This policy establishes rules and procedures for video and audio content published to any cortland.edu webpage or shared on any official SUNY Cortland social media channel.
Official content includes public-facing audio/video content that is produced by or for an official SUNY Cortland entity. Official content is also considered to be promotional content if it will be used for recruitment, fundraising or stewardship, or if it is intended to promote SUNY Cortland to a large, public audience.
Any video published to a public-facing cortland.edu webpage must follow the guidelines described in the Accessibility section and Privacy section of the Promotional Video Guide. This requirement applies even if the content was not produced by or for SUNY Cortland.
For this requirement, a video is considered published to a page if the video player is embedded in the webpage.
In addition to meeting the minimum publishing requirements, official content should meet or exceed the quality specifications of the Promotional Video Guide. The Visual Style section of the guide is also recommended for official content. Please submit a Promotional Video Project Inquiry if you would like to review a project with the Marketing Office.
Promotional content must follow the specifications for official content, and must follow all guidelines presented in the Promotional Video Guide. Before producing promotional content, a Promotional Video Project Inquiry must be submitted to the Marketing Committee.
Whenever possible, share or link to external resources that utilize accessibility standards such as closed captions. When sharing video content that does not contain closed captions, a message may be sent to the owner of the content encouraging the addition of captions. A sample message is provided below. You may use this template or compose a different message. When using the template, replace (video title) with the actual video title.
Discretion may be used to determine if contacting the content owner is necessary. If previous messages to the same content owner have been ignored, or if the actual content creator/owner is difficult to reach, sending a message will likely be ineffective.
SUNY Cortland faculty/staff who have been trained on official content procedures may publish videos autonomously. The training session covers fundamental accessibility concepts, style, legal considerations and best practices for producing video content. For departments/offices with many content contributors/producers, trained individuals may request permission to guide and approve official content for their department/office.
Accessibility issues such as video content that is not captioned should be corrected within ten business days. If accessibility issues cannot be resolved within ten days, the content should be unpublished until the corrections are made.
If a request for an accessible version of a video is received for any content this policy applies to, an accessible, equally effective version of the video must be supplied within ten business days. If an equally effective alternative is not logistically possible, a reasonable best-effort must be made to provide a more accessible option.
Style, tone and quality concerns for official and promotional content should be resolved in collaboration with the Marketing Office.
SUNY Cortland faculty/staff or departments who repeatedly or negligently violate this policy may have their permission to autonomously publish content revoked.