BYU Domains Governance Policy

While BYU is providing the infrastructure to allow students and faculty to create personal domains, BYU does not routinely monitor web pages and does not assume responsibility for content within them notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary.  BYU reserves the right to monitor any site hosted within BYU Domains.  The authors of web pages are responsible for all content on their sites.

Use of BYU Domains is governed by the BYU Honor Code, the University Policies and Procedures and the University’s Computer and Electronic Communications General Use Policy.

BYU Domain sites or domain names may not include, or display content that includes the following:

  1. Any violation of the BYU Honor Code.
  2. Any violation of the University’s Computer and Electronic Communications General Use Policy.
  3. Any violation of the University Policies and Procedures.
  4. Copyright Violations: Web pages must be free from copyright violations.  Content providers are responsible to verify permission for any copied materials.
  5. Plagiarism: Avoid the use, either an intentional or unintentional representation, of another person’s ideas, writing, or images as one’s own, including materials found online, from another student or another class.
  6. Invasions of Personal Privacy.
  7. Social Security Numbers: Sites that include social security numbers must have all but the last four digits masked.
  8. Impersonations of third parties, including other universities, businesses, or organizations.
  9. Any item that suggests BYU or Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsorship (BYU or Church Logos, BYU or Church affiliation in footers, etc. are not allowed).
  10. Content that might cause harm the people you represent in your digital publications: If you can foresee any way in which your publication of voice, images, video, or text may adversely affect someone you work with on a project, you must refrain from publishing that material, even if the individual has signed a consent form.
  11. Illegal Content: Ensure that all links, applications, and digital content agreements are fully sanctioned by the original provider.
  12. Any other content deemed inappropriate for the BYU community.

BYU allows students and employees to use their domains for personal and non-academic use, including personal hobbies, small business, and other personal interests.

BYU Domains limits the amount of space for each domain. This space allotment may not be expanded until the user leaves the University and begins to make payments on their domain. If a BYU Domains participant would like more space, they can use cloud storage systems such as Amazon S3 to link to content.

We discourage Learning Management System (LMS) deployments through BYU Domains.  We believe that using a single LMS on campus (currently LearningSuite) improves the overall user experience by limiting the navigation of course information to a single application. Any implementation of an LMS through BYU Domains must meet BYU guidelines for protection of student information as governed by FERPA policy.

  1. Access to any FERPA-related information must be secured.
  2. Domain names ending in “.byu.edu” are strongly encouraged for sites that contain FERPA-related information.
  3. FERPA training is recommended before deploying any LMS system or when storing or using any FERPA-related information.

Support

  1. BYU and Reclaim Hosting support the cPanel, infrastructure, backups, accounts, and system access for BYU Domains.
  2. Major changes to the system will be communicated broadly when downtime is expected.
  3. Support requests can be made through several different channels.
    1. Go to the website https://it.byu.edu (“Report a Problem”)
    2. Call 801-422-4000 (Monday-Friday from 7:30 a.m.–6:00 p.m.; closed for university devotionals and holidays)
    3. Come to the ITB 1st floor reception area, 1388 University Ave (Monday-Friday from 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.; closed for university devotionals)
  4. BYU is not responsible for problems associated with each installed application (upgrades, defects, usability, etc.).  Application support is provided by their respective individual vendors who are responsible for all changes.

Leaving the University

All students and employees who leave the University are required to pay for domain hosting and domain name registration costs ($30 a year) or move their sites within 6 months of their departure.  If you do not pay the fee or transfer your site, your domain will still be registered in your name, but you will no longer have access to your hosted content after you leave the university.

Digital Citizenship and Ethics

It’s important that users be able to interact freely with each other and with digital texts. Meanwhile, it’s equally essential to safeguard people’s rights to privacy, personal security, and credit for their own creations and ideas.

Within this framework of digital citizenship, as you publish within your own domain, it’s important to be thoughtful about how you’ll work with people you may interview, photograph, film or otherwise represent in your online publications. Various kinds of work include representations of others.

Some good resources from Emory University on the subject of Digital Citizenship and Ethics

Using a .byu.edu Domain Name

BYU will allow faculty members additional .byu.edu domain names through the BYU Domain hosting service (aside from their own personal domain name) under the following conditions:

  1. The requested domain name has not previously been used.
  2. The ownership of the domain name is retained by BYU. The faculty member will not own the domain name and the domain will be considered BYU property.