Student Organization and Journal Pages
Requesting a new site | Site Development | Site Requirements | Questions?
Requesting a new site or changing webmasters
Organization leader should submit a Student Org and Journal Site Request Form.
- Alias: The form will ask for a "Preferred virtual address" for new sites. This is what comes after the Law address, such as http://www.law.northwestern.edu/apalsa. Try to keep this name under about twenty characters (ideally about ten or less), with NO spaces and NO special characters such as "&" or "/."
- Changing webmasters: Unless you make a special request in the "Anything else?" box, we will remove any current webmasters and replace them with the new webmaster(s).
After the request is submitted the organization will be contacted and given directions on how to get training and get the site started.
Site Development
When developing the site, please keep it simple - or simple enough that whoever works on the site in subsequent years can easily maintain it. The law web group would be happy to help you with questions and issues; please contact us at law-website@law.northwestern.edu.Development Software
We recommend Dreamweaver as a web editing tool, but you are not required to use it. Dreamweaver may be purchased for an educational discount at many online vendors, including www.JourneyEd.com and www.adobe.com.
Dreamweaver is also available in the Westlaw lab in the law library.
ResourcesThe following links may be of help in developing your organization's web site. Webmonkey - HTML tutorials
W3 Schools - HTML Reference and tutorials
Adobe Dreamweaver Developer Center - Dreamweaver tutorials, samples, and reference Dreamweaver tutorials
Site Requirements
Organizations and journals are free to design their sites as they like, subject to the following guidelines:
Design- Domain names and site hosting
- Law school template
- Logos
- Return Link
- Policy, disclaimer and copyright text; free speech on student websites
- External Designers
- Photos and video
Organizations will be provided with a web alias at the Northwestern Law site (e.g. www.law.northwestern.edu/myorg.) It is against school policy for student organizations to establish domain names outside the Northwestern domain (.northwestern.edu) or to have sites hosted at providers other than the Law School. If your organization has questions on this policy please contact the Webmaster.
Student organizations and journals designing their own site may not use the "official" Northwestern Law web page design(s) - including logos, photos, banners and color combinations. If it, or any design suspiciously like it, is found to be in use by a student org, the group will be asked to redo the page(s).
Journals have the option of using the official Northwestern Law template for their pages. If the journal chooses to use the official Northwestern Law template, the template and its associated parts (e.g., logos, fonts, etc.) may not be modified in any way.
Student organization web sites must contain one "official" logo from the Student Organization Logo Page. Groups may not use any other Northwestern logo, modified or unmodified. If used, the group will be asked to remove them. The logo should be linked to the Northwestern Law homepage.
Journal web sites must contain a graphic/logo for the Law School (approved by, or obtained from, Law Communications), linked to the Northwestern Law homepage.
All pages on student org and journal sites must contain a text link back to the Northwestern Law site, http://www.law.northwestern.edu, in addition to the link from the official logo.
Journal websites must include links to the World Wide Web disclaimer and University Policy Statements online (see the footer of the Law homepage for links and wording) and the copyright notice © 2008 Northwestern University (please set the copyright year to the current year).
"Northwestern is an equal opportunity, affirmative action educator, and employer." Journals and student organizations are free to exercise their 1st Amendment rights on their sites as long as they do not violate the University Policy Statement (found at http://www.northwestern.edu/policy.html).
Outside (non-Law) designers may be used, but they will not be given access to the Law servers. A member of your group will need to request access to the site (see "Requesting a new site," above) and this member will be responsible for posting materials to the site.
For help setting up contracts with external designers please contact Jim McMasters, Director of the Pritzker Legal Research Center.
If you are interested in using student or staff photos from the Northwestern Law facebook on your site, you must obtain an official written release for each photo and give it to the Communications department. Photos or video taken at school events in which individuals are clearly recognizable may also require a release (see more information on the Communications website).
Faculty photos from their law websites are already public so you may use them without a release.
- Programming Technologies If programming is needed for the site (such as forms or dynamic content) the Law Webmaster must be contacted before development is done (this includes but is not limited to .asp or .net, Coldfusion or javascript).
- External Developers If your group would like to use outside (non-Law) programmers, they must be approved by the Law Webmaster, and they will not be given access to the Law servers. A member of your group will need to request access to the site (see "Requesting a new site," above) and this member will be responsible for posting materials to the site.
- Journal needs to decide on Word styles to be used
- IT/Library will help create style template
- Journal then uses Word styles to prepare doc to be processed
- IT/Library run process to transform to XML, etc.
- IT/Library post documents to the website
- Format-neutral citation methods recommended (see following points).
- All journals must obtain an ISSN.
- Paragraph marks are the required method of citation.
- Paragraph mark should be placed at the start of each paragraph.
- Page numbers, in addition to paragraph numbers, are not recommended for journals that will be online-only. Page numbers are appropriate and recommended for print journals placing materials online.
- Paragraphs should be numbered consecutively on an article level, but not on an issue level (paragraph numbers should start and stop with each article).
- Journal issues should be numbered -- equivalent of volume identifiers when citing physical items.
For further questions regarding Document Management and Citations on journal websites please contact Jim McMasters, Director of the Pritzker Legal Research Center.
