.berkeley.edu URLs for student groups
May 10, 2013
Attending
Kellsie Munoz, Hostmistress
Erika Donald, IT Policy
Andy Goldblatt, Enterprise Risk Mgmt
Jeff Woods, LEAD
Jan Gonsalves, OMBO
Lisa Ho, IT Policy
Background on use of Berkeley name/affiliation
· http://ombo.berkeley.edu/forms/policies/campuspolicy (see III D). Only authorized campus groups and individual employees making a true and accurate statement about their employment with the University may use the University’s name. The Berkeley domain is considered a trademark/abbreviation of the name, and its use for personal sites may make it appear that the University supports/endorses the individual listed on the site.
· Per OMBO/trademark policy "Cal” or “Berkeley” or “UC Berkeley” is not allowed in student group names
o “at Cal” or “at Berkeley” is allowed
· Side note on faculty domain names per Risk /Andy:
o Anything faculty members do is associated with the University
o even within a subdomain, a faculty violation will be a University issue
Background on assignment of hostnames
· First come first served, as long as not taken or obviously misleading
o https://security.berkeley.edu/policy/dns (see III.C.3)
· Requests come via:
o IT Policy approval process for off-site hosting requests
o Open Computing Facility (a volunteer student group) sends requests for x.berkeley.edu
o Other campus departments for onsite requests
· For every 1 off-site request, 100 onsite requests
· berkeley.edu namespace needs a lot of cleanup (lots of top level names that shouldn’t be top level)
o OCF has 200 – 400 top level records
· Side note: A few delegated namespaces remain on campus: ocf, ccsl, soe, eecs.b.e -- these groups manage their own top level domain space (i.e., OCF can create other ocf.berkeley.edu/… URLs ), but can’t create other top level domains
· Students have not been allowed to get top level personal websites (this is not explicit in policy), but could create a name for a server or a lab or under another subdomain
Background on student groups
· Level of supervision provided by the University varies with type of student org:
o Registered groups:
§ 1,500 existing registered student groups
§ 4 people (min 2 students)
§ access to campus facilities, insurance for low risk events
§ No sponsor required, distinct from university, no oversight
§ Student group re-registration required annually, and can start any time of year
o Sponsored groups
§ LEAD center sponsored
§ 17 groups
§ 73 greek orgs
§ higher level of University involvement in their activities
o Sports clubs
o ASUC and GA student government (different from sponsored orgs)
Recommendations
- For registered student groups:
- Establish [groupname].studentorgs.berkeley.edu subdomain
- (vs. [groupname].students.berkeley.edu which could invite requests for personal student sites)
- Do not require faculty/staff (admin official) approval of studentorgs.berkeley.edu websites because supervision is not dependable and is counter to group independence (sponsorship creates liability)
- For sponsored and other student orgs with closer supervision:
- Establish different URL rules
- Move registered student groups from top level domains to [groupname].studentorgs.berkeley.edu
- Work with OCF to establish process for annual re-registration of URLs
- Continue to allow personal students sites under other subdomains: e.g., ocf.berkeley.edu/~studentname
- LEAD/Jeff oversee (via OCF) establishing security contacts for the subdomain in case of website defacement or abuse
- Define terms and conditions (ground rules) that allow termination of sites
- Grandfathering [groupname].berkeley.edu should be a exception
- Create criteria around when a student org top level domain exception is allowed
- LEAD will be the referee
- For any grandfathered top level [groupname].berkeley.edu domain, also require creation of [groupname].studentorgs.berkeley.edu for DNS tracking
- Exception should be time-limited
Action Items
- (Kellsie, Siegrid, Isaac) Provide response regarding timeline, requirements, or issues around request to create subdomain studentorgs.berkeley.edu (recommendation 1a)
- (All) Send back approval or alternate recommendation for the following proposals (recommendation 2):
- Allow top level domain names for sponsored student groups, GA, and ASUC (Administrative Official/Resource Proprietor approval required) with approval from Jeff (LEAD) and Jan/Maria (OMBO).
- Approve request from Bahar Navab, Graduate Assembly for off-site hosting of ga.berkeley.edu (Administration Official/Resource Proprietor approval received from Amanda-Nicole Ridel)
- (Lisa) Contact committees.berkeley.edu requestor for alternate top-level domain name [Status 5/13/13: email sent to Carl Nadler on 5/10; no response yet]
- (Jeff - with Kellsie and Lisa) work with OCF on domain registration annual renewal/cleanup process (recommendation 3). Jeff feel free to schedule a followup or let me know if you want me to schedule something.
- (All) Send input on what criteria should be used to evaluate requests to grandfather top-level domains. (Lisa) compile and draft guideline.