Scope and Background

The goal of top level and public facing DNS standards is to provide consistency and protection of UCF’s brand across all internet facing systems. Maintaining UCF’s SEO is a priority for the university as many students locate UCF through internet searches. A high search ranking ensures relevant search queries are sent to UCF and not to other parties trying to compete with our brand.

Top level domains are generally reserved for divisions and departments within the university – e.g. cecs.ucf.edu, cah.ucf.edu, or it.ucf.edu. Projects, initiatives, and new applications are generally not granted top-level domain names.

Procedure

All requests to add, change, or remove DNS within the ucf.edu public namespace must be submitted to UCF IT via the “Public Firewall and DNS Request”.

UCF IT and UCF Communications and Marketing reserve to right to review and approve or deny the creation of new public top-level domain names (*.ucf.edu) or changes to existing top-level names.

An example would be a request for “MySite.ucf.edu”, which is a top-level domain name. Requests for sites like “MySite.department.ucf.edu” are not subject to the same level of approval – these are considered division-level domain names and will be automatically approved if the requestor is an authorized owner of the department name space.

Examples of Common Requests and Best Practices

Newdepartment.ucf.edu – A top level domain name is appropriate in cases where a new academic unit, division, or department is being stood up – e.g. the College of Community Innovation and Education (ccie.ucf.edu) or the College of Health Professions and Sciences (healthprofessions.ucf.edu).

Newproject.ucf.edu – A top level domain name is NOT appropriate in cases where a major project or initiative is being launched – e.g. UCF Downtown did NOT receive “downtown.ucf.edu”, instead all information is published to www.ucf.edu/downtown.

NewApplication.ucf.edu – A top level domain name is only appropriate in cases where a new application is being launched which serves the entire campus community. “Jobs.ucf.edu” received approval because it served the entire campus community and is relevant to UCF’s mission. For department-specific applications, like a new cloud-based service, a better location would be under the division level domain. An example of this would be a new ticketing system for UCF IT might be launched under helpdesk.it.ucf.edu and not helpdesk.ucf.edu.

Avoid exposing server names to the public internet. When hosting a site on Server123, UCF IT best practice is to choose a friendly name to point at the server or application instead of making Server123.department.ucf.edu the public facing name. The name should be meaningful to users visiting your site.

Exceptions

Exceptions can be made in cases where there is a specific technical need to use a top-level domain. For example, an external email provider may require a top-level domain name to validate ownership. In this situation, UCF IT will consult with the vendor to determine the best solution and grant an exception if there is no viable alternative.

Exceptions can also be made for top-level DNS names that are not public internet facing. These are still subject to approval by UCF IT and are subject to the same principles as public facing names – they should be systems that serve the entire campus community and are not specific to a subset of students, faculty, or staff where a division-level domain name may be a more appropriate solution.

Definitions

DNS – Domain Naming System. DNS is a hierarchical service that allows internet-connected devices to use a friendly name when referring to other internet-connect devices. www.ucf.edu is UCF’s primary DNS address.

Top-level domain: Any domain directly above ucf.edu. cah.ucf.edu, sciences.ucf.edu, and it.ucf.edu are examples of top-level domain names. These domains are subject to approval.

Division-level domain: Any domain that lives above the division name in the DNS hierarchy. For example, research.cah.ucf.edu is a division-level domain. This DNS name was issued under the authority of the owner of the cah.ucf.edu namespace.