As a faculty member, you're at the center of the university's mission. We recognize that you have unique website needs. We'll support you as you develop your online presence at NIU and provide you with access to tools and resources.
You'll have a profile page on your college, division or department website. It will have the same format as other profiles pages in your area.
Academic program pages are geared toward recruiting students. We work with college and department leadership to keep program pages current with rankings and recognitions, student testimonials, career information and other program highlights. Please contact us at webcommunications@niu.edu if you would like to schedule an update for your program pages.
You can develop a faculty site in Cascade, our content management system, or you can create an external site. We offer training on how to use our system.
Sites in our system can be based on our design template or created using custom HTML code. If you choose to have a template-based site, the Web Team can create it, and you or the Web Team can maintain it.
View a template-based faculty site.
If you want your site to have a different look, you can have a site created that doesn't use our template. You'll be responsible for maintaining it.
If you create a site outside of our system, you'll be responsible for maintaining it. There are many website creation platforms, such as WordPress.org. With this open-source platform, you pay for domain name and hosting. Its features include:
Other examples of 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, you should 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.
Faculty sites aren't required to comply with the Web Standards or NIU's editorial and brand standards. However, they must meet the following accessibility regulations:
Read more about web accessibility.
Your site must also follow applicable copyright laws. See Web Standards section 3.1, Copyright for more information.
We can create a site focused on your work with an NIU lab or clinic. The site will be housed in our system. We'll work closely with you to develop content and make updates.
In order to ensure consistency and alignment with the NIU brand, lab and clinic sites need to comply with the Web Standards, the Editorial Style Guide (PDF) and Communication Standards for Institutional Brand Identity.
View an example of a lab site.
You have many options for storing files outside of your website:
Web and Internal Communications
Rachel Xidis
Director of Digital Strategy
rachelx@niu.edu