This document iterates the de facto policy in effect while the
guidelines are under review by counsel. Drafted September 1999;
approved as de facto policy in November 1999.
[see also the DNS Policy Addendum
regarding Third Level Naming.]
Rationale for This Policy
Most faculty and staff use workstations and other equipment
connected to the campus networking infrastructure. The faculty and
staff are provided Internet names and addresses by their department
and unit, which received a set of "domain" names from the Iowa State
University Office of Academic Information Technologies (formerly known
as the Computation Center). As long as the use relates specifically
to departmental or unit academic activities in this way, faculty and
staff are unlikely to be directly affected by this policy.
As the Internet world evolves, departments and campus units want to
respond by creating new services. In some cases, groups want a
special "persona" that may be manifested in a special domain name
(Internet name). In other cases, users want to provide access from a
campus Web site to vendors or others who may provide special services
to their constituents. A policy is needed to advise the campus on
options for special names and services and to ensure appropriate use.
Such options must take into consideration direct and indirect costs
(e.g., increasing the complexity of the campus domain name services or
the load on the campus network), state law, Iowa State University
guidelines, and appropriate use of ISU symbols. As this policy
document uses specialized terms, a brief technical glossary is
below.
In this document, academic purposes include those activities
that directly support the educational, research, and outreach missions
of Iowa State University. This includes such activities as the
hosting of a Web site for a professional organization with which a
department or other entity at ISU is associated, a formally recognized
student organization, or a student group sponsored by an ISU faculty
or staff member. Academic purposes also includes the provision of
superior services in support of these missions.
In several places, the need for university approval is indicated.
The governing bodies for such approval are indicated below in the
section titled "University Approval". As this policy is complex,
approval will involve a technical review process, followed by
programmatic approval.
Who Must Follow This Policy
As a general guide, a faculty or staff member establishing a domain
name that will be used from or otherwise exploit computers owned by
Iowa State University or located within ISU facilities, or which will
exploit Iowa State networking facilities must consider and follow this
policy. Students, when working for the university, are considered
staff members for the purposes of this policy.
Residents of the residence hall system (whether students or
otherwise) must conform to this policy. They are treated differently
in some cases when using resources within their actual residences.
For example, individuals residing in residence halls may obtain a
domain name that resolves to a computer owned by them in their
residence and used for their personal activities; faculty, staff, and
off-campus students may not.
Basic Domain Name Service Policy
Iowa State University will be the sole entity providing Domain Name
Services for its range of IP names and address space or for any use
that involves Iowa State property. What this means is that, while
outside entities may have Web pages that "point to" Iowa State IP
names and addresses, Iowa State will not allow ISU names or addresses
to be managed by outside groups. Nor will Iowa State manage names and
addresses owned by outside entities, except in specific exceptional
cases.
As a simple example, members of the Iowa State community may not
acquire (directly or via a commercial provider) a company or special
interest domain name unrelated to the ISU academic mission (e.g.,
iowabedandbreakfasts.com) and have that name resolve to
(point to) a workstation in a campus office or laboratory that serves
Web pages. Students or others residing in Iowa State University
facilities may point to personal workstations in this way for personal
interests but not 1 for commercial
activities. Note that a charge may be levied for such a use of the
campus network, domain name services, and other services.
Special Requirements for the iastate.edu Primary Domain: The
principal name Iowa State University uses is iastate.edu.
All uses of iastate.edu will be in support of the academic
mission of the university and will be restricted to use by students,
faculty, staff, and component organizations of Iowa State, such as
departments and central units. Unless specified otherwise, all Iowa
State name services (see below) will be within the
iastate.edu domain.
For the iastate.edu name space, Iowa State University must
assign any third-level domain names, e.g., dept in
dept.iastate.edu. This assignment is done in
conjunction with the requestor. Fourth-level domain names, such as
lab as in lab.dept.iastate.edu, may be picked
by the requesting department or unit with some restrictions detailed
under "General Guidelines".
Commercial Domains: Domain names with .com as their
first level require exceptional approval. This will also apply to any
future names such as .biz that imply overt commercial
activity. These requests will need the approval of the
university.
