Titles. Adopted 2012-May-21

The following standards were adopted on May 21, 2012. This page will serve to document this Web standards change. Return to the Web Standards Change Log for May 2012, or visit the current Titles Section of the Web Design Standards.

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This page is part of the California Department of Education (CDE) Web Design Standards, which only apply to specific CDE Web sites. Visit the CDE Web Standards to determine if these standards apply to a specific Web product (Web site, Web page, Web document, or Web application) that has been developed by or for the CDE.

Most Web pages (not including Web applications) on all CDE Web sites are created using Adobe's Contribute software templates. WebNETS, which is a custom software application that was created by CDE staff, is also necessary in order to create and process most Web pages on the CDE's public Internet site. Portions of these standards, where noted, apply only to CDE users of Contribute or WebNETS software; or to Web application developers.

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Related to Web pages and documents, the word, “title” has two different meanings and definitions.

• In one sense, a title is very simply the handful of words at the top of a Web page or document that succinctly describes the Web page or document content. We call this title the visible title.
  
• There is another title that is included in Web pages or documents in a hidden or background area. In a Web page, this title is found within the HTML code and in a Web document, this title is found in the properties area. In both cases, this type of title is also known as a metadata title.

With few exceptions, all CDE Web pages and documents require both visible titles and metadata titles. Note that in actual practice it is very common that both titles use the same words and even when the visible title and the metadata title are not exactly the same, they are almost always very similar.

For CDE Web pages and documents, the visible and metadata page titles must:

• Be exactly the same (or very similar) when the visible and metadata page titles for a particular Web page or document are compared. In some instances, the visible and metadata titles are forced to be exactly the same because they are derived from the same place, such as the WebNETS system or a database.
• Be unique or different from other Web pages and documents of the same file type, which are stored within the same physical folder. For example, within the "ef" folder on http://www.cde.ca.gov/ab/cd/ef/.
• Exactly or closely match the name of the link that brought the visitor to it.
• Be 50 characters or less, which includes spaces and punctuation, but does not include any additional content that is required to be appended. See below for more information about content that is appended to Web page and document metadata titles.
• Use title case formatting (uppercase/lowercase), except that all caps may be used for page titles in management bulletins, correspondence, or similar documents where an effort is being made to have them look like a document mailed from the department.
• Use standard formatting styles and colors, except that they may use italics only where a particular word or phrase is required to be italicized by the CDE Style Manual or the CDE Correspondence Guide. For example, Education Code.
• Use the ampersand (&) in place of the word “and” for topic, sub-topic, or sub-sub-topic Web pages. These also are known as “index pages” because the filenames are all either index.asp (Internet) or index.aspx (Intranet). When the ampersand is used and there are three or more items, use of the serial comma is required.
• Follow other specific standards if the Web page or document is funding related or part of the Clearinghouse for Multilingual Documents (CMD):
  • If funding-related, follow the Funding Standards.
  • If part of the CMD, follow the Parental Notification Documents section of these Design Standards.

Appended Metadata Title Content

The design of the CDE Internet and Intranet Web sites allows for adding additional content after the Web page or document metadata title. This provides additional information in a very standard way. The appended content either includes the location on the site where the page or document is housed or for Web applications, it provides additional information about the Web application. In all cases, it also provides attribution to the CDE.

For the main CDE Web site, additional metadata title content is appended to Web pages automatically, but for Web documents, it must be added manually to the document properties and into WebNETS. For Web applications, additional metadata title content must be added manually in all cases.

Appended metadata title content varies between Internet and Intranet, and also between Web pages and documents, and Web applications. The standard formats for appended metadata title content are:

* Applications that are posted to the WWW server only, may optionally adopt the metadata title format that is typical for Web pages on the CDE Web site:

Examples

A metadata page or document title for the Internet looks like this:

Correspondence - Accounting (CA Dept of Education)

A metadata page or document title for the Intranet looks like this (using the sub-topic option):

Web Application Review Team (WebART) - Web Services (CDE Intranet)

A metadata page title for an Internet Web application looks like this:

Page name/function - Application name (CA Dept of Education)

A metadata page title for an Internet Web application on the WWW server using the sub-topic option looks like this:

Application name/function - Sub-sub-topic (CA Dept of Education)

A metadata page title for an Intranet Web application looks like this:

Page name/function - Application name (CDE Intranet)