Because of the breadth of web services offered both at the college level (by Technology Services) and the university level (by ITS), we developed some thoughts on why you might choose one service versus another.
Unless otherwise specified:
- These services are free to faculty, post-docs, and graduate students (if not also staff and undergraduate students). If they choose to use an external (that is, non-umich.edu) domain name they will be responsible for any associated costs; those are beyond the scope of this document.
- Regulated sensitive data is generally not allowed on any of these web services, but unregulated sensitive data may be allowed. Please refer to the Safe Computing web site for definitions and additional information.
- Private or confidential data is allowed on these web services provided that access to the data requires some level of authentication (the user is who they say they are) and authorization (the user is allowed access), such as Cosign, Duo/2FA, or Shibboleth.
Note
With one exception, services offered by the college are prefixed with "LSA" and services offered by the university are not. SharePoint is a university-wide service administered by LSA.
Google Sites
What: An easy way for anyone to create secure web pages for projects, classes, events, organizations, and many other collaborative purposes. Google Sites works across operating systems and is available on the web from anywhere.
Why: Choose this if they need a basic website for their project, class, event, or organization, but don't have any expertise in or need for either content management or editing HTML. However, be advised that Google Sites is still not fully accessible for the visually-impaired.
Sensitive data: Some categories of sensitive data are allowed and other categories are not. Refer to the Safe Computing web site's Google Sites page for details.
Administrative contact: ITS 4-HELP.
LSA Departmental Websites
What: Department-local web services.
Why: Choose this if and only if their department has its own web site independent of the other services listed here. Note that only a few of the hard-science departments in LSA still have departmental sites; most of their data has been moved into the LSA Unit Websites service; see below.
Administrative contact: Their local department or neighborhood IT team.
LSA Faculty, Lab, and Research Websites (FLR)
What: A WordPress-based service. Available to all faculty, labs, graduate students, conferences, or research projects or teams.
Why: Choose this if they are faculty and want to showcase their biography, CV, lab, or research, or if they are a researcher and want to showcase their lab or research. Most new faculty are only interested in this service and none of the others.
Administrative contact: LSA Web and Application Development Services
LSA Unit Websites
What: A formal content management system based on Adobe Experience Manager.
Why: Choose this if they want to showcase a center, department, institute, program, or unit in or affiliated with the college.
Administrative contact: LSA Web and Application Development Services
LSA Web Hosting Environment (WHE)
What: A cPanel-based service. We provide a dedicated slice of a server to run their own custom code in such a way as to not impinge on others.
Why: Choose this if they already have version-specific software needs, or a custom code base, but they don't need or want to pay for a dedicated server, and have no need for sensitive data (be it regulated or unregulated).
Administrative contact: LSA Web and Application Development Services
LSA Windows Web Application Hosting (WWAH)
What: An IIS-based service managed by LSA Web Services. Availability is limited; please work with their Advocate.
Why: Choose this if they have specific Windows application needs, or need to run ASP or .NET on their site, and have no need for sensitive data (be it regulated or unregulated). This service should rarely be used.
Administrative contact: LSA Web and Application Development Services.
LSA WordPress for Instructors & Students
What: A WordPress-based service. Available to all instructional staff.
Why: Choose this if they are teaching and want a class blog or website.
Administrative contact: LSA Web and Application Development Services.
SharePoint
What: A way to facilitate collaboration on administrative tasks through easy and convenient sharing of documentation, calendar information, and tasks.
Why: They need the benefits of Nintex Workflows to automate tasks, or their data fits into a SharePoint list.
Administrative contact: SharePoint Support.
U-M Personal Websites
What: An AFS-hosted web site.
Why: Choose this if they want to provide information in the form of documents (e.g., PDF) or text, are willing to code their own HTML to make it happen, and have no need for sensitive data (be it regulated or unregulated).
Sensitive data: Sensitive data may or may not be allowed; contact IIA.
Administrative contact: ITS 4-HELP.
