.edu

The domain name "edu" is a sponsored top-level domain (sTLD) in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from 'education', indicating its intended use as a name space for educational institutions, primarily those in the United States.: Eligibility for the EDU Domain Although not officially mandated for much of the domain's existence, in practice it has been used primarily for U.S.-based four-year universities. Starting in 2001, it was officially restricted to accreditationaccredited post-secondary institutions and organizations that are accredited by nationally recognized accrediting agencies.

History
Created in January 1985 as one of the first top-level domainsRFC 920, 'Domain Requirements', J. Postel, J. Reynolds, The Internet Society (October 1984) (the other five being .comcom, .govgov, .milmil, .netnet and .orgorg). edu was originally intended for educational institutions anywhere in the world. On April 24, 1985 Carnegie Mellon Universitycmu.edu, UC Berkeleyberkeley.edu, Columbia Universitycolumbia.edu, Purdue Universitypurdue.edu, Rice Universityrice.edu, and UCLAucla.edu became the first six registered domain names. With few exceptions, however, only educational institutions in the United States registered such domains, while institutions in other countries usually used domain names under the appropriate country code Top-level domainTLD. In some countries a second-level domain is used to indicate an educational institutions (e.g., .mxSecond-level domainsedu.mx in Mexico, .cnSecond-level domainsedu.cn in China, .auSecond-level domainsedu.au in Australia, .ukSecond-level_domainsac.uk and .ukSecond-level domainssch.uk and ed.uk in the United Kingdom) and in others only the country code is used (e.g., in Canada, Germany and France). In Germany, the second-level domain often has a prefix indicating the kind of institution ('uni' for 'Universität', 'fh' for 'Fachhochschule', for instance uni-erfurt.de and fh-erfurt.de) or, if there are several institutions of the same type, the abbreviation of the institutions name (for instance fu-berlin.de, tu-berlin.de and hu-berlin.de for the three Berlin universities).

Examples of non-US edu domains are: the French 'International Space University' isunet.edu, the French polytechnique.edu, the Belgian solvay.edu, the German kit.edu, the Canadian toronto.edu, the Swedish korteboskolan.edu, the Polytechnic University of Catalonia upc.edu, Kosovo uni-pr.edu, the Indian nist.edu, the Thai au.edu or the Slovenian fpp.edu. Many institutions whose primary sites are located in local second-level domains run mirror sites in the edu domain, such as oxford.edu mirroring ox.ac.uk, open.edu mirroring open.ac.uk, monash.edu mirroring monash.edu.au, ulster.edu mirroring ulster.ac.uk or udo.edu mirroring uni-dortmund.de.

Accreditation
Starting on October 29, 2001, only post-secondary institutions and organizations that are educational accreditationaccredited by an agency on the U.S. Department of EducationU.S. Department of Education's list of Nationally recognized accrediting agencies in the United Statesnationally recognized accrediting agencies are eligible to apply for a edu domain. Most such agencies accredit only US institutions, so very few non-US institutions qualify, and edu remains almost exclusively a top-level domain of the United States.

As the domain was traditionally used for four-year universities, the new policy also allowed two-year colleges (e.g. community colleges), which had previously used other domains, to register. Many organizations took advantage of this and officially switched to edu domains. A notable case was the California Community Colleges System, whose members had previously masked their domains with .org or .net but were officially located at History of the Internetvestigial hierarchical domains such as sjdccd.cc.ca.us (representing San Joaquin Delta College"S"an "J"oaquin "D"elta "C"ommunity "C"ollege "D"istrict, a "C"ommunity "C"ollege in "Ca"lifornia, .us"U"nited "S"tates). This then became simply deltacollege.edu.

The current eligibility requirements apply only to new applicants. Several non-qualifying institutions retained their edu domain delegations obtained before the current rules came into force.

Examples of these include Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a public secondary school at imsa.edu; Marquette University High School, a private all boys high shcool at muhs.edu; Stuyvesant High School, a public secondary school at stuy.edu; Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a public secondary school at tjhsst.edu; Bronx High School of Science, a public secondary school at bxscience.edu, The Bush School, a private K-12 school at bush.edu; Phillips Academy, a private secondary school at andover.edu; and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, a public secondary school at ncssm.edu (however, since 2007 it has been a full member of the University of North Carolina); Kerala Agricultural University at www.kau.edu; and Punahou School, a private K-12 school best known today as the alma mater of Barack Obama, at punahou.edu.

