LS IT helps departments, programs, faculty, and research groups choose appropriate platforms for websites and other web content.
UC Davis websites and digital content are subject to university requirements and standards for accessibility, security, privacy, branding, and appropriate use. New accessibility requirements make it especially important that university web content be hosted on platforms where it can be effectively maintained, monitored, and supported over time.
For most new websites, LS IT recommends using an existing campus-supported platform rather than creating a new, independent website. In many cases, the best solution is to add the content to an existing department or program website rather than create a separate site.
LS Department and Program Websites
LS IT provides infrastructure and technical support for LS department and program websites.
For help editing an existing department or program website:
- Most departmental websites: see https://lsit.ucdavis.edu/learning/edit-sitefarm-department-website for information on editing websites
- Arts Departments: contact [email protected] to make content changes.
- Letters and Science Dean's Office: Contact Letters and Science Marketing and Communications at [email protected]
Most LS department and program websites use SiteFarm, the campus web content management system. SiteFarm provides the standard UC Davis web design and branding framework and is regularly updated as campus web, branding, accessibility, and technical standards evolve.
Choosing Where Your Content Should Live
For most new web content, we recommend:
- Course content → Canvas. Course materials and other content students need to participate in a course should be provided through UC Davis Canvas, the university's official learning management system.
- Department, program, and college content → SiteFarm. Official department, program, and other college-level web content should be hosted in SiteFarm.
- Faculty, lab, and research group content → Your department or program SiteFarm site. Whenever practical, this content should be incorporated into the website of the sponsoring department or program rather than maintained as a separate website.
- Individual faculty website → Department or program SiteFarm site preferred; Faculty Websites also available. Faculty who need a more independent web presence may use the UC Davis Faculty Website service, which is based on WordPress. However, we recommend using your department or program's SiteFarm website whenever it can meet your needs.
- Event and conference content → Hosting department or program SiteFarm site. Most event and conference content should be incorporated into the website of the sponsoring department or program. Other campus services may be appropriate for events with specialized requirements.
- Something that doesn't fit these options? → Contact LS IT. Research collaborations, web applications, specialized services, experiments, and other unusual needs sometimes require a different approach. Contact LS IT before establishing a new independently hosted website so that we can help identify an appropriate solution.
Why We Recommend Campus-Supported Platforms
UC Davis is responsible for ensuring that university digital content and services meet applicable accessibility, security, privacy, branding, and other requirements and standards. These responsibilities generally follow the university's content and services regardless of where they are hosted.
Using supported campus platforms helps departments and faculty meet these responsibilities. Just as importantly, centrally managed platforms allow campus and the college to respond as requirements and standards change without requiring every website owner to independently identify, understand, and implement those changes.
SiteFarm is the recommended content management system for UC Davis websites and is designed around UC Davis web, accessibility, and branding standards. Campus manages and regularly updates the underlying platform, templates, and design system as these standards evolve. This helps sites remain consistent with the UC Davis brand and allows improvements to accessibility, security, design, and other common functionality to be implemented centrally.
Within LS, department and program SiteFarm websites receive additional support from LS IT and LS Marketing and Communications. We actively monitor these sites and work with site owners to identify and remediate accessibility and other issues.
For these reasons, we strongly recommend against establishing externally hosted websites for ordinary university web content when an appropriate campus-supported platform is available. This is particularly important for student-facing, high-traffic, or otherwise essential content.
For more information, see UC Davis Digital Accessibility, the UC Davis Web Communications and Branding Guide, and UC Davis Policy and Procedure Manual Section 310-70, World Wide Web Standards.
Course Websites and Course Materials
Course content should be provided through UC Davis Canvas, the university's official learning management system.
Using Canvas gives students a consistent place to find their course materials and provides access to campus-supported tools and services designed to help instructors meet accessibility requirements.
We strongly recommend against creating separate websites for course materials or other content that students are expected to access as part of a course. Accessibility requirements continue to apply when instructional content is hosted on an external website or service.
See Digital Accessibility Tools and Resources for guidance on making Canvas courses and other digital course materials accessible.
Faculty, Lab, and Research Group Websites
Most LS department and program websites can accommodate faculty profiles as well as pages or sections for laboratories, research groups, projects, and related activities.
For new faculty, lab, and research group web content, we recommend creating a section within the sponsoring department or program's SiteFarm website rather than creating a separate website.
