Is it associated with a course?
The McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning offers consulting, website hosting, and development assistance for course-based projects. Websites intended for use as instructional materials, interactive teaching tools, projects that involve students contributions as part of coursework, or websites that highlight scholarly work done by students would apply. The McGraw Center’s services are offered free of charge to Princeton faculty, graduate students, and teaching staff.
Do you have significant storage needs?
OIT staff can assist in helping you explore options for large files related to your website.
Copyright cleared for materials that will be on the website?
Library staff can assist with copyright questions involving images and media for use on websites.
What types of interactivity would you like?
Many types of interactivity that may seem quite easy actually present real challenges. Communication platforms such as Twitter and Facebook have become so commonplace that it is often assumed that this sort of user interaction is common functionality on website platforms.
- Any instance in which your website accepts input from users at large however can be a major security risk. In addition to the risks involved, this type of interactivity and the associated requirements of registering and vouching for users will require significant effort to maintain. Some campus website platforms mitigate these types of risks by restricting who is able to access or to submit information to a website. If your audience, for example, will consist of only Princeton users, there are ways to password restrict access while still offering interactivity. Similarly, if you would like to include collaborators from off-campus and allow them to submit information to your website, you may be able to restrict access based on a list of allowed users, adding users to the list as necessary.
- Other types of interactivity offer fewer risks. Web applications in which users can interact with data, can manipulate visualizations of data, or submit queries to a database are ones in which you have greater control over what users are able to do. These types of interactivity generally do not require that you store user data or keep track of who your users are and can be made available safely and quite easily.
Will you be making frequent changes to the site?
The number of editors and the complexity of the interface are important factors to consider if your site is likely to require frequent updates.
What options do I have for site hosting?
OIT maintains a helpful Knowledge Base article on hosting options.
