Terms of Service

Terms of use

By visiting the University of Melbourne’s WordPress Service and accessing the information, services, products and tools we provide, either directly or indirectly, you agree to their use only for the purposes intended as permitted by (a) the Operating Guidelines below, (b) the University of Melbourne’s Social Media Terms of Use, and (c) all applicable laws, policies and generally accepted online practices or guidelines followed by the University of Melbourne.

Operating Guidelines

Who can use the service?

This WordPress service is intended for small, simple sites and blogs. Sites can be requested by University of Melbourne Staff.

University of Melbourne Students, and users from outside the University involved in collaborative projects, can be added to roles (Contributor, Author, Editor) on sites. Public users can read, and (if enabled) comment.

These sites can be used for any University related purpose (not personal, profile, or vanity sites), but must adhere to the currency and theme requirements below.

Currency requirements

Sites on the WordPress network must be actively managed and maintained. Failure to do so could lead to the site being archived. An actively managed and maintained site is defined as:

  1. one which has had at least one post or update in the previous six month period.
  2. a site that has at least two university staff members in Administrator, or Editor roles (so if one person is away, another can be contacted). User/owner contact information must be confirmed/updated annually via email when requested by the Digital and Online Channels team.

Breach of currency requirements

If the site is in breach of the requirements outlined above, the Digital and Online Channels team will attempt to contact the listed owner/maintainer of the site to inform them and discuss options.

If the site remains in breach after contact has been made, or after reasonable attempts have been made to contact the owner/maintainer, the site will be archived.

Themes

All sites on the WordPress network must use the approved University theme(s) available in the Administration Dashboard, with the following exceptions:

  1. Themes that have been approved for use for a specific site by the University Brand team
  2. Off-brand, non-unimelb sites (see “Off-brand, non-unimelb domain usage” below)

Theme updates

The current University theme will be updated periodically by the Digital and Online Channels team, in line with the current release of the Digital Design System.

Theme retirement

Sites using legacy themes will be encouraged to migrate to new themes within 12 months of release.

Those wishing to switch to an off-brand, non-unimelb domain site must meet the requirements below.

Plugins and additional functionality

Sites will be restricted to using the Plugins and Widgets available in the CampusPress network.

Alternative unimelb subdomains

The WordPress network allows the use of subdomains other than blogs.unimelb.edu.au (i.e. – site.unimelb.edu.au).

New subdomains must be approved following the standard approvals process.

Off-brand, non-unimelb domain usage

A small number of non-unimelb branded themes are available for use under the following circumstances:

  1. There must be a compelling reason for not using the University’s branded designs and domain i.e. –
    1. a research project site where funding is evenly split between multiple, competing institutions
    2. it is a requirement of funding that the project site not be branded by any institution (ie – outreach websites)
  2. The site uses a non-unimelb domain
    1. The Digital and Online Channels team will assist in registering an off-brand domain if required
    2. Domains must not be identifiable with other partners (ie – site.monash.edu.au)
  3. Non-University staff and students authoring the site must agree to the University’s privacy and IT security policies
  4. These sites will fall under the University’s privacy and IT security policies (ie – we reserve the right to remove posts, users or whole sites if they breach the University usage guidelines)

Contact

For more information about any of the detail in these Operating Guidelines, please contact the Digital and Online Channels team in External Relations.