Clarifying URL Guidelines for Interdisciplinary Units

Interdisciplinary and interdivisional collaborations are at the heart of Johns Hopkins University’s mission and drive much of the innovation across our campuses. To ensure this work is easy to find, understood in the context of our shared mission, and clearly connected to the broader university, our JHU.edu URL guidelines place each unit in the most logical home, supporting both sound information architecture and a strong, consistent brand. 

We’ve recently updated the language in the URL guidelines to make our long-standing approach to interdisciplinary units clearer for requesters. The guidelines for interdisciplinary units haven’t changed, but the requirements are now spelled out more explicitly. 

What’s clarified: 

• Interdisciplinary units should generally reside within an existing parent unit’s URL structure (e.g., parentunit.jhu.edu/subunit or subunit.parentunit.jhu.edu) rather than creating a new third-level subdomain (name.jhu.edu). When evaluating requests, we consider factors like the unit’s scope, visibility, intended audiences, and how closely its work is tied to a parent unit’s identity and operations. 

• If an interdisciplinary unit does not clearly fit under an existing URL, a new third-level domain may be granted with approval from University Communications. 

We appreciate the input that brought us here, and we hope this update makes it easier for our community to position their work in ways that are both discoverable and connected to the mission of Johns Hopkins University.