Many units have expressed a desire to create their own web page. Included by reference is National Councils policies as it relates to web sites. Please take this advice into consideration when you are planning and designing your own site. Send us an e-mail with tour URl with a brief description and we will provide a hyper link to your site. An E-mail link is provided at the bottom of this page. While the Child On-Line Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) is focused on commercial sites the National Web Site and Iaoapogh Mountains District web site subscribe to the tenets of the act.

(The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and Rule apply to individually identifiable information about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home address, email address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child. The Act and Rule also cover other types of information -- for example, hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms -- when they are tied to individually identifiable information.)

Understand compliance with COPPA from the FTC

Unit Web site Guidelines

Just good common sense when presenting information on your site

Local Council Web site Guidelines

By policy Northern New Jersey Council will not provide links to unit sites. Iaoapogh Mountains maintains two web sites to meet the needs of volunteer an official ( )site that complies with the council guidelines and an unofficial site that provides links to source outside of the National Boy Scout web.

Iaoapogh Mountains District will link to any unit page provided they comply with these standards contained within the links and practices. Ideally, we would prefer that additionally you sign up with Safe Surf , ICRA, or any other major rating service to confirm your compliance to appropriate content. You can rate your whole site or rate pages individually for content. Please advise your parents to use rating agencies through the content advisor in their browser. Links to two major rating systems are provided below. Most browsers are password protected to allow parents to limit the viewing habits of their children

Social Media Guidelines

This is a whole new area of technology and can be a powerful tool Twitter, My space, Face book and You tube are good examples of these new media. It is a whole new genre of communication that requires a whole new set of listening skills. It not simply posting and giving your opinion. It is a dynamic media where responses and criticism can be negative. Be positive tell your story. be open transparent and Scout like. Respect others! Be prepared for negative comments. This can be more explosive then flamers in email. Time out is a rule to consider, place yourself in the other guys position

Scouting on Face book, Boy Scouts on Twitter, Boy Scouts on You Tube

Using Nationally supplied forms

Items not for sale can be accessed though the national site or you can link to this site. Remember most forms are .PDF files and will require your users to download acrobat reader to open. We have provided a link on our training page to down load the adobe reader. It is cross platform so you will also make your Mac users happy.

Official Web Pages

The following Web sites are operated by the National Council, Boy Scouts of America beyond the national site:

Example of a unit web policy

1) The web site exists to publicize the Troop and the Scouting Movement to potential members and sponsors, to provide a convenient source of information to troop members and others, and to provide a recognition of the achievements of current and past members, scouters and sponsors.

2) The web site always supports the goals of Scouting. Especially, it upholds the twelve points of the Scout Law in all of the information provided.

3) The web site protects the privacy of the individual scouts within the Troop. Only the first name and initial of last name may be used to identify a scout. Adult scouters may be identified with their full name, if they have given verbal permission. Due to the degree of honor conferred by the rank, the full name of Eagle Scout award recipients under the age of 18 may be used on pages dealing with such awards, if their parent's permission has been obtained. Addresses or telephone numbers are not published on the web site, except for persons who act as official contact points for the Troop, such as the Scoutmaster.

4) The web pages will function properly with the commonly available web browser software or will be corrected or removed promptly. Information that is outdated or inaccurate will also be corrected or removed promptly.

5) Scouts are encouraged to develop pages and submit pictures or articles for publication on the web site. An adult web site manager will review the submissions to ensure they are effective, efficient, and uphold the policies of the Troop. All submissions give credit to the scout or scouter who provided them.

6) No copyrighted material may appear on the web site, unless formal written approval by the copyright owner has been obtained prior to publication, and a note or link referring to the copyright holder is provided.

7) Links to other site's pages will be made only with the approval of the other page's web master. A provisional link to another page may be placed on the active site while awaiting such approval.

8) No advertising for commercial concerns will appear on the web pages, including references to obtaining commercial software. If shareware or freeware is used in maintaining the web pages which requires a link or reference to their page, such a reference may be made, if the link is kept to a tasteful size and image. Donations made by private or commercial organizations may be acknowledged (and indeed, SHOULD be recognized) in these pages, but the reference should not outweigh mention of the Scouts who benefited from such contributions.

9) The web site is designed to maximize the useful content of information to our Scouts, Scouters, and visitors. Use of flashy graphics, slow-loading animations or other devices which deliver little or no information useful to Scouting will be minimized, so as to keep the time to display each page to the minimum.

Privacy and Youth Protection

Provides a set of rules parents can share and use with their children when surfing the net

For Parents

We have information for parents posted on our home page and above on child safety. These range from internet safety through child abductions. This page has been rated as adults only! While some of the content is strong most of it is of a general nature but we rated it for these items we feel a parent should be directly involved with their child and to openly discuss the content. We use FOSI and Safe surf content rating systems and all the pages are rated. For the most part our pages are of a general nature and viewable by all.

Webmaster

Please advise your parents about parental controls and content rating systems. Microsoft products come out of the box with parental controls, all you need to do is to install the content rating system which can be down loaded from Safesurf and FOSI. Google chrome has a feature call Lock SafeSearch go to the link provided for guidance. FireFox does not come with a built in Parental Control and an add on needs to be downloaded. A link to show you how to doe so is provided. Safari has built in Parental controls but it requires you to enter approved web sites for your child. basically everything is filtered until you enter a web site. Opera has contact block and has partnered with bright cloud since bought by web root for filtering. Did not see and specific "Parental control". There is opera parental controls on the Nintendo Wii, so there may be something there. You can always buy a parental control app, like cyber cop or net nanny. Your router may have parental controls but it might be too complex for most parents.