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Blogs@UWW

Original: October 2012 Revised: December 2012 Approved: February 2013

Overview

This is a Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) between owners of instructional and non-instructional blogs housed on the Blogs@UWW service and ITS to document ongoing support, training, purging, restoring and backup, documentation, and application updates.

Blogs Service Description

ITS provides the Blogs@UWW service to support the communication needs of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater community, including curricular, scholarly, administrative and personal communications.

a. Blogs Service Guidelines

Use of the Blogs service is subject to all applicable UW-Whitewater policies and local, state, and federal law. Applicable UW-Whitewater policies include but are not limited to all network usage and web publishing policies found on the ITS website.

b. Registration

Current faculty, staff members, or students of the UW-Whitewater are eligible to request a blog through the UW-Whitewater Blogs Service. A Campus Net-ID is required to be eligible for this service.

c. Practices

Regarding Use and Storage ITS has established a current storage quota of 50MB per blog. This size quota is based on the current use of the Blogs service and the availability of storage for the service. ITS bears the right to change the amount of storage allocated at any time. Should a change occur, ITS will notify blog owners 30 business days in advance of the modification.

d. Archiving content

ITS may archive the content of all the blogs for non-commercial, historical purposes. By using the Blogs service, authors grant ITS non-exclusive rights to archive blog content in any format.M

Roles and Responsibilities

a. ITS responsibilities

Requests for Blogs ITS will address all submitted requests for new instructional and non-instructional blogs. The Web team will approve student organization related blogs. LTC will approve all other requests. The blogs will be approved following the blogs request process stated below in the Requesting Service section of this SLA.

Training ITS will direct all requests related to blogs usability to Word Press user documentation. ITS will not provide WordPress training.

Purging As part of the ITS data cleanup process, ITS will purge blogs based on the schedule provided below. During the first week of September of each calendar year, ITS will develop a report showing blogs that are slated for deletion on October 1 and notify impacted blog owners. Blog owners will be provided until the 3rd week of September, to identify which blogs need to be retained. ITS will review these requests on a case by case basis.

Types of Blogs	Purge Schedule
Campus Organization	Deletion after more than one year of inactivity (no new content being posted)
Student	Retain as long as the user has a valid NET-ID, but flag for review and deletion after more than one year of inactivity
Student who has graduated	Retain as long as the user has a valid NET-ID, but flag for review and deletion after more than one year of inactivity
Class	Retain for two years after the course ends and then flag for review and deletion.
Student Organization	Deletion after more than one year of inactivity
Department	Deleation after more than one year of inactivity
Faculty / Staff	Retain as long as the users have a valid NET-ID, but flag for review and deletion after more than one year of inactivity
Other	Deletion after more than one year of inactivity

Restoration services

Restoration of Blog service will only be performed in a disaster recovery situation and will follow enterprise backup and restore processes. In a disaster recovery, priority will be given to applications and services that are needed for instruction.

Application Updates

ITS will perform general maintenance of the Word Press software on a regular interval. The maintenance will be performed during the normal outage window. ITS will coordinate with Technology Support Center Help Desk before applying all application updates. ITS will also verify changes implemented to the blog service as a result of maintenance.

Plugins and themes

ITS will not support plugins and themes that do not meet ITS standards. Upon request from users, ITS will only install new plugins and themes that are available through WordPress.org directory. These plugins must meet ITS standards of quality and functionality. Requests for blogs should be sent to blogs@uww.edu.

Documentation

ITS will update documentation related to “Advanced Features”, “Blog Request”, “Directory”, “FAQ”, “Quick Start”, “Use Policy”, and “What’s New in Blogs@uww” on an as needed basis to keep current with the WordPress application version.

b. Customer responsibilities

Data Purging Customers are responsible for responding to ITS purge requests in a timely manner. Content that needs to be retained beyond the ITS purge schedule must be requested by the blog owner and will be reviewed on a case - by - case basis. Blog owners, who wish to retain the content from their blogs, can also create a WordPress export file that can be imported into a different WordPress site.
Timely Updates of Blogs Customers are responsible for timely maintenance of their blogs. Any blogs that fall in the purge schedule will be removed unless a request is made to retain them.
Practices Regarding Use and Storage Customers are responsible for complying with the “Use and Storage” practices stated above in the Blogs Service Description section.

Requesting Services

	Steps	Approval
Department, Class, Student, Faculty/Staff	Use the instructions outlined in the page http://blogs.uww.edu/request	Approved blogs will be available within one business day of the request
Student Organizations	Use the instructions outlined in the page: http://blogs.uww.edu/request All student organizations must be renewed on an annual basis. If a student organization requests a blog and the student organization is not listed as a "recognized" organization, the blog request will be denied.	Approved blogs will be available within one business day of the request.
Not a Department, or Class, or Student, or Facult/Staff, or Student Organizations	As per our use policy, only UW-Whitewater staff, faculty and students may request a blog. If you need a blog and are not in one of these categories, please contact blogs@uww.edu	Requests will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Reporting Problems

All service requests shall be submitted to blogs@uww.edu. Service will be prioritized on a three – level scale. Please note that the response and resolution times apply during normal business hours. After-hours support will be provided on a “best effort” basis.

Impact Level	Explanation	Examples	Initial Response Time
Impact Level 1	Critical system down and in need of restore. No temporary or workable alternatives available.	Server hard drive failure requiring replacement and data restore.	During Business Hours: Immediate response After Hours: Best Effort
Impact Level 2	Limited amount of users or groups are affected Alternatives are available	User deleted files and needs them restored as quickly as possible to meet a business deadline.	During Business Hours: Four Hours After Hours: Best Effort
Impact Level 3	Individuals are affected	User deleted files and needs them restored but does not have an urgent need.	Response within two business days

Fees and Expenses

As part of its overall program of services to the campus, ITS provides this service at no cost to eligible users.

Service Level Agreements

Service level agreements (SLA's) allow Instructional, Communication and Information Technology to offer colleges, departments and university organizations IT services on an enterprise level.