Other Domains: Iowa State has reserved the names:
iastate.org, iastate.net, and iastate.com.
The use of any of these names requires explicit permission. Any
establishment of domain names using the top-level domain names of
.edu or .gov requires explicit permission from
Internet registration authorities and, for use within the Iowa State
University environment, permission is required as well from the
university. Names ending in .edu are reserved for formal
academic institutions and those ending in .gov are reserved
for formal governmental organizations. Ameslab.gov is an
example of .gov use. It is a violation of Internet
guidelines to register a sub-entity of an academic institution, such
as a college or colleges, as if it were a formal degree-granting
institution on its own.
Currently, unique names ending in .org, .net, and
.com are available by application to the Internet
registration authorities. Iowa State will host, in the sense of
providing the resolution for, the .org and .net
names in the Iowa State domain name servers if a faculty or staff
member of Iowa State makes the request in writing for a specific
academic purpose. The form for requesting such service is available
at
https://asw.iastate.edu/cgi-bin/acropolis/request/dns/dnshost.
This form requests a brief statement of purpose, the name and
e-mail address of the requestor, the requestor's department, and the
e-mail address of one additional contact person to whom inquiries may
be sent as well as the requestor.
After selecting either .org or .net as the
first-level domain, the requesting department or unit must work with
the Academic Information Technologies to determine an appropriate
second-level domain name (e.g., myorganization in
myorganization.org), depending on what is available. Once
the first and second-level names are selected and (if available)
approved, additional levels in such a name can be determined over time
by the department or unit as needed, subject to the general guidelines
used for fourth-level names in the iastate.edu domain.
Exceptional Domains: Some registration authorities are
offering domain names that are country-specific. As a general rule
Iowa State will not register a geographically specific domain name
unless specific exception is obtained. Additional top-level domain
names, e.g., .art, may be approved in the future. Future
top-level domain names will be reviewed by Iowa State. Those of a
general nature will probably be subject to the same rules as
.org and .net. Names that are specific to geography
or activities unrelated to Iowa State will require approval by the
university.
Research Park Activities: Iowa State provides domain name
service support to the ISU Research Park. That activity and the names
registered under that activity are governed under other policies
specific to the ISU Research Park.
General Guidelines
- All domain name requests are subject to availability, review for
appropriateness, and the requirement that all full names must be
unique and correspond to Internet conventions for included
characters.
- All names in the Iowa State University Domain Name Servers must
resolve to an Iowa State University IP address unless a specific
exception is allowed. Similarly, any Iowa State IP address will
formally resolve to an Iowa State registered domain name entry.
- The Domain Name Service allows alias (alternative) names as well
as primary names. A primary name is the direct name used such as
webct1.cc.iastate.edu. An alias would be a name such as
webct.cc.iastate.edu that resolves to an Iowa State primary
name. Any alias names are reviewed upon request and must follow the
rules for primary names. Any request for an alias rather than a
primary name must include a statement as to why the alias was
requested. This requirement provides clear responsibility for names
and addresses.
- An Iowa State domain name or IP address can be referred to
routinely when using the Internet (as in URLs). If a formal domain
name is established by a faculty or staff member that refers to Iowa
State IP addresses, permission to do so must be obtained from Iowa
State, even if the domain name is registered though a commercial
service rather than using Iowa State's Domain Name Service.
- Domain names cannot be registered that imply association with Iowa
State University no matter who is providing domain name service,
unless permission has been obtained.
- If a site is established that contains representations that are
associated with Iowa State University, the establishment carries the
responsibility to insure that use of those representations is
appropriate. Questions regarding appropriateness can be asked of the
Office of Intellectual Property.
- Sites associated with Iowa State University may not include
commercial advertisements of any sort without the express approval of
the university. These are unlikely to be granted to any academic
unit. Residents of campus units may not use campus networks or
servers for commercial activity of any sort. Use of vendor logos (or
other identifiers) or links to vendor web pages may be appropriate
when used informationally (e.g., to identify equipment provided or
sold) or to indicate appropriate sponsorship. Questions regarding
appropriateness may be referred to University Legal Services.
