All current FSU faculty, staff, and graduate students are eligible for a CreateFSU account. Undergraduate students are also eligible to create accounts with a faculty sponsor. Alumni and former faculty and staff are not eligible for the service, with the exception of emeritus faculty.

CreateFSU is specifically designed to host websites related to research and creative activity or teaching, however the service allows research and creative profile pages for faculty. To qualify for an account, prospective users must provide a brief description of their project using the proposal form. The CreateFSU administration team does not assess content or merit of projects in determining eligibility except for in the following circumstances: sites may not include legally restricted data such as HIPAA, FERPA, or other protected data (even if password protected); marketplace or e-commerce sites; copyright infringing material. For further information on what content is restricted, please see the CreateFSU Terms of Service.

In addition to a website, a subdomain of create.fsu.edu, and 1GB of space, each user is entitled to an onboarding consultation to the service, if they so choose. The CreateFSU team can dedicate an hour to orienting new users to the service and its features. 

Additional appointments after this initial consultation may be offered based on staff availability, but the CreateFSU team cannot guarantee dedicated, sustained support for non-critical issues. Non-critical issues include:

• Custom themes and styling
• Instruction and training where online resources exist
• Implementation of specialized plugins and themes
• Assistance with JavaScript, CSS, PHP, or other programming or stylesheet languages

The CreateFSU team welcomes questions about non-critical issues, but users should be aware that the CreateFSU team reserves the right to direct users to external resources in cases where they cannot provide hands-on consultation or support.

In the case of critical issues, users should submit a request to https://create.fsu.edu/support-request/ or email lib-create@fsu.edu. Critical issues include:

• Error messages from CreateFSU or its applications
• Account access problems (e.g. locked out of account)
• Security concerns
• System email failures (such as password resets not delivering)
• Application installation issues (for applications listed in the CPanel Installatron page)

In order to respond to requests in a timely manner, users should include any relevant context (such as screenshots, a recounting of what happened before the error was encountered, operating system and browser used, etc.). The CreateFSU team will respond to these requests within two business days. Users should be aware that some issues may require consultation with our vendor Reclaim Hosting, and may take longer to resolve as a result.

All accounts are provisioned with 1GB of space at a minimum upon account creation. There may be cases in which that amount is not enough, especially when the project is media-rich. Account holders who intend to publish multimedia files (such as video, high-resolution photos, or audio) in high volume can email lib-create@fsu.edu with justification for a space increase request. The CreateFSU team can approve up to 5GB of space on a case-by-case basis. However, we recommend that all projects that use multimedia formats (such as video or audio files) use external services to host that content and embed that content in the site.

The CreateFSU team cannot provide the following services as a part of account support:

• Custom web application development
• Web design support (such as custom CSS and theme implementation)
• Troubleshooting for non-supported applications
• Project management services

Additionally, the CreateFSU team cannot commit to frequent, individualized training or support for groups or individuals using CreateFSU. For example, we cannot commit to attending regular group meetings, serving as a dedicated web specialist for a project, or participating in regular class sessions as a secondary instructor. See Consultations and Troubleshooting for information on what training and consultations services are in scope for CreateFSU.

Upon installation, all WordPress instances have pre-configured plugins. These plugins are either recommended or required for the purposes of security.

WPS Hide Login (Required)

WPS Hide Login hides the /wp-admin/ page from unauthenticated users, and moves the login page to an alternate location. This plugin must always be installed and enabled on all WordPress accounts. The plugin will default to a specific install location upon install. Users may change this location, if they desire. However, /wp-admin/ must always return a 404 (or some other error) for non-authenticated users. The CreateFSU team will conduct periodic checks of WordPress accounts to ensure that these security measures are enabled (see Security and Monitoring).

Limit Login Attempts Reloaded (Required)

This plugin blocks IP addresses for a limited time after a certain number of failed logins. This plugin is required to ensure that all accounts are protected from brute force attacks. An account holder may change the settings on this plugin, including disabling email notifications, changing the number of attempts before a lockout (up to 20), and change the length of a lockout (at least 5 minutes), but the plugin must remain installed and activated. The CreateFSU team will conduct periodic checks of WordPress accounts to ensure that these security measures are enabled (see Security and Monitoring).

Akismet (Recommended)

Akismet provides a spam filter for comments on WordPress sites. While not required, it is highly recommended that all sites with public commenting enable and configure Akismet to filter out spam comments.

