Terms of Use

To use the Web Publishing Service, current NYU faculty, staff, and degree students must comply with federal, state, and local laws; NYU rules and policies; applicable contracts and licenses; and these Terms of Use.

Effective Date: August 15, 2014
Date of Latest Revision: December 12, 2019
Issuing Authority: Vice President, Information Technology and Chief Information Technology Officer
Responsible Officer: Director, ITS Academic Technologies

General Statement

Information Technology Services (ITS) provides Web Publishing, powered by WordPress, which enables the creation and enhancement of websites and blogs. The Web Publishing Service focuses on uses that include teaching and learning, as well as research and NYU administrative unit applications.

As a user of NYU’s computing services, you must comply with all federal, New York State, local, and other applicable law; all University rules and policies, including the Policy on Responsible Use of NYU Computers & Data and the World Wide Web Policies and Procedures, found at https://www.nyu.edu/its/policies; all applicable contracts and licenses; and these Terms of Use which describe rules and settings specific to Web Publishing. NYU reserves the right to change, at any time, at its sole discretion, the provisions of the Service and these Terms of Use.

Eligibility

NYU faculty, staff, and degree students with current and active NetIDs and NYU Home accounts may access Web Publishing. Alumni and other affiliated members of the NYU community are not eligible for this Service.

Responsibility for Content

Each site is associated with a person’s NetID. This specified “primary owner” is solely responsible for the information posted on the site. The primary owner may designate additional eligible individuals as contributing authors and/or administrators of that site and may allow or disallow readers to post comments within the site. In addition, the primary owner can make his/her Web Publishing site visible to the public or make it private by limiting access to specific individuals who also are eligible to participate in this Service.

Creation of sites may involve incorporation of original works of third parties (e.g., literature, photographs, music, software, film, and video works) that are covered by copyright laws. Primary site owners and contributing users are responsible for obtaining all permissions that may be necessary to incorporate works of third parties in their site. Use of such works may be permitted by principles of fair use, consistent with copyright laws (see, for example, https://www.nyu.edu/footer/copyright-and-fair-use.html, and https://nyu.libguides.com/copyright/).

Both individual sites and departmental sites should reflect the positive and respectful learning and working environment of New York University within which basic rules of conduct for the entire University community, as well as the general community, prevail. Such rules of conduct are discussed in the University Policy on Student Conduct, the Faculty Handbook, and the Administrative and Professional Handbook.

Do not collect sensitive information on your site. Where necessary (for example, for a guest lecturer or for participation in a faculty project at another institution), use the NYU NetID as a unique identifier for access to Web Publishing and consult the Web Publishing team on proper use of the NetID in these circumstances. You should never create content that contains or collects information that is Restricted under NYU’s Data Classification Policy (https://www.nyu.edu/its/policies/data-classification.html or  https://www.nyu.edu/its/policies/sec_ref.html). On rare occasions, Protected data, such as Intellectual property, may be added to the Web Publishing site, but only after permission to collect/display this data is requested and received.  Requests for such permission should be made to the Web Publishing team at wp.nyu.edu which will process the request. At all times, you should ensure that all appropriate safeguards are in place (access restriction, etc.) before the site is deployed.

Monitoring

Although NYU does not routinely pre-screen, monitor, or regularly review content, it reserves the right to remove, at any time, at its sole discretion, any content that it considers to violate these Terms of Use or the terms of any other campus user agreements that may govern use of the campus networks, or that it deems in violation of University policy or local, state, or federal law. Should the University receive reports regarding a site on which it is felt that inappropriate content has been posted, NYU will investigate and contact the site’s primary owner to initially discuss the issue. In exceptional cases, where the content is obviously unacceptable, ITS will immediately remove the entry, prior to contacting the site’s primary owner. Unacceptable entries of this sort also may cause a site to be suspended, and in extreme cases, may result in disciplinary proceedings against the primary owner and/or contributing authors. Reports regarding inappropriate site content may be sent to askits@nyu.edu.

NYU Disclaimer

Web Publishing sites can be available on the internet and, therefore, can be indexed and searched unless the site’s primary owner disables this feature. Each Web Publishing site (wp.nyu.edu) must carry this disclaimer or contain a link to this disclaimer:

“These pages do not in any way constitute official New York University content. The views and opinions expressed in the pages are strictly those of the page authors. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by NYU. NYU makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the site’s operation or the information, content or materials included on this site. To the full extent permissible by applicable law, NYU hereby disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose. NYU will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of or inability to use this site. You expressly agree that you use this site solely at your own risk. Questions or concerns about page content should be directed to the page author. For copyright inquiries, follow the procedure outlined on the NYU Copyright Communications page.”

Features and Defaults

1. Feature Requests

ITS may make changes to Web Publishing three times a year, before the fall and spring semesters and over the summer. All requests for changes will be reviewed by the Web Publishing Governance Committee and vetted by the Web Publishing Team before being implemented into the Service.

If you have a Web Publishing feature request, complete the Feature Request Form your feedback can be considered for the next maintenance window.

2. Criteria for feature suggestions

Feature suggestions are reviewed within the following criteria.

  • Technical fit and stability, including active support by creators
  • Ability to be used by individual site owners without providing back end or FTP access
  • Benefit to the overall Web Publishing user community
  • Ability to make the feature available to all Web Publishing users at little or no cost

Additionally, existing features are actively reviewed by the Web Publishing Team, and those that are no longer being used or supported will be retired during these update windows.

3. Environment

The Web Publishing Service is not a custom development environment — meaning that primary owners may not install their own themes or plugins or obtain access to the back end of the Service. Custom approaches to Web Publishing (including custom development, vanity URLs, redirects, self-service installation of new themes and plugins, etc.) are not available within the Service.

4. Archives

Prior to leaving the University community (and losing access to Web Publishing), you may export your content or choose to delete it.

5. Retention

All sites on the Web Publishing Service will remain on the Service by default unless:

  • there is no activity for one year
  • the primary owner is no longer an affiliate or eligible for the Web Publishing Service  (see Eligibility above).
    Note: All sites must have a primary owner. If a site does not have a primary owner, the Web Publishing Team takes appropriate action for archiving the site or identifying a new site owner.
  • the primary owner requests the site be remove or archived
  • the site is in violation of the Web Publishing Terms of Use

Support

Support is available via the IT Service Desk and the knowledge base: www.nyu.edu/servicelink. For guided training on getting started, visit the Web Publishing training site: wp.nyu.edu/start.

Service Availability

Availability of the Web Publishing Service may be interrupted for maintenance and other updates and is provided on an ‘as is’ and ‘as available’ basis only. Web Publishing maintenance work will be scheduled to follow the ITS maintenance guidelines and request calendar (www.nyu.edu/its/policies/maintenance.html).