Website Management

Strategic Initiatives is responsible for the creation and oversight of all School of Medicine websites using the Drupal-based Acquia system, hosted on the UCR.edu domain.

• For all requests or information related to the UCR.edu domain or to schedule training, contact please contact Digital Communications Manager Ross French.
• The campus has training modules available at https://websites.ucr.edu.
• For all requests or information related to the UCRHealth.org website, contact Eileen Kwan.

Accessibility

The University of California supports all aspects of web accessibility. A variety of resources are available at https://websites.ucr.edu/accessibility

Images with Text

In general, websites should avoid images of text. Exceptions include when the text is a logo, or if the logo has a small amount of text. In this case, the text should appear in the alt text exactly.

If the image contains a substantial amount of text, the text must appear elsewhere on the page.

Web Style Guide Highlights

In order to create a consistent, uniform appearance and branding on our websites, the UCR School of Medicine utilizes a style guide for content that is based upon Associated Press style guidelines. We ask that everyone creating or editing content on our websites abide by these stylistic standards, especially in the areas of capitalization and punctuation

Listed below are several stylistic areas of emphasis for Web content creators, including some key capitalization rules.

For more information or questions about these rules, please contact Digital Communications Manager Ross French via email or by phone at (951) 827-2969.

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academic degrees: Capitalize the names of academic degrees, but do not capitalize the discipline or a major, minor, concentration or field of study: Bachelor of Science in chemistry, Master of Fine Arts degree with a major in dance. Do not capitalize incomplete names of academic degrees: She has a master’s degree in business administration. He has a bachelor’s degree in geography. An exception is in the case of where the subject of the degree is a proper noun, such as English, Spanish, or French. Use an apostrophe in bachelor’s degree and master’s degree. When used after a name (and this should be done sparingly), an academic degree abbreviation is set off by commas: John Doe, PhD, wrote an article.

academic degree abbreviations: Do not use periods in degrees or certifications. For example, MD, PhD, FAACP, UCR.

academic titles and names: Capitalize formal titles, such as dean, president, chair, director, vice president, professor, chancellor, only when they precede a name or when the title. Otherwise, lowercase such titles when they stand alone or when they follow a name. Titles that follow the name are set off with commas. Examples: The dean will be there. Dean Steve Jones will be there; Steve Jones, dean of College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences; will be there. Exception: Named professorships, fellowships and chairs are always capitalized when standing alone, as well as after and before the designees’ names.

campus: Lowercase, even when used with Riverside: the campus, the UC Riverside campus. To show possession, add 's: the campus's reputation.

capitalization: Use a “down style” of capitalization, which avoids unnecessary capitals. Proper names are capitalized. Generic terms, such as university, department, school, street and state, are lowercased except when such terms are used as part of a complete expression of a formal name.

centers and laboratories: Use lowercase for generic. Example: the writing center, the career services center. Upper case when naming a specific center. Example: the Center for Conservation Biology, the Center for Plant Cell Biology. Lowercase center when it is used to refer to a previously fully identified center. Example: The Center for Plant Cell Biology is located at UCR. The center is run by Natasha Raikhel.

chair: Capitalize named professorships both preceding and following a name. Examples: Juan Felipe Herrera, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in Creative Writing or Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair in Creative Writing Juan Felipe Herrera.

colleges Capitalize official names of colleges and schools: the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering; the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences; the Division of Biomedical Sciences; the Graduate Division; the Graduate School of Education; University Extension

course names: Formal course names are rarely used in copy. It is preferred to lowercase and use informally. Example: That professor teaches a class on social psychology. Not “She taught Social Psychology."

departments and colleges: Capitalize the official names of departments and other divisions of companies, government agencies and similar institutions. In subsequent references, such names may be shortened (but lowercased); always lowercase informal references. Examples: Department of Mathematics, but it’s the math department. Never abbreviate department or division. In most cases, UCR does not have to precede the department name.

doctor: Use only for an individual who is a medical doctor. Use on first reference only. Do not use Dr. before the names of individuals who hold other types of doctoral degrees, but instead use their academic title. This is because academic titles are more descriptive and informative to the reader.

Email: One word, no hyphen.

medical terminology: Lowercase diseases, conditions, symptoms, tests and treatments except for proper names. Do not italicize. Examples: acinitis, articulo mortis, Brian’s reflex, Castle’s intrinsic factor, Graves’ disease, dysphasia, Heimlich maneuver, mumps, polio, leprosy, metabolism test. Acronyms should be capitalized.

professor: Capitalize only before the name; lowercase when standing alone or when following the name. Examples: Professor Marion Blake; Professor Blake; Marion Blake, professor of geology; the professor; Assistant Professor Phil Baker; Phil Baker, assistant professor of musicology; the assistant professor. Note that the term professor is not a generic term for any person teaching a course at the school. The word should be used only in references to those who have official status as professors. Always use official designations, even in casual references. These include associate professor, assistant professor, adjunct professor, instructor, clinical professor, adjunct assistant professor, clinical associate professor, professor emeritus, and associate professor emeritus.

program, capitalization of: The word program itself should never be capitalized unless it is, in fact, part of the formal name. Examples: The biology program (generic name) is taught in the Department of Biology. She took part in the FastStart program (program not part of formal name) and the UCR Medical Scholars Program (is part of the formal name).

school: Capitalize only when used as part of a complete formal name; lowercase informal and incomplete references. Examples: She attends the Graduate School of Education. The nursing school starts next week. The school will be in session in the fall. His brother is in law school now. He attends the UCLA School of Law.

telephone numbers: Area code in parentheses and dash for telephone number. Example: (123) 123-1234. Campus numbers are 2-1234.

university: Capitalize only when used as part of a complete formal name or title; lowercase otherwise. Examples: He attends the University of California, Riverside. The university is providing him with an excellent education. He works in the university’s library.

Web and websites: Web and websites are not capitalized.