Navigating Within The Citadel's SACS Reaffirmation Site

Hardware and Software You Will Need

In order to read and navigate most effectively within this electronic version of the Compliance Audit, you will need the following:

•  Personal computer with Pentium processor and a CD drive
•  An internet connection
•  A standard web browser (Internet Explorer or Netscape)
•  Adobe Acrobat Reader
•  Microsoft Word (for a limited number of supporting documents)

To Get Started

1. Insert the CD into the CD drive of your computer.
2. Go to "My Computer," and double click on icon representing your CD drive.
3. When the directory window opens, indicating the contents of the CD, double click on the file named "Index." This should take you to the site's start page.

Navigation Notes

General Information

As you navigate through this web site, you will be accessing two categories of files: those contained on the CD and those contained in various remote locations.

•  All of the essential files are written onto the CD. These include the statements of rationale, most of the dozens of documents supporting those statements, and all of the handbooks, including the two catalogs, the Faculty Manual, and College Regulations. These files you should be able to access very quickly and very dependably if your CD is in your computer.

•  Other files, however, are on remote servers and are linked to the site rather than written onto the CD. These files include the web pages maintained by various departments at The Citadel (used to support some of the statements of rationale), and external web sites maintained by agencies such as the South Carolina Commission for Higher Education. You will be able to access these files only when your internet connection (and theirs) are working; and they require varying amounts of "download" time.

For this reason, it will be faster, but not essential, for you to work with the CD in your computer. Nevertheless, if you ever find yourself without the CD, you may continue your work by accessing The Citadel's main reaffirmation site at http://www.citadel.edu/sacs/ . Just type that address into your browser. This is possible because the CD mirrors a parallel site on The Citadel's server.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

A working knowledge of Adobe Acrobat Reader is essential to getting around easily in this site because the many ".pdf" files are accessible only through Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software installed on your computer, you will need to download and install it directly from Adobe. It's free. Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html and follow the directions there.

Once you find yourself in a .pdf file, two tools are especially useful, and you may find both of them at the bottom of the Acrobat Reader window.

•  One is the square on the lower left end of the window that has the percentage mark in it. Adjusting the percentage allows you to increase or decrease the size of the document you're looking at.

•  The other is the icon near the middle of the bottom of the window that looks like a printed page. Clicking on it and selecting "continuous" rather than "single page" will allow you to use the "hand" cursor to scroll up and down.

Miscellaneous Tips

1. In addition to the underlined links, the squares at the top of the various pages are navigation buttons.

2.  Page numbers in the text of the compliance certification that refer to catalogs are the numbers printed on the pages themselves rather than to the number of the page listed by Acrobat Reader on the information bar at the bottom of the Acrobat Reader window. Often the page numbers will differ slightly.

3.  If you wish to share a comment or ask a question, you may check the bulletin board page that we've created to post the questions, concerns, and comments that we receive from you:

http://www.citadel.edu/faculty/whiter/sacs_bull_bd/bulletin_board.html

You may access the bulletin board by clicking on the link on the home page or by typing the address into your browser.

4.  In many cases, the visible web addresses in the "Location" column of the table in the "Documentation" section of each audit item are written in a format to indicate the original electronic source of the document rather than to indicate the best way to access the document from that page. That is, the visible text is intended to show the Off-Site Review Team exactly where the document is located at The Citadel. However, for ease and speed of navigation, the same addresses are linked to the CD version of the document (if there is one), not to the remote version. In practice, this should make little or no difference as you go through the site. However, if for some reason you wish to access the remote version instead of the CD version, you should enter the full, visible web address into your browser window (excluding spaces).

Getting Help

If you need assistance, please e-mail Prof. Robert White (whiter@citadel.edu) or call him at 843-953-2734 or 843-953-5068.