Web Support for Faculty

As a faculty member, you're at the center of the university's mission. We'll support you as you develop your online presence at NIU. You’ll have a profile page on your college, division or department website in the same format as the area’s other profile pages. You can also have a faculty site and/or a site for your work with an NIU lab or clinic.

Please note that the academic program pages for your area are geared toward recruiting students. We work with college/department leadership to keep these pages current with rankings, recognitions and other highlights.

Faculty Site Creation and Maintenance

Your faculty site can be housed in Cascade, NIU’s content management system, or you can create an external site. Faculty sites aren't required to comply with NIU’s web standards, brand standards or editorial style guide. However, they must meet the other policies, laws, etc. indicated in governance, standards and compliance.

Cascade Sites

Cascade sites can be template-based or created using custom HTML code. View a template-based faculty site.

If you choose a template-based site, the web team can create it, and you or the web team can maintain it. You can use the web update request form to update your site. If you’d like to be more involved, email webtraining@niu.edu to schedule a training session on content strategy and our content management system.

If you choose to have a non-template site created, you must maintain it.

External Sites

If you create a site outside of Cascade, you must maintain it. You can choose from many website creation platforms, such as WordPress.org. You’ll need to pay for domain name and hosting if you choose this platform, which features extensive customization capabilities and free templates and plug-ins. For a cost, you can access advanced templates/plug-ins and other support features.

Other website creation tools include Webflow, Squarespace and Wix. They have great features, are relatively easy to use and have some associated costs.

If you create an external site, consider purchasing an SSL certificate. This allows for a secure connection between your web server of choice and users' web browsers. You can purchase a certificate from several online vendors. NIU uses DigiCert.

NIU Lab and Clinic Sites

We can create a site in Cascade focused on your work with an NIU lab or clinic. View a sample lab site. Lab and clinic sites must comply with all standards, policies, laws, etc. in governance, standards and compliance. We'll work closely with you to develop and update content.

Document Storage

You have many options for storing files outside of your faculty, lab or clinic site:

• Huskie Commons (for research and artistic works only)
• University Archives
• SharePoint
• OneDrive