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[drspouse]

RCUK has finally stumped up and given us some money for a project. You can definitely hear the pips squeak (they are currently arguing over conference funding). It's a joint project with 3 UK universities (handily, but confusingly, all beginning with the same letter of the alphabet) and lasting 2 1/2 years, but a) it is likely to have a slightly commercisable outcome and b) it's going to have a lot of public input and c) the data will be available for years to come, we're hoping for spinoff projects, etc. etc.

So, we want somewhere central that the public can navigate to to give their input, somewhere researchers can look up the data, and somewhere ultimately the tool we create can be obtained.

I am wondering how feasible it is to get an .ac.uk domain for a project, rather than an institution? I know they exist for e.g. physics facilities as well as universities; it says you need a "permanent physical presence" but if that's just to have somewhere for post to come to, we can allocate an office in our department, that it's got to be "centrally funded" (assuming RCUK counts, it doesn't say it has to be permanent), and that it has to meet one criterion from a list that includes publicly funded research where results are in the public domain.

Anyone got any clues?

[expatinuk]

gosh... very easy. I own about 50 domain names.

First of all you will need a provider... someone to host your page unless the uni insists on hosting it (then you get into problems coz universities usually are limited in the domains they may own under their own domain)

I use 1and1.co.uk. It costs 10 quid a month for more than you will need and you'll get a couple of free domain names.

If you are doing a joint project that's academic I would suggest using a .info name instead of co.uk. It's more expensive but seems more 'academic' and 'informative' than a commercial co.uk

[rattydog]

If you are doing a joint project that's academic I would suggest using a .info name instead of co.uk. It's more expensive but seems more 'academic' and 'informative' than a commercial co.uk

I think the OP is referring specifically to acquiring a domain that ends *.ac.uk

The answer is likely no (http://www.ja.net/services/domain-name-registration/register.ac.uk/eligibility-ac.html) since they really are reserved for institutions that provide teaching and learned societies.

You would probably be better off using a *.com, *.info, *.co.uk, *.org.uk, etc and having a landing page on each university site that then also links to your joint hosted project site.

[expatinuk]

Sorry... just reread your post. You can't get an ac.uk domain name unless you're an academic institution. Your university could get one as a subset of theirs... such as:

http://www.youruniproject.ac.uk

But they are limited in the number of sub-domains they can have and they generally don't like to use those for a project. They generally reserve those for schools and/or faculties.

Additionally, most university's really police anything connected with their domain and won't allow you to just upload things. They will require that you go through IT services or whoever they use as their police force.

Since you're doing this in collaboration  with partners from other universities (something I've done quite a bit) you're really better off agreeing to a domain name that reflects the nature of the project and doing a .info extension. If your partners are in the EU I would use a .eu extension. I've done both.

HTH

[scotia]

I am not sure how it was done, but you might want to contact someone associated with one of these projects:  http://www.side.ac.uk/ or http://www.dotrural.ac.uk/ or http://www.horizon.ac.uk/Home, all of which are clusters of projects with a ac.uk domain. I think they are all multimillion pound projects, so may have the clout that a smaller project doesn't, but they do seem to suggest a precedent.

[wegie]

My last job was with an academic service provider, and we had no problem getting an ac.uk domain out of JANET when we started.

Your computing services should have somebody who deals with registration issues, and they should know how to get an ac.uk domain registered, and should be able to tell you how likely it is that your project will be able to get one.

[drspouse]

My last job was with an academic service provider, and we had no problem getting an ac.uk domain out of JANET when we started.

Your computing services should have somebody who deals with registration issues, and they should know how to get an ac.uk domain registered, and should be able to tell you how likely it is that your project will be able to get one.

And Wegie gets the prize for the most helpful answer... just emailing him now!

It is quite a lot like SIDE or Horizon linked above, only slightly smaller.

[expatinuk]

The thing that I stress... is WHO is going to be updating your website? If you get a domain name through your university you'd better check and see what you're going to be allowed to do with the site... who is going to maintain it and how often they will maintain it... and more importantly what are they going to charge you for doing such!

Nothing is free on a uni campus and IT services will mostly likely hit your budget for full overhead costs... ie HUGE COSTS for doing something that you may be able to do yourself, but they won't allow you to do it because you're on their server and using a domain name associated with the university!

[science_expat]

In terms of data, you probably should check RCUK rules on data availability - you may need to use one of their repositories.

[snape]

I've been involved in projects that have .ac.uk domains. JANET can be a bit difficult sometimes, but the trick is to keep trying. The more long term the project the better and they don't like giving them to what they see as 'local initiatives.'

[drspouse]

In terms of data, you probably should check RCUK rules on data availability - you may need to use one of their repositories.

We did say in the application that we were going to create our own database (which we said would be on one of the universities' sites). I think RCUK usually want you to "make your data available" and are OK with it being deposited elsewhere as well. But we will check.

We will use it initially for public input, though.

That's really helpful, snape - it's not local, for sure, as it's intended to be a UK-wide project, deliberately, and has 3 universities involved - we'll try and persuade them it will be lasting.

[drspouse]

Well, just to update, we got it!

This is really good news as it will be something easy for members of the public to remember and navigate to.