What is Google Sites?
Google Sites offers USD students, faculty and staff a free resource to host a custom website and content management system. Google Sites is part of the G Suite for Education package license and is available to all USD students, faculty and staff using their USDOne Google accounts. This service is also available to departments, campus units, student and professional organizations and groups.
Features
- Easy to create custom websites, project sites and portfolios, liquid syllabi
- USDOne login: Integrated with G Suite (Email, Calendar, Drive, etc.) and USD-login credentials
- Upload and share content, this includes documents, photos, videos, slideshows, etc. and manage document revisions
- You can manage public-facing content through the USD domain as well as manage permissions to control and track performance and statistics
Usage
- Google sites availability is contingent on class registration or employment at USD.
- Students are encouraged to transfer their sites to a personal Gmail account upon completion of their degree. Faculty on semester contracts will lose access to Google Sites when access to USD email ceases and are encouraged to transfer their content to a personal Gmail account before their contract ends.
- As a best practice, the USD website should contain formal communications at the department level, but a Google site can be used for more internal communication and documentation.
Getting Started
To create a Google Sites page, go to sites.google.com. Use your MySanDiego username and password to access. Learn more by visiting Google’s Beginner’s Guide to Creating a Site. Additional resources exist for the following actions: share and collaborate on Sites and preview and publish your site.
Please note that at this time, USD’s ITS Department is unable to support the use or request of custom domain names.
Additional Information and Resources
- Additional resources are available at Google Sites Help Center.
- The default setting for Google Sites allows the public to view your site. You will need to manually share the site settings if you wish for the site to be private or only be shared with specific people. Visit the Site Access page to learn more about changing these settings.
- All site content must adhere to the following USD policies: Copyright Infringement Policy, Privacy Policy and USD Sites Guidelines.
- To transfer Google Sites content to a personal account visit Google’s Transfer Drive files to a new owner page.
Getting Help
- ITS only provides user support for Google Sites for the following situations: account access issues, including password resets as well as copyright and content violation issues. If you are experiencing any of the issues above, please submit a ticket via help@sandiego.edu.
- It is the site owner’s responsibility to maintain and update site content. If you discover out of date content, contact the site owner directly. Additional issues or inappropriate content should be reported by submitting a ticket via help@sandiego.edu.