Policy Drafting Guidelines

Overview

These guidelines have been prepared by the Executive Staff Policy Committee ("ESPC") pursuant to paragraph (E)(2) of policy 01.001, " Policy on policies."

Policy Development and Review Process

  1. The term "policy owners" means the individual, department, or office that is responsible for maintaining the policy. The policy owner is responsible for complying with the requirements of policy 01.001 and for moving the policy through the policy review process in a timely way.
  2. The first step in the process is the development of a consensus within the policy owner’s department or office on the need for and content of the new or amended policy or the reason for the policy rescission.
  3. The policy owner must draft the policy consistent with the format and content considerations set forth in Appendix A.
  4. The policy owner is responsible for identifying and consulting with any other offices or stakeholders likely to be affected by the policy.
  5. Once the policy draft has been vetted by the policy owner’s department or office and all likely stakeholders, a policy proposal memorandum (see Appendix B) and draft of the proposed policy should be submitted to policy@ohio.edu. If a draft policy is submitted for amendments or updates, a Microsoft Word version with tracked changes is required.
  6. The memorandum should contain a summary of the subject matter of the policy, including specific information about problems the policy will address or how the policy will improve university operations.
  7. The ESPC or president’s cabinet will review the proposal and decide whether it should go forward. The ESPC or president’s cabinet may provide guidance concerning the content and any additional officials and constituencies to be consulted during the process.
  8. If the ESPC or president’s cabinet authorizes the update, revision, or rescission of a policy, the policy owner may proceed to publish the draft policy on the university policy website for the thirty-day comment period.
  9. All drafts will be posted online, along with their cover memos and comments. The drafts, memos, and comments shall be retained online after the new policy is approved.
  10. At the conclusion of the thirty-day comment period, the policy owner should make a good faith effort to incorporate comments that reflect necessary and appropriate changes to the policy.
  11. After review and evaluation of the comments, the policy owner should prepare and submit documents to policy@ohio.edu and include the following:
    1. A memorandum containing
      1. A list of the substantive comments received from the university community;
      2. A list of any unresolved issues, questions, or concerns that were raised during the comment period;
      3. A list of all cross-referenced policies, the identification of any conflicts, and a plan to resolve them.
    2. The final policy version in Microsoft Word and the final policy version with tracked changes in Microsoft Word.
  12. The policy approval process culminates with approval and signature by the President. Following approval, the Office of Legal Affairs will complete the following:
    1. Place the new or amended policy on the University policy website or remove the rescinded policy from the website.
    2. Provide printed copies of policies to Alden Library and regional campuses for inclusion in the hardcopy policy indexes.
    3. Work with University Communications and Marketing to announce the publication of new and revised policies, and rescission of existing policies.
    4. File policy updates with the Legislative Service Commission.

Policy Organization

All university policies should contain the following sections:

Purpose 

This section should always be first and provide a short explanation of what the policy will contain. Essentially, sum up the entire policy in a paragraph.

Scope

This section explains who the policy impacts.

Definitions

This section should contain technical terms that are not easily understood.

Policy Content

See Appendix A for an example

Policy Outline

All university policies must be outlined as specified by the Legislative Service Commission which is as follows:

Paragraphs of the: Appear as:
First rank (A), (B), (C), etc.
Second rank(1), (2), (3), etc.
Third rank(a), (b), (c), etc.
Fourth rank (i), (ii), (iii), etc.
Fifth rank (a), (b), (c), etc. (lower case italics)
Sixth rank(i), (ii), (iii), etc. (lower case italics)
Seventh rank (A), (B), (C), etc. (italic capitals)
Eighth rank (1), (2), (3), etc. (italic numbers)

Paragraphs in excess of twenty-six in the first, third, fifth, and seventh ranks will have double-letter designations.

Citations

  1. Citations to the Ohio Revised Code shall be in the form, "Chapter 4112 of the Revised Code," or "section 4112.02 of the Revised Code." Likewise, citations to the Ohio Administrative Code shall be in the form, "rules 123:1-41-01 to 123:1-41-22 of the Administrative Code," or "rule 123:1-41-01 of the Administrative Code."
  2. Citations to other parts of the same policy should be of the form, "paragraph (B)(3) of this policy," or "item (C)(2)(d) of this policy," without using the words, "above" or "below."
  3. Citations to other policies should be of the form, "paragraph (B)(1) of policy 03.004" or "policy 03.004."

For more details on citations, see part 5.2 of the "Rule Drafting Manual."

Capitalization

The first letter of each labeled part, sentence, and paragraph shall be capitalized. The names of institutions, organizational units, positions, or documents shall not be capitalized. The word “Ohio” shall be capitalized but university shall be lower case (e.g., “Ohio university” not “Ohio University”). 

For more details on capitalization, see parts 5.3 of the "Rule Drafting Manual."

Numbers

 Numbers shall be written out as words. When writing numbers out as words, the word "and" shall not be used (e.g., "one hundred twenty-five" not "one hundred and twenty-five"). 

Numbers shall only be used:

  1. In specific dates and times;
  2. When the number includes a decimal fraction;
  3. In addresses and telephone numbers;
  4. In citations of primary sources of law.

Non-substantive and Substantive Changes

The following kinds of changes are non-substantive:

  1. Changing the title of the policy itself.
  2. Updating links to external documents whose URLs have changed (if you identify any of these, please immediately notify policy@ohio.edu, so that updates can be made as soon as possible).
  3. Changes needed to conform to the Policy Drafting Guidelines, in order to conform with current formatting standards.
  4. Changes of contact information or position titles and organizational unit name changes, where such names and titles no longer exist.
  5. Any other changes specified as specified in section 6 below.

Post-approval policy changes

The office of legal affairs staff can make post-approval changes to policies without the review and approval process of policy 01.001. The following list identifies the types of changes:

  1. Fix typos
  2. Mend links
  3. Add or update policy to conform to specifications under the Ohio legislative service commission
  4. Update history subsection to correct clerical mistakes (e.g., finding an unlisted old version in the files)
  5. Change references to add relevant new or old policies

If any change occurs in the body of the policy pursuant to this paragraph, the history part shall be updated to show all prior approval dates, and an amended version shall be filed with the Ohio legislative service commission. A copy of the policy as originally approved shall be preserved in the history folder for comparison with the currently published version.