Domain names after academy status

[nicklec]

Sorry if this isn't the best forum please move if necessary. This thread in general chat touches on the subject but doesn't seem to have a final resolution.

 

We're probably going to be an academy shortly and I believe this means we should no longer refer to ourselves as a 'school'. This is somewhat implied by our havering.sch.uk domain name so we will be purchasing a new domain to avoid this confusion. Curious what other schools are doing and if there is any actual rules/laws regarding this?

 

I've had a quick look at nearby schools that have converted and to my surprise their website/domain reflect no changes so far; seems maybe people haven't thought this far in to the technical identity of the school! Another nearby academy that was founded as such has a schoolnameacademy.com domain, is anyone aware of academies being allowed to use .ac.uk or if an acd.uk tld is going to be created?

 

We will probably purchase .co.uk/.org/.com/.org.uk (to avoid squatters/confusion) but still curious why converted schools aren't making more of an effort to move away from these domain names/website descriptions.

[plexer]

You can't get .ac.uk unless your are a higher education establishment.

 

We bought the .org.uk as the .org was allready taken.

 

Ben

[FN-GM]

You can't get .ac.uk unless your are a higher education establishment.

 

Not strictly true. My former school got a .ac.uk domain name after it gained technology college status. The students where 11-16 year olds.

[localzuk]

An academy is still a 'school' so would ordinarily still use a .sch.uk domain as far as I know. However, we have .com/org/org.uk/net here.

[Edu-IT]

I think you can still request to take ownership of your .sch.uk domain, can you not?

 

Edit:

 

Grumbledook posted in another thread "Just a quick note to remind people ... your .sch.uk domain is owned by the school, not the LA and not the RBC/ISP ... you can get Nominet to forcibly move the tags if needed. Also, the 'region' bit in schoolname.region.sch.uk is to do with geographical regions and not specifically because you are an LA school. Even the CTCs had schoolname.region.sch.uk in."

 

A quick Google search found me http://www.boclair.e-dunbarton.sch.uk/page_viewer.asp?page=Home&pid=1 which is an Academy but has a .sch.uk domain.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Edu-IT

[glennda]

We use a .org.uk address for our school although our .sch.uk address we still have control over and points to our website anyway.

[sonofsanta]

Another example: King's School in Grantham (who still refer to themselves as a school as well, although they academised this academic year iirc)

[plexer]

Response from Janet Naming in response to my request about this:

 

Hi Ben,

 

Wayland academy would have to be exclusively providing tertiary education in order to be eligible for an ac.uk domain name.

 

Here is the link to our eligibility guidelines: Eligibility

 

Kind regards

 

Richard Brown

 

Ben

[FN-GM]

Response from Janet Naming in response to my request about this:

 

 

 

Ben

 

Not read the link but we had one. The school is closed now anyway but it was Balderstone Technology College - http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/system_pages/repositories/schools/balderstone_technology_college.aspx

[elsiegee40]

The academies I'm involved with have all retained their schoolname.county.sch.uk domains post conversion. You don't have to change.

[PiqueABoo]

Most I've been involved with have kept sch.uk, except for one.

 

AFAIC changing from sch.uk is a vanity thing in every sense of the word.. a pointless waste of tax-payers money when we're all supposed to be saving it, and only serves to make it more difficult for external folk to establish whether they're dealing with a bona-fide school of whatever variety i.e. unlike sch.uk anyone can get an org.uk.

[GrumbleDook]

From recent queries to JANET and also from conversations with Nominet ...

 

Schools (including TCs and CTCs) which gained an .ac.uk domain were due to merger with FE colleges (i.e. taking on the VIth form bit) who already had the .ac.uk domain, where due to direct sponsorship of a peering university (i.e. the internet connection was a JANET provided connection via the university ... and the university put in the application for the domain), where the school connected directly to JANET and is on the JANET network ... or ... it was a mistake.

 

Academies, like free schools/UTCs/Studio schools ... are just another form of compulsory education and so they get their .sch.uk domain. There is now a registration charge for change of name with Nominet (if you are changing the name, but many academies don't) as this used to be picked up by Becta and now needs to be funded by the school as it converts to an academy.

 

There is something to be said for domain registering on other TLDs / cTLDs to protect the branding of the school / academy ... but that is a different discussion.

[nutso]

Most I've been involved with have kept sch.uk, except for one.