For example, a research group might have a presence such as:
department.ucdavis.edu/research/example-lab
rather than establishing and maintaining an independent examplelab.ucdavis.edu website.
This approach provides considerable flexibility while allowing the department and college to better support the content over its entire lifecycle. It makes it easier to identify and remediate accessibility issues, maintain consistent security and privacy practices, keep the site's presentation aligned with evolving UC Davis branding and web standards, and appropriately archive or remove content when a project or research group is no longer active.
Standalone SiteFarm sites may be appropriate in some circumstances, particularly for substantial research programs or collaborations with needs that cannot reasonably be accommodated within an existing department or program website. These exceptions should have a clear need that justifies creating and maintaining a separate web presence. Contact LS IT to discuss a new website or website section.
Individual Faculty Websites
Faculty who want an individual website may use the UC Davis Faculty Website service, which is based on WordPress. However, we recommend using a faculty profile and related pages within your department or program's SiteFarm website whenever practical.
We recognize that faculty may sometimes want greater independence in the design, organization, or management of their individual web presence. That flexibility also comes with greater responsibility. Faculty who choose to maintain a separate website are responsible for ensuring that their content remains current, accessible, and consistent with applicable university requirements and standards.
Content maintained within the primary department or program SiteFarm website benefits from accessibility monitoring, remediation, branding updates, and other support provided by the department, LS IT, LS Marketing and Communications, and campus SiteFarm services.
Faculty using the Faculty Website service should also review its support and accessibility resources and terms of use.
Event and Conference Websites
In most cases, information about an event, conference, workshop, or similar activity should be hosted within the sponsoring department or program's SiteFarm website rather than on a separate website.
Keeping event content within an established website makes it easier to maintain accessibility, branding, and other requirements and, importantly, to manage the content after the event has ended. Separate event websites that remain publicly available after they are no longer being actively maintained create an ongoing maintenance and compliance obligation.
Some events have requirements that justify a separate service. For example, Campus Events and Visitor Services (CEVS) can provide specialized event services, including registration and payment functionality. Contact LS IT if your event cannot reasonably be accommodated within your department or program website.
Moving an Existing Website
If you are replacing an existing faculty, lab, project, event, or other website with content in a department or program SiteFarm site, LS IT may be able to redirect the old website address to its new location.
We generally provide a redirect from the old site's home address to the new location rather than maintaining large numbers of redirects for individual pages. Additional redirects may be appropriate for particularly important or high-traffic content.
Contact LS IT before retiring the old site so that we can help plan the transition.
External Websites and Specialized Needs
There are legitimate situations in which SiteFarm, Canvas, or the Faculty Website service may not be the appropriate solution. Examples can include multi-institution research collaborations, specialized research services, web applications, experiments, vendor-hosted services, and genuinely personal websites.
If the content or service represents UC Davis or is being provided as part of university teaching, research, administration, or public service, however, using an external platform does not eliminate the university's responsibilities for accessibility, security, privacy, branding, or other applicable requirements and standards.
Maintaining these requirements independently can also become more difficult over time. Campus accessibility, security, privacy, branding, and web standards continue to evolve, while centrally managed platforms such as SiteFarm can incorporate many changes across sites as part of the service.
Because of these considerations, we strongly recommend consulting with LS IT before establishing an externally hosted website or service for university content.
A specialized website or web application should not be treated as an exception simply because it uses custom software or a platform other than a traditional content management system. Web applications and other digital services remain subject to applicable university accessibility, security, privacy, branding, and related requirements.
Custom Web Applications
Web applications have different technical requirements from ordinary content websites and may require platforms other than SiteFarm. Accessibility, information security, privacy, branding, and other applicable university requirements and standards still apply.
LS IT's application development resources are primarily focused on business applications supporting LS departments and programs. If you have a business application need, submit a ticket to LS IT so that we can help evaluate the requirements and identify appropriate resources.
Need Help Choosing?
If you're considering creating a new website, start by contacting LS IT.
In many cases, we can help you create an appropriate section within an existing department or program website rather than requiring you to build and maintain a separate site. For needs that don't fit the standard options, we can help identify an appropriate campus service or determine whether a standalone or externally hosted solution is justified.
Our goal is to help you find a solution that meets your communication, teaching, or research needs while making the resulting site sustainable, supportable, and consistent with university standards over time.
Request a new website or website section or contact LS IT for help.