WASHINGTON -- A university technology consortium will become the new gatekeeper of Internet addresses for educational institutions.
The Commerce Department's selection on Wednesday of Educause, a nonprofit consortium, may open the door for all community colleges to obtain dot-edu addresses, making their websites easier to find.
Educause replaces VeriSign as the assigner of Internet addresses ending in dot-edu. VeriSign, a private firm, retains the right to assign addresses ending with dot-com, dot-org and dot-net.
Education groups praised the decision.
"The community as a whole is more comfortable with dealing with an operation that understands how higher education operates and is sensitive to some of the values and nuances that might otherwise escape VeriSign," said Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education.
Mark Luker of Educause said his group was the logical choice to make dot-edu assignments.
"We have a combination of technical expertise and the ability to operate a public discussion of the rules of admission for dot-edu. We represent the members of dot-edu itself," Luker said. "We're the networking leaders of higher education in the United States."
As the managers of dot-edu, Educause will be responsible for handling the registration of websites for colleges and universities.
The dot-edu domain category has been restricted to four-year colleges and universities almost since its inception. But about a quarter of community colleges got dot-edu addresses before the restriction took effect. Educause plans to allow the rest of the community colleges to obtain dot-edu addresses.
"We've discussed that quite a few times over the past year, and we believe it has very strong support," Luker said.
About 900 community colleges don't have the right to use dot-edu addresses, instead using the much longer addresses ending in dot-us -- for United States -- that are also shared among state and local governments, elementary schools and some companies.
For example, Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland has its website at www.tri-c.cc.oh.us. Such a long and confusing address is hard for prospective students to remember, said Cuyahoga Community College president Jerry Sue Thornton.
"I'm using a fair amount of billboard advertisements. It takes far too long to try to read it," Thornton said. "By the time you add everything that's there, it's a very long address. It's almost been counterproductive for us."
If Educause changes the rules, the school could use the simpler "www.tri-c.edu."
"Let's make it consistent for all high education," Thornton said. "Community colleges are part of higher ed. Don't discriminate."
VeriSign said they never wanted to keep dot-edu, and just did the job on behalf of the Commerce Department as a public service.
"Our relationship with dot-edu has essentially been that of a custodian who's providing custodial services for free," said Roger Cochetti, senior vice president for policy at VeriSign. "To whatever extent dot-edu is expanded to serve community colleges, we're absolutely delighted."
