Guideline: Policy, Procedure, and Guideline Content and Format Standards - NMU Policies and Requirements

Policies, Procedures, and Guidelines at NMU

This procedure section details the process for submitting new and changed policies, procedures, and guidelines. Policies are the officially approved documents that describe how the university will adhere to external laws, regulations, and recommended business practices and the format for administrative policies is described above. Procedures and guidelines are developed by the oversight unit alongside a policy. Unlike policies, which must be approved by the President, Provost, or in some cases the Board of Trustees,  procedures and guidelines may be developed and updated as needed by the designated oversight unit.

Procedures outline the specific work steps required to implement or carry out a policy. Procedures steps are mandatory and are typically detailed and action-oriented. Clear procedures identify responsibilities and specify who performs each action. For example:

• Traveler: Submits travel request and receipts.

• Supervisor: Reviews and approves travel requests.

• Vendor Payable Department: Processes reimbursements.

Guidelines provide recommended practices or advice for achieving a goal. They are advisory in nature and allow for professional judgment and flexibility.

At NMU, many supporting documents contain both required steps and recommended practices. As a result, these documents are often titled Procedure/Guideline to reflect that they include both mandatory work steps and advisory content. Procedures and guidelines are generally attached to a policy and should be read together with the policy as a single, complete document.

Definitions are typically included in a procedure rather than in the policy itself. As a standard practice, defined terms are capitalized throughout the document in accordance with legal contract conventions. We also capitalize the word University when referring specifically to Northern Michigan University, rather than to a university in general. We are less strict about capitalizing the words policy, procedure, and guideline. Typically, we capitalize these when used in with the full title or when referencing the Policy Database. 

Procedures and guidelines may also include forms or exhibits. Our Policy Database site allows up to three attachments per record.

In some cases, NMU may publish stand-alone guidelines when a formal policy has not been developed but the campus community has requested guidance.

Version Control

NMU policies are subject to version control. The Policy Database is maintained by designated staff in Internal Audit and Records Management. Changes are accepted only from the oversight unit.

Internal Audit and Records Management:

• Maintains a log of changes

• Retains the evidence of approval

• Archives prior versions when changes are significant

• Documents the nature of updates (e.g., department name changes noted in the record)

When substantial revisions occur, the prior version is transferred to an electronic archive with its effective dates, and the updated version is added to the database.

Submitting New or Revised Documents

When new policies, procedures, student handbook sections, or guidelines are approved, forward the final document to Internal Audit along with evidence of approval for inclusion in the Policy Database.

When revisions are approved:

• Submit the full revised document (not just a summary of changes) to Internal Audit.

• The prior version will be archived if the changes are deemed substantial. If they are non-substantial, there will be notes available to the database administrators detailing the changes and the change date. 

• The revised version will be added to the database. 

• For new records, the  approval, review, and revision dates will be entered to show the same date in each field. For revised documents, the approval date stays static, but the review and revision date will be updated. 

Submitting Documents in a Digitally Accessible Format

All documents submitted for inclusion in the Policy Database must follow digital accessibility best practices to ensure compliance with digital accessibility regulations and to ensure usability for all members of the NMU community.

Authors should review NMU’s Digital Accessibility website at nmu.edu/digital-accessibility

HTML Formatting and Digital Accessibility Requirements

When submitting text that will be pasted into an HTML format, follow these best practices:

Headings

• Use structured heading levels appropriately.

• The NMU policy website template already uses Title, Heading 1, and Heading 2. These levels must not be used within the text body of policies, procedures, or guidelines.

• Documents may use Heading 3 or bold (which converts to "strong" text when pasted to our site) only to indicate major section breaks. To demonstrate the difference, this document uses bold/strong to indicate section breaks in both the policy section above and the guideline section below. It uses Heading 3 in this procedure section to indicte section breaks and bold/strong to indicate sub-sections. 

Bold and Emphasis

• Bold text (which converts to the code of "strong" text when we paste it into our policy documents) may be used to identify subsections.

• Bold or italic text may also be used when referencing terms that are defined in a definitions section.

• A good use of italic text may be to visually indicate an explanation or to separate an explanation from examples. In the policy section of this document, italic text is used to describe each heading before examples are given. 

• Do not use bold, italic, or underlining to emphasize random words or draw attention to isolated text. Overuse of emphasis reduces accessibility and readability.

• Underlining should be avoided, as it may be confused with hyperlinks.

Lists

• In addition to using clear headings, use basic bullet points and simple numbering.

• Use true bulleted or numbered lists.

