Introduction

The URL guide defines the framework of the University of Boltons's web-based infrastructure. The objective is to ensure that web-based information and services are structured in a way that provides the most effective access to information for our target audience.

Domains

It is policy that the number of domains should be as limited as possible. bolton.ac.uk is the registered domain name; the main domains are:

• bolton.ac.uk - the primary domain. All material existing at the top level of this domain is controlled by Marketing and Communications. Subsections such as bolton.ac.uk/Students/ are controlled by different staff based on content responsibility. For example bolton.ac.uk/Students/StudyResources/Library/ is maintained by the Library.
• data.bolton.ac.uk - the domain for mainly internal content and also project and research based websites.
• Other domains will only be used for University service, examples of this are webmail.bolton.ac.uk webct.bolton.ac.uk and cms.bolton.ac.uk

Departmental URLs

Departmental, or other grouping, URLs will exist immediately under the main domains, in other words:

bolton.ac.uk/Education

URLs can be all lower-case, but preferably Upper and Lower case letters. They must contain no spaces, underscores or any URL-encoded characters|.

"Centre" and non-departmental URLs

Occasionally there will be instances where certain groups would not wish to exist within the primary domain structure, even though they are within the University, and therefore require a discrete URL. Official Centres or Research Groups - may sit directly under the main domain (eg bolton.ac.uk/IEC/). Other centres can appear below the departmental or school domain.

Decisions on exceptions rest with a group consisting of Marketing & Communications and Computing Services staff.

non bolton.ac.uk URLs

Non-bolton.ac.uk URLs are only acceptable when the 'service' is either:

• a nationally-funded JISC service or
• project-funded with multiple partners or
• aimed at commercial spin-off or
• targetted outside ac.uk domain for commercial customers

 

Notes and Guidelines

1. Key URLs should be short and memorable
   www.bolton.ac.uk/AboutUs/ rather than www.bolton.ac.uk/university/info/aboutus
2. URLs are preferable upper and lower case, but all lowercase is acceptable.
   www.bolton.ac.uk/ProspectiveStudents
3. URLs should be intuitive to end-users, ie activity-oriented rather than organisation or Web-server oriented:
   www.bolton.ac.uk/News/ than www.bolton.ac.uk/corpcomms/releases/news/
4. URLs should not contain underscores
   www.bolton.ac.uk/ProspectiveStudents/ rather than www.bolton.ac.uk/Prospective_Students/
5. The linking web page should indicate if a URL is restricted by access control. 
   Strategic Plan [Restricted] 
6. Key URLs should have an 'Home' page so they can be referenced without using a filename, this means creating Home.aspx when using the Content Management System, or index.html when publishing on data.bolton.
   www.bolton.ac.uk/ProspectiveStudents/  rather than www.bolton.ac.uk/ProspectiveStudents/Prospective.aspx

Terminology

The term "URL" (Uniform Resource Locator) refers to a web address used to identify a particular resource on the University of Bolton web server. This is used interchangeably even when the term "URI" (Uniform Resource Identifier) may be more technically correct.