A post-2001 non-accredited school that managed to obtain a edu extension is George Wythe University.

Other uses
A few of the existing edu domain registrants are not schools; often these are established museums or have some connection to education and research, others are simply protected due to a Grandfather clausegrandfathering clause of pre-2000 registrations (even though some never qualified under the registration requirements of the time).

(class'wikitable'
academia.edu
Academia.edu
Networking site for researchers
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allison.edu
Private site
Robert Allison
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adison.edu
Adison U
'Liberal arts resources.'
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america.edu
???
A commercial site.
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atlantis.edu
Private site
Daniel Lees
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australia.edu
Australia.edu
A commercial site.
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awu.edu
American World University
Unacredited Online University.
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brook.edu
Brookings Institution
A research and policy institute.
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chalcedon.edu
Chalcedon Foundation
According to its official site, it is a 'Christian educational organization devoted to research, publishing, and promoting Christian ReconstructionismChristian reconstruction in all areas of life.'
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chw.edu
Catholic Healthcare West
s to a hospital's web site.
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ctmf.edu
Central Texas Medical Foundation
A medical site.
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educause.edu
Educause
The edu registry itself, as 'a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology'.
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edu.edu
University of Phoenix
Advertising front for the University of Phoenix, billing itself as 'your one-stop guide to online colleges, online courses, online degrees'.
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england.edu
England.edu
A commercial site.
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exploratorium.edu
Exploratorium
A science museum in San Francisco, California.
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fi.edu
Franklin Institute Science Museum
A museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
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fivecolleges.edu
Five Colleges (Massachusetts)Five Colleges, Inc.
A consortium of five institutions of higher education in Massachusetts: not a conventional university.
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folger.edu
Folger Shakespeare Library
A library in Washington, D.C..
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getty.edu
J. Paul Getty Trust
An international cultural and philanthropic organization in Los Angeles, California.
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iom.edu
Institutes of Medicine
An academy associated with the United States National Academy of SciencesNational Academy of Sciences.
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kirameki.edu
Private site
No content.
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lincolninst.edu
Lincoln Institute of Land Policy
A non-profit research institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts that studies the use, regulation, and taxation of land.
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mindless.edu
Private site
No content.
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nrc.edu
National Research Council
government science policy advisors.
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ohiolink.edu
OhioLINK
Ohio library consortium
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omsi.edu
OMSI
A science museum in Portland, Oregon.
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photography.edu
Photography.edu
Online photography classes
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pi.edu
pi.edu
Blog directory
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si.edu
Smithsonian Institution
A national museum ('America's national educational facility').
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swri.edu
Southwest Research Institute
A nonprofit applied research and development organization in San Antonio, Texas
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stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute
The organization that selects the science program for the Hubble Space Telescope.
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world.edu
Education Worlds
A commercial site.
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newzealand.edu
NewZealand.edu
A commercial site.
)

Registry
Educause is the authoritative registry provider for edu, and is also its exclusive registrar as edu is a closed system. The applying institution must apply directly to Educause and show proof of their accreditation, and only then will they be given a domain name. While Educause is a non-profit agency, it does charge an annual fee for each domain name. All of the money that is made from these fees goes into the costs of maintaining the infrastructure for edu. Educause, as the sole registrar, resolves domain name disputes and all other policy matters for edu. Ultimate authority for edu rests with the US Department of Commerce. As far as the actual technical administration, Educause directly runs and maintains the technical components for the registrar and registration portion of the operation in-house, but they contract out the operation of the registry nameservers for the domain, currently, to VeriSign's Registry hosting services.

Other education oriented domains
Many countries have implemented special subdomains within their designated country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the use by educational entities. These domains have varying eligibility requirements. In some countries, the edu second-level domain is an ordinary domain with no special significance; in others it has been issued to a local departments of education or has been deliberately reserved and not issued to anyone to prevent confusion.

See also


References

External links

Edu Odev Portal - Turkey


in/out the United States (CHEA)
in the United States (USDE)


en.wikipedia.org