• Do not create lists manually using hyphens, numbers, or other typed symbols.

• Avoid complicated numbering systems, deep indenting, or Roman numerals with a lot of sub-sections.

Tables

• Do not use tables for layout purposes. Tables should only be used for presenting structured data.

• Label each table with clear explanatory context, and not just "Table 1." Good examples include: 

  • Travel Reimbursement Approval Responsibilities

  • Vendor Payment Processing Timeline

  • Annual Reporting Deadlines by Department

• Tables must use true header cells and not just bold formatting. Mark the first row as a header cell and the first column as a header column. 

• Do not rely on bold text alone to indicate headers because screen readers rely on coded header cells to announce row and column relationships.

• Do not use merged or split cells unless absolutely necessary. 

• Avoid overly complex tables. If it has multiple header tiers or merged cells, it may not be accessible. Break it down into multiple, simpler tables. 

• Providing explanatory text before the table

Links

• Use descriptive link text (e.g., “Review the Digital Accessibility Guidelines” rather than “Click here”).

• By convention, the Policy Database includes hyperlinks only to URLs within the Policy Database. This practice helps prevent broken links.

• External URLs may be included as plain text if the description clearly explains their purpose (e.g., “More information is available on the ada.gov website.”).

• If external links must be included, the oversight unit must establish a regular process to review and update those links. Internal Audit and Records Management are not responsible for maintaining or verifying links outside the Policy Database. Responsibility for maintaining external links rests with the policy, procedure, or guideline oversight unit.

Text Formatting

• Use black text only. No other font colors will be accepted.

• Use simple, clear language and consistent formatting to improve readability and accessibility.

Accessibility of Attached Files

All attached documents must also meet digital accessibility standards.

• Simple Word documents are preferred over PDF files.

• If a PDF is necessary, it must be reviewed using an accessibility checker before submission to managerecords@nmu.edu.

• Documents that do not meet accessibility standards will be returned for correction before posting.

Providing clean, well-structured, and accessible text and attachments ensures accurate conversion to accessible HTML and reduces delays in publication.

For questions about accessibility requirements, consult the Digital Accessibility website or contact your division's accessibility resource. In addition, Internal Audit can often answer questions related to digital accessiblity for the policy database. 

Administrative and Personnel Policies

Policy is defined as the course of action or defined objectives of the University, as approved by the President or Board of Trustees.  The University has two types of overarching policies: administrative and personnel.

Administrative Policies:

• Administrative Policy is approved by the President and defines functional objectives for the administration of the University.
• Ordinances are regulations developed and enforced by Public Safety.  These are the regulations related to safety and public welfare and are often developed to keep the university consistent with local municipality ordinances.  Ordinances are also approved by the President or Board of Trustees.

Non-Represented Employee Handbook, Contracts, and Bylaws:

• The Non-Represented Employee Handbook (formerly known as Personnel Policy) is approved by the Board of Trustees and defines the rights, responsibilities, and benefits of employees not represented by a bargaining unit.
• Union Contracts also function as personnel policies.  These are negotiated between the university and the union and are ratified by the Board of Trustees.  They define the rights, responsibilities and benefits of employees represented by that bargaining unit.
• Bylaws for departments also function as policies for the persons employed by a particular department.  They typically concern the duties of employees within that department, promotion and tenure, and the administrative structure of the department.

Student Code / Handbook:

The Student Handbook informs the NMU community about expectations, acceptable standards of behavior, and procedures for addressing issues/concerns.  It is intended to protect the rights of all members of the NMU community.  The Student Handbook is approved by the Board of Trustees.

• Part 1 - Student Rights and Responsibilities:  Addresses students' rights, duties and institutional responsibilities pertaining to academic and administrative matters. Part 1 also describes the procedure for the resolution of grievances relating to academic and administrative matters, including the areas of grading and academic dishonesty. Students' rights and freedoms outside of the classroom are also addressed.
• Part 2 – Student Code:  Addresses acceptable standards of student behavior. This section lists university regulations and administrative policies, created through the input of students, faculty, and staff, which govern student behavior. The Student Code section of the handbook describes the adjudication procedures for and due process rights of students who are charged with violations of the stated regulations and policies.

Stand-alone Guidelines:

Many NMU policies have guideline documents attached. Sometimes, however, the University asks for a guideline document that is not directly related to an existing policy. These guidance documents are labeled and stored and Stand-alone Guidelines in the Policy Database. The full page of this document is an example of a stand-alone guideline. To clarify, policy documents can have attached procedures and attached guidelines. We also have separate Stand-alone Guideline documents.