Domains

About

Domain names are easy-to-remember (usually) identifiers for resources on the Internet. Domain names are registered and maintained by owners and administrators. Maryland Institute College of Art owns the registration and maintains mica.edu, which is the official domain name for the College. Other domain names in use by departments or parts of MICA include: micadesign.org and rivalsofthewest.org.

Limitations

Domain name registrations are associated with recurring costs to keep ownership of the domain. Owning and administering a domain also requires a degree of understanding how to host and build websites, services that also usually have associated costs.

When to Pursue a Domain

MICA does not advocate departments or divisions pursuing or using external domains for websites that represent MICA or any part of MICA. If you decide to pursue a custom external web domain, you do so without the support of the College, Strategic Communications, and the Web Team.

If you would like to pursue and maintain a website for your department, an Affiliate Website might be a good option for you. To see existing Affiliate Websites, visit inside.mica.edu.

Subdomains

About

A subdomain is a subpart of a domain. Technically, MICA's website is a subdomain of mica.edu. With many websites, you'll see this in your browser's address bar: www.mica.edu. WWW is the subdomain for the website.

Other subdomains used at MICA include gmail.mica.edu (for MICA's Gmail service), hrprd92.mica.edu (for PeopleSoft), and inside.mica.edu (for building on-brand departmental websites)

Limitations

Depending on how you use a subdomain, you may need the same knowledge and resources to maintain one as you would a domain.

When to Request a Subdomain

A mica.edu subdomain might be a good solution for you if you have an external site or system that you would like to have associated with a mica.edu subdomain. You can get a subdomain for an external system (such as a helpdesk.mica.edu) or an Affiliate Website (inside.mica.edu).

How to Request a Subdomain

If you would like a subdomain for an external site or system, please contact the Help Desk at help@mica.edu.

If you would like to pursue and maintain a website for your department, an Affiliate Website might be a good option for you. To see existing Affiliate Websites, visit inside.mica.edu.

ShortURLs

About

ShortURLs, or 301 redirects, are used to make long, canonical, URLs more easy for promotion and marketing. In a website, every page and resource has a unique URL. These URLs usually spell out the site tree between the home page and the individual page.

For example, the page Website Support's URL is
https://mica.dev.fastspot.com/campus-resources/website-support/
mica.edu is the domain, the next level in the site tree is /website-resources/ and the page's part of the URL is /website-support/.

For ease of communication, the Web Team has created a shortURL for this page: www.mica.edu/websupport.

Limitations

ShortURLs do not have to redirect to something in the domain of the shortURL. I.e. you can have the shortURL www.mica.edu/gmail redirect to https://www.gmail.com. Please note that only the domain owner can create shortURLs for their domains. This means that MICA's Web Team, which manages mica.edu, cannot create a shortURL, e.g.,

When to Request a mica.edu ShortURL

ShortURLs on mica.edu are most appropriate for people who want to promote or communicate a page on www.mica.edu that has a URL too long to easily remember or fit on materials.

How to Get a mica.edu ShortURL

MICA's Web Team manages shortURLs for mica.edu. If you'd like a mica.edu shortURL, please email websupport@mica.edu.