During the course of normal service, the CreateFSU Team reserves the right to monitor the content of CreateFSU accounts to ensure compliance with these policies and for the security of the CreateFSU service. This may include monitoring the status of programs and plugins for updates and security patches. The team additionally reserves the right to push critical security updates on an account holder’s behalf. When possible, the team will make their best effort to notify account holders two weeks in advance before pushing these updates. The team also reserves the right to hide or unpublish sites that violate these policies or the CreateFSU Terms of Service. CreateFSU also reserves the right to unpublish sites that have been severely compromised. In all cases, the CreateFSU team will make all best efforts to communicate any actions taken in advance.

The CreateFSU team will provide semi-annual audits of the content on CreateFSU sites to ensure that they comply with the CreateFSU Terms of Service. If the team finds content that is not in compliance with CreateFSU policies, the following steps will be taken.

Notice of Violation

When the CreateFSU team encounters content that is in violation of the CreateFSU Terms of Service, they will provide notice to the account holder of the violation. 

HIPAA, FERPA, and Protected Data Violations

In cases of the publication of protected (HIPAA and FERPA protected data, protected financial or personal information) the content will be removed immediately, and the account holder will be asked to provide an account of how the information was published. 

If an account holder publishes protected data for a second time after an initial warning, the account will be immediately suspended. Account holders will receive notice of suspension and information on the data that was in violation of the policies. Account holders can appeal the suspension by contacting lib-create@fsu.edu. 

Other Violations

In the cases of other violations, account holders will be given two business days to remove the content or make an appeal to keep the content publicly available.

If the user does not respond to the complaint within two business days, a second notice will be sent. If the content in violation of the terms of service is not removed within two business days of the second notice, the account will be suspended. Account holders can appeal the suspension by contacting lib-create@fsu.edu. 

Removal of Content

The CreateFSU team is committed to the tenets of Academic Freedom as described in the FSU Faculty Constitution and Section 5 of the Faculty Handbook. However, the CreateFSU team also understands that digital publishing platforms can be used to target, threaten, and harass individuals and groups. The CreateFSU team reserves the right to unpublish or remove content that poses danger to an individual or group or violates an individual’s right to privacy. Content may also be removed if it is deemed to be in violation of the terms of service for the CreateFSU service and any governing University policies, including the FSU Faculty Handbook and Student Code of Conduct. Where possible, copies of the site will be backed up and saved before the removal of any content. Account holders can appeal the removal of content by contacting lib-create@fsu.edu.

It is the account holder’s responsibility to make sure that any content that is posted on a CreateFSU site—even if it is posted by someone other than the primary account holder—complies with these Policies and Terms of Service.

Primary holders of CreateFSU accounts must be active members of the FSU community. Users who terminate their relationship with FSU through separation, retirement, graduation, etc. will lose access to their CreateFSU content within 6 months of separation. CreateFSU account holders have the right to retain access to their content and transfer it to a new platform, if they so choose. The following options are provided to account holders in advance of any account removal.

CreateFSU account holders may transfer their content to a personal hosting account of their choice. Our vendor, Reclaim Hosting, provides services to transfer to an individual account for a fee. Otherwise, account holders may transfer to another hosting provider of their choice. The CreateFSU team can only guarantee support for those account holders wishing to transfer to an individual Reclaim Hosting account. Regardless of hosting provider, CreateFSU can assist with setting up temporary redirects from the create.fsu.edu URL to a new URL. Please email lib-create@fsu.edu for more details on transferring content.

If an account holder has a collaborator at FSU who wishes to continue supporting and maintaining the site, they can request that account ownership be transferred to that collaborator. Please email lib-create@fsu.edu to request account transfer.

The CreateFSU team cannot guarantee web archiving services for projects, but several options are available for those who wish to preserve site content. Users should keep in mind that web preservation does not keep the project URL active, and after 6 months the project’s createFSU URL will read as a 404.

• Upload of content to DigiNole: Users may wish to download the data published on their site (such as blog posts, written essays, audio and video content, etc) as PDFs, spreadsheets, and other readable content and publish it on DigiNole for the sake of preservation. This may especially be the case in digital supplements to theses and dissertations. 
• Create a WARC file: Users can use a service like archiveweb.page to create a web archive (WARC) file to preserve a copy of their content. Unlike uploading PDF content, this will be a much more complete snapshot of the site. However, users will need to use specialized tools to view the site.
• Save content with external services: Users may choose to utilize services like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to take a snapshot of their website.