 

AFAIC changing from sch.uk is a vanity thing in every sense of the word.. a pointless waste of tax-payers money when we're all supposed to be saving it, and only serves to make it more difficult for external folk to establish whether they're dealing with a bona-fide school of whatever variety i.e. unlike sch.uk anyone can get an org.uk.

 

I don't see it as a vanity issue for us. We use a .org address simply because using the .sch.uk and by extension the email addresses given to schools in our area is absurdly long and cumbersome, and the longer an address is the more chance of people making typing errors. As an example, email addresses look like [email protected].u k.

 

Yes, some schools actually have a 30+ character domain! So for us, changing was a no-brainer.

 

edit: Oops, didn't realise this thread was a month old. Apparently I'm still living in April.

Edited May 18, 2012 by nutso

[GrumbleDook]

Personally ... I would say that you should have gone for .org.uk domain ... not .org ...

[winng]

We are about to convert to an Academy and although we will retain the existing school name (for heritage reasons I guess) we will stop using the ???.county.sch.uk domain and use the one I bought earlier, ???.org.uk. This also make sit easier for me to move us to Google Apps without needing to request changes to the MX records.

[GrumbleDook]

I presume that you will point the MX records of the old domain to a mail service with a catch all account with an auto-responder telling people to contact people via the new email domain?

[sparkeh]

Am I the only person who can't see the point of not using the region.sch.uk address?

You are a school in that region of the uk... I just don't get it?!

[Steve21]

Am I the only person who can't see the point of not using the region.sch.uk address?

You are a school in that region of the uk... I just don't get it?!

 

Some very long URLs with lots of dot dot dot dot dot!

 

Steve

[sjatkn]

As @plexer did, we went with .org.uk. My line manager initially wanted .com but I did persuade him that the .org.uk made us look more the UK based non-profit charitable organisation that we are. That said we did but .co.uk & .com for the next couple of years at least. We also still have our .sch.uk address, which we will keep for the duration of our stay with the LEA broadband (those days are numbered). Edited May 18, 2012 by sjatkn

[PiqueABoo]

I did persuade him that the .org.uk made us look more the UK based non-profit charitable organisation that we are.

 

I've got one of those and although charitable and non-profit sometimes apply to my actions, it's just a personal play thing and I expect most of them are the same.

 

which we will keep for the duration of our stay with the LEA broadband (those days are numbered).

 

I've yet to work on any mail domain changes where I haven't succesfully explained that having your new address as a primary and your old address as an alias/proxy pointed at the same mailbox for a few years is by far the best strategy... old mail addresses have a habit of persisting in other folk's address lists/mailboxes for eons... and one day someone will probably use an old address for something mission critical (which if you talk to users during a 5 min outage is absolutely everything they get sent).

[winng]

I presume that you will point the MX records of the old domain to a mail service with a catch all account with an auto-responder telling people to contact people via the new email domain?

 

That sounds like a good idea. I hadn't thought much past getting away from the LA.

 

As all the 'new' email accounts will be in the same format, i.e. winng@????.county.sch.uk will be winng@????.org.uk, is it possible to set something up to redirect or forward mail?

[FN-GM]

As all the 'new' email accounts will be in the same format, i.e. winng@????.county.sch.uk will be winng@????.org.uk, is it possible to set something up to redirect or forward mail?

 

What e-mail product do you use?

[glennda]

That sounds like a good idea. I hadn't thought much past getting away from the LA.

 

As all the 'new' email accounts will be in the same format, i.e. winng@????.county.sch.uk will be winng@????.org.uk, is it possible to set something up to redirect or forward mail?

 

If you using exchange you can setup both to run alongside

[GrumbleDook]

Schools which have had name changes in this area and run in-house exchange boxes simply add it is as an additional address and when the name change is done they move it to the primary address of the mailbox. I would also add a footer to the email to point out the name and domain change and ask people to update their address books accordingly.

 

Not relevant for the OP but might be to others ... if you are changing your school name completely then Nominet will only keep the old domain running for a few months (most I have had is 9 months so far) ... and if your name change was also done with a change of DfE number then you will have to get in quickly to make sure Nominet don't remove the domain as part of their housekeeping. Try to keep redirections in place for websites so they know it is live otherwise it may just go.

[zag]

We moved to a .co.uk domain the day we became an acadamy. Other schools in the area did a similar thing.

 

http://www.schoolname.county.sch.uk

 

to

 

http://www.school-name.co.uk