The State University of New York's Web site (suny.edu) is one of the methods we use to communicate with the public and is SUNY’s official Web site. Its goal is to present a strong, unified and consistent image of SUNY. These Web Standards have been created to help the Web pages, sites and applications developed for suny.edu assist in achieving this goal.
The Web Standards divide Web pages into five categories, based on different audiences, types of services, requirements and purposes (these are explained later on in the standards), and they vary based on which category a site or application falls under. When existing Web sites were first brought under the suny.edu domain name they were "grandfathered" out of these standards. However, as they are modified and updated, the Web standards for their category will be applied.
The overall SUNY Web architecture is moving toward a service-oriented architecture, instead of an organizational model architecture. Architecture refers to the overall organization of the pages (similar to the table of contents in a book). In a service-oriented architecture, the Web pages are organized according to the audience they serve, instead of the organization or department that provides the service. For example, changing your address requires completing a form provided by the Human Resources department, while inquiring about your benefits requires completing a form from the Employee Relations department. By choosing the service-oriented architecture, both of these documents would be listed under a link for Employee Forms. Arranging our content in a service-oriented architectural model provides a more user-friendly Web experience, because users do not need to know which departments provides which services.
All of this information and more can be found on the SUNY Web Services site. Questions should be directed to the System Administration (SA) Web Shared Services team at webrequest@sysadm.suny.edu.