Institute of Technology/College of Science and Engineering

Institute of Technology/College of Science and Engineering

Website Branding

What is the purpose?

In a college-wide effort to unify the websites of the Institute of Technology (soon to be the College of Science and Engineering), including centers, departments, labs and consortiums, the Dean is requiring all units of the college to use standardized Web headers and footers provided by the college Communications Office. These headers and footers will provide consistency for website visitors and provide a common denominator for resources available within the college through consistent global links. The new elements will also ensure compliance with the University’s new branding policy.

Because the college will soon have a name change accompanied by new branding requirements, the Dean’s Office will host the files associated with the required elements allowing the college Communications Office to change them as needed. By providing the departments/centers with these elements more than four months before the required change, it allows the units more time for implementation. This process will also ensure that the college Communications Office can keep the headers/footers updated as necessary specifically for the purpose of the name change and will ensure continued consistency of the new college branding to all department and center pages.

What will the headers and footers look like?

The new header will be based on the new University templates supplemented with a simple banner underneath that initially contains the Institute of Technology wordmark. When the college name changes to College of Science and Engineering, the header will also change to reflect that and will include a set of global links that will be consistent across the entire college. The JavaScript included provides us with an option to change the links as desired, which would in turn allow us to ensure consistency as things change within the college. The footer will be the same as the university templates.

IT Header DRAFT

COSE Header DRAFT

Footer DRAFT

How will this be implemented?

Since the new college templates will be based on the university templates, they will contain much of the same code used in the university’s header and footer elements plus the college sub header. In addition to the university template files they will include two CSS and two JavaScript files which will be hosted on the College of Science and Engineering website.

Implementation is relatively simple especially if previous university standards have been implemented. Departments are to first copy the assets (images, CSS, and JavaScript) to their servers, these are for the university branding. Then, in the HTML of their websites, add the CSS and JavaScript links to the “head” element of their web pages and replace their current university header with the new version and do the same with the footer on each of the pages within the website.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will this affect my website load times?

No. In fact, many popular scripts are hosted in a similar fashion (i.e Google Analytics, FeedBurner, Most JavaScript based wigets)

How will it affect my current website?

The CSS and Javascript will not affect your current site. The only thing that will change is the addition of the header at the top of your sites.

Is it accessible?

Yes, the HTML, CSS, and Javascript are all W3C Compliant and completely accessible.

Is it compatible with all major web browsers?

Yes, we have tested and ensured compatiblility with IE 6 – 8, Firefox 2-3 Windows and Mac, Safari 3-4, and Google Chrome Windows and Mac.

University of Minnesota Institute of Technology Communications Office

Feb. 25, 2010