- If a site is established that will be regarded as an Iowa State
University site, it must use the Iowa State University Domain Name
Services.
- If a domain name is obtained for a computer both located in a
residence hall and owned by a resident in that location, that name may
be hosted by the Iowa State University Domain Name Service.
Additional effort and fees may be required to insure a resolvable IP
address in the residence halls, so inquires need to be initiated ahead
of time. Iowa State University provides access as a convenience to
its on-campus residents. Residents remain solely responsible for
appropriate use of their servers and for following university and
legal guidelines.
University Approval
Approval has two components-technical and programmatic.
Programmatic approval will not be given until the technical review is
complete.
Technical Review: All units or departments seeking special
domain names or domain name services must initially contact Academic
Information Technologies (AIT). The AIT staff will identify technical
issues (if any), fees or other costs, and appropriate governing
procedures, and assist the unit or department in creating a complete
request.
Programmatic Approval: For academic units, the provost has
identified the Director of the Office of Academic Information
Technologies as the approving entity for this policy. Academic units
include all units under the purview of the provost. Activities with
commercial components will normally be referred to the office of the
Vice President for Business and Finance for additional review.
For administrative units within the university, the office of the
Vice President for Business and Finance is the approving entity.
Other Approval: Activities that include use of Iowa State
University symbols must be approved by the Office of Intellectual
Property and Technology Transfer. Consult University Legal Services
regarding appropriate use of company logos or other identifiers.
Glossary of Terms
Alias name — An Internet name that resolves to another
primary Internet name such as a hostname. Whether a name is an alias
name or a primary name is transparent to the user. Aliases are useful
for indicating a range of services that refer to the same physical
servers.
Domain name — A network name associated with an
organization. Iowa State University's domain name is
iastate.edu. Within a domain name, there may be a number of
hosts, following a naming convention of
servername.domain. For example,
cc.iastate.edu was a host within the iastate.edu
domain name and referred to a Computation Center server.
Domain Name Service (DNS) — The service that resolves
computer names into numeric Internet addresses (IP addresses) and vice
versa. The Domain Name Service translates references to a name, such
as webct1.cc.iastate.edu, into an IP address, such as
129.186.1.35.
Hostname — The fully qualified name of a specific
server or computer on the Internet. Every networked computer has a
hostname, by which it is known on the network. For example,
webct1.cc.iastate.edu is the name of the server hosting WebCT
software at Iowa State. A specific computer or device name is the
first part of the hostname and a domain name is the latter part of the
hostname. In this example, webct1 is a computer name and
cc.iastate.edu is a domain name.
IP — Internet Protocol, the protocol on which the
Internet is based and the language that allows computers to
communicate over the Internet. Interactions on the campus network
must use this protocol to communicate with the Internet.
IP address or Internet address — The numeric address
denoting the actual address used by Internet processes to address
computers and servers on the Internet. Although we generally refer to
computers by their IP names, the Internet uses the IP number, which is
composed of a series of four sets of numbers separated by periods
(dots). An example is 129.186.1.35, which is the literal
address of the WebCT server at the Durham Center.
IP name — The name given to identify servers or
locations on the Internet. It is composed of words separated by
periods (dots). An example is a URL in a Web browser, such as
www.iastate.edu.
Top-level domain name (TLD) — The portion of a domain
name that specifies the type of organization. Organization types
include commercial (.com), educational (.edu),
organizational (.org), governmental (.gov), military
(.mil), and network (.net). Other designations
exist or are emerging. In the U.S., the top-level domain name is
generally the rightmost portion of the domain name. Outside the U.S.,
the top-level domain name generally appears immediately before the
country code (e.g., .edu.uk would refer to an educational use
in the United Kingdom).
Electronic Version of This Policy
This policy will, by its nature, evolve in response to changes in
the Internet world. The site at
http://www.ait.iastate.edu/policy/dns.html has the most
recent version of this policy.
1 The IP address space is that
collection of IP addresses assigned to Iowa State University by
Internet registration authorities. Today this includes a Class-B IP
address space and several Class-C IP address spaces.
| 
