of date files will be removed from
the server.
Staff web pages will be moved when the staff
member changes locations due to an assignment
change.
Staff sites hosted by third-party portal companies
or other commercial educational services must
be approved by the District's Technology Administrator
or Webmaster.
Personal pages of students and/or staff hosted
on non-District servers will not be linked from
the District's site.
Staff authored educational sites hosted
on non-District servers may be linked from
the District's site and will conform to all
District rules and procedures. Prior approval
of the Webmaster is required. Sites that
do not conform to District procedures will
have their links from the District removed.
The District's Technology Administrator or
Webmaster will have the authority to remove any
content deemed inappropriate.
The District's Technology Administrator will
have final authority for issues related to the
content of all pages on the District's web site.
Remember that sites are accessible to anyone
and that the safety of students, colleagues,
and their families is of paramount concern.
Information relating to emergency responses,
including but not limited to facility maps, floor
plans or emergency procedures will not be posted
in non-secure areas of the website.
According to the Federal Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), "directory
information" about students may be released
by the district without parental consent, provided
annual notification has been given and the school
does not have on file written denial to release "directory
information".
Directory information is defined as information
contained in an education record of a student
which would not generally be considered harmful
or an invasion of privacy if disclosed. A
copy of the FERPA policy is available online
at http://www.boiseschools.org/board/policy/ by
clicking on 3000 Students and going to Policy
#3600 Student Records and Release of Student
Directory Information. It includes, but is
not limited to:
The student’s name
Photographs of the student used by
the district for recognition of student
achievement and community relations,
including, but not limited to, publication
in the district’s or school’s
newsletters or publications, in the school
setting and on the district’s or
school’s website
Participation in officially recognized
activities such as sports
It is the responsibility of the author
of a page to ascertain whether a student's
parent or guardian has notified the District
that information identified as "directory
information" is not to be released.
Each building principal has the names of
students in their building whose information
will not be released or published. The entire
District list is on file with the Clerk of
the Board, the District's Public Information
Administrator and the District's webmaster.
Authors will exercise discretion in making
judgments concerning publication of student information
and take reasonable precautions to insure security
and privacy.
A staff member's name, assignment, District
e-mail address, District phone number and photo
may be published. Staff members have the right
to request that their photographs not be published.
Inclusion of a student's phone number, address,
e-mail address, or information indicating the
physical location of a student at a given time,
other than attendance at a particular school
or participation in a District sponsored activity,
is prohibited.
If grades or other personal student information
are to be published for parental access complete
confidentiality must be built into the process.
Copyright protection extends to the Internet.
Treat all online materials (such as web site contents,
e-mails, newsgroups postings) as you would other
copyrighted material. No unlawful copies of copyrighted
materials may be knowingly produced on or transmitted
via the District's equipment, including its web
servers.
Student work (art, short stories, projects, etc.)
may be published only with permission of the student
and parent or guardian. A release form is available
from the District
forms page. Work that is part of a previously
published document (i.e.: newsletter or school
newspaper) may be included on the web site without
specific permission if the entire document is being
published.
Students and staff will adhere to all copyright
laws.
While "fair use" permits some distribution
of material within a classroom, the courts
have stated that online publishing is a public
performance. Therefore, "fair use" copyright
laws do not allow distribution of material
on a web site without permission from the author.
In some cases it is permissible to download
material from the Internet for use in student
projects. However, it is illegal to re-post
that material online without permission from
the original author.
Be sure to retain all correspondence (e-mails
or hard copy) pertaining to permission requests.
For further clarification of copyright issues
please refer to the following resources:
Copyright
Condensed (Heartland AEA 11) A Quick
Reference to Copyright - reproducible for
educational use
It is not necessary for a work to have a copyright
notice or to be registered to receive copyright
protection, however reminding a visitor of your
rights as an author by including a copyright notice
as a footer on every page is recommended.
Example:
All subject matter will relate to District
general information, curriculum and instruction,
school sponsored activities or other District
authorized concerns.
Staff or student work may be published
only if it pertains to school-related activities.
Web pages may not contain objectionable, offensive,
confidential or proprietary material or link
to such material.
Preparation of all Web materials will be created
off-line. "Under construction" pages
will not be published on the District's site.
Pages may not contain links to other pages that
are not yet completed.
All published materials will be free from spelling
and grammatical errors.
Every page will be given a title that clearly
identify the content.
Every page will have navigation links that
direct the visitor to appropriate pages on the
web site.
Every page will have appropriate contact information,
i.e.: e-mail links, District phone numbers and/or
addresses.
As a protection against spam harvesting, District
GroupWise email addresses will not be used on
pages as mailto links or in text format. For
work around suggestions, please see http://www.boiseschools.org/webguide/spam.html
All pages will be tested immediately after
posting to insure functionality of links and
correct loading of all files.
Links to external sites will be checked regularly
(at least once every 3 months) to insure that
those links are still active and relevant.
Pages that require updating will be maintained
in a timely manner.
Due to limited storage space and in consideration
of the visitor file size is to be kept as small
as possible.
In each directory the District's server is
configured to find a default home page named
either index.html or index.htm.
Please use one of these file names for your home
page.
Additional consistency standards will be developed
as the need arises.
