The Office of Web Services, in collaboration with a cross-sectional committee of university partners, has created a new, more streamlined approach to creating and maintaining university and unit-level policies online.

A new UIS Policies website, uis.edu/policies, is intended to be a one-stop shop for university policies. The site is searchable by policy type, audience or key words.

Along with this change is an update to the Policy on Policies. This revised policy is effective June 1, 2022, and requires the following steps to get a new policy approved and posted to the new UIS Policies website:

CREATING A NEW UNIVERSITY-LEVEL POLICY

1. A policy sponsor (the individual responsible for drafting, implementing and maintaining the policy) develops a draft policy proposal using the Sample Policy Format Worksheet, available on uis.edu/policies.
2. Once a policy is ready for review, the policy sponsor should submit the draft policy to the appropriate unit or department head for their support. If supported, the department head should submit the proposed policy to their division head/member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet (“executive sponsor”) to seek Cabinet review and approval.
3. The Chancellor’s Cabinet will discuss and, as appropriate, make its recommendation for approval to the Chancellor.
4. Policies that are approved by the Chancellor will be signed and dated and provided to the policy sponsor to upload to the UIS Policies website via their unit’s web liaison (posted as both web text and a signed PDF).

REVISING A UNIVERSITY-LEVEL POLICY

1. The policy sponsor should route all proposed revisions to existing university-wide policies to the executive sponsor for the Chancellor’s Cabinet to review and approve.
2. If the Chancellor approves the proposed policy revision at the recommendation of the Cabinet, the approval and effective dates will be noted on the policy, and the newly approved version should be updated on the UIS Policies website via the unit’s web liaison (posted as updated web text and updated signed PDF).
3. Older versions of the policy should be archived following applicable university record retention policies. If any older versions of policies remain online, they must be marked appropriately as no longer effective and point to the most current version of the policy.

Per the new Policy on Policies, all university-wide policies should be reviewed every three years for accuracy and relevancy. Guidelines for retiring a policy also are provided in the new Policy on Policies.

MANAGING UNIT-LEVEL POLICIES

Unit-level Policies are those that are applicable only at the division, college, unit, office, program or activity level and sponsored and overseen by the responsible unit leader. They should not conflict with an existing university or system policy. Procedures for updating and posting unit-level policies to the UIS Policies website are found within the Policy on Policies.