Department of Engineering

IT Services

Guidelines for Engineering groups using Falcon

Any Engineering research group or office looking to create a new web site is recommended to use the University's Falcon service. The resulting site will have a domain name (URL) within eng.cam.ac.uk (e.g. http://widgets.eng.cam.ac.uk - or, if you prefer, http://www widgets.eng.cam.ac.uk), and will form part of the Department's overall web presence. This page provides guidelines for producing your site within that context.

Naming your site

When you begin work on your Falcon site, you will need to provide the University Information Services with the domain name that you want to use and a role-based e-mail address that can be used as a contact point for the site. Contact comp-admin@eng.cam.ac.uk about these points early on.

Creating your new content

When you come to create and structure the content for your new site, whichever option you decide to follow, you may find it useful to think in terms of some of the standard sections and links that have been used on the Department's new site. You are not obliged to use them, but doing so will improve the overall coherence of the Department's web presence, and will make it easier for visitors to follow.

Not all of those standard items will apply to your site, but they include:

  • Graduate Studies
  • Research Facilities
  • Contact Us
  • Events and Seminars
  • People in [your group]
  • Publications
  • Vacancies

Dos and Don'ts when setting up Falcon sites

Do – read the information on http://www.ucs.cam.ac.uk/falcon and http://falcon-help.csx.cam.ac.uk/ before starting

Don't – use the Research Directory functionality available within Falcon. The Department's web site contains a Staff and Student Directory which is updated automatically via EDDA. It is important that additional detailed lists of people are not manually created on other sites within the Department, including Falcon sites. Any lists that you do create on your site should contain the minimum of information about the individual (ideally just the first name and surname) and should link back to the Department's Staff and Student Directory. If you wish to create a group list of people within your Falcon site, please do the following:

  • Create a new page within Falcon and name it 'People in xxxxxxx'
  • Type your list of names – first names and surnames only – don't include titles or any other supplementary information
  • Highlight the individual's name and create a hyperlink to that individual's profile page on the Department's web site. The URL for their profile page will always be of the form http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/crsid , where 'crsid' is replaced by the person's CRSid - for example http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/abc21 .

By creating lists in this way, you avoid the risk of your lists becoming out of date as people's titles or contact details change. Linking to the main Department site means that you are linking to details that are updated daily based on changes made via EDDA.

The Department's IT Services Division is planning a service for more detailed lists to be defined and created on a Departmental server, using information updated from EDDA, that can then be presented within a Falcon site. Details will be provided here, and announced within the Department, when it is available.