Faculty and staff guidelines

The university’s participation guidelines for individuals wanting to engage in social media pertain to the professional roles of the university’s faculty and staff members. They do not address publishing or regulating personal content on privately maintained social media platforms or networks.

If you are a university faculty or staff member, you are responsible for the content you post on university-managed social media properties, from blogs and microblogs to social networks, forums and other social media platforms.

Faculty and staff participation guidelines

Be transparent when posting on behalf of the university.
Clearly identify who you are and what your role is by:
- Creating an @username that contains the university and/or your faculty name.
- Including a link to a bio or ‘about me’ page, or a statement in the post itself, such as “I work at Ontario Tech University, and this is my personal opinion.”
Always being mindful of your affiliation with the university.
Your profile and the content you post should be consistent with the manner you present to colleagues, students, parents, alumni and others.
Assume conversations about the university are internal and private.
If you are not sure about the confidentiality of a university issue, ask permission before sharing these conversations on social media or be safe and don’t post anything.
Be respectful.
Don’t publish content containing slurs, personal insults or attacks, profanity or obscenity. Do not engage in any conduct on social media that would not be acceptable in our workplace or classrooms.
Provide accurate information.
Make sure your posts include correct names, email addresses and URLs that link back to the university’s web properties. Communicate guidelines for social media engagement. Post clear expectations for community members and site managers on the social media channels you manage (e.g. in the information area of a Facebook page you would post that profanity, racism or lewd conduct are not tolerated with site managers moderating for appropriate tone of content).
Monitor, moderate and measure.
Establish a routine to track your channel(s) closely to ensure your approved social media strategy is being adhered to.
Acknowledge your connections.
Give a shout out to other departments, organizations or individuals involved with the good news you are sharing by tagging them in your posts. If you are posting from a departmental, faculty or personal account, tag the university’s main accounts to help the university’s social media team with the tracking of posts for sharing/re-tweeting.
Establish rules for managing and publishing.
Keep the number of administrative publishers to a minimum and keep rules in place to manage login credentials. Official university social media channels must meet the appropriate security standards so social media passwords should not be shared.
Follow accessibility standards.
Ensure social media channels meet the university's Accessibility Policy, comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and follow the university’s current web accessibility guidelines.

Our social media pages contain links to our social websites, as well as information on guidelines, participation, request forms and more.