Policy on the Use of Third-Party Sites

There are many reasons that content related to Hampshire College should be placed on www.hampshire.edu. Doing so ensures that:

• Your content is readily available through our internal search engine; hosting on a third-party site means that your content will not be available to users through our search function.
• Users visiting your pages will know that they are receiving official, accurate information about the College.
• Hampshire will benefit from the expanded visibility and reputational opportunities.
• The College can more effectively maintain a consistent visual identity.
• Efficient continuity is provided in the event of personnel changes; the College’s content management system is used for the training of new individuals.
• Modification of materials, or deletion if necessary, is far easier.

Sites.hampshire.edu has been set up as the College's blogging platform for official sites, as well as to support faculty websites. Sites.hampshire.edu will not be used to create websites that should in fact be hosted on the hampshire.edu domain and that do not require a blogging platform.

Exceptions to this policy are made on an individual basis and require a business purpose for a site to be hosted off-campus. For example, if the site has the need to collect credit card information, that portion of the site may be hosted by an external vendor. Departments or units that require such an exception should contact the Web Committee at web@hampshire.edu to determine if the business purpose is justified.

The Hampshire College website will not link to any sites that are hosted off campus and no redirects will be put in place to direct people from a hampshire.edu address to an off-site address.

Individual faculty, staff, or student websites, as well as student group sites, do not typically fall within these guidelines.