About the Service

What is UVA Create and is it right for my needs?

UVA Create became a UVA Library service in 2019. It is an online space where anyone with an active UVA computing ID (faculty, students, and staff) can manage their own digital identities and gain web design literacy by building and maintaining their own website(s). The account owner is expected to maintain their own website/server environment (cPanel) with minimal support and guidance from the UVA Create Support team and our third-party vendor, Reclaim Hosting.

The kinds of sites appropriate for UVA Create include personal sites, portfolios, labs, and research groups.  It is not designed to support department websites, which should be coordinated through University ITS. Additionally, you cannot use a UVA Create account to sell products or services.

It’s important to note that at its core, the UVA Create model is tied to a single user, and when that user leaves the University, the expectation is that the user will do one of the following:

    • Suspend the site
    • Port the site with them to another hosting platform
    • Hand the site off to another UVA faculty, student, or staff member, OR
    • Discuss web archiving options with the UVA Library

If UVA Create is not right for you, other UVA web hosting options are listed on University ITS’ Service Now site under Websites & Application Development.

What applications are available through UVA Create?

List is subject to change, current as of June 7, 2021. Reclaim Hosting maintains a list of applications they support here, https://installatron.com/apps.

Community Building Apps

Includes forum systems (also known as bulletin boards), guestbooks, and mailing list applications.

      • Calendars: Booked, ExtCalendar, WebCalendar,
      • Chat: phpFreeChat, phpMyChat,
      • Email: Dada Mail, phpList, Site Recommender,
      • Forums: phpBB, FluxBB, MyBB, Simple Machines Forum, Vanilla Forums, XMB Forum
      • Groupware: Elgg, Oxwall, Pligg
      • Guestbook: GBook
      • Wikis: MediaWiki, DokuWiki, PmWiki, WikkaWiki

Content Management Apps

Content Management Systems (CMS) are applications designed to manage dynamic content for websites. All CMS applications have the ability to manage news or blogs and all include a templating system that allows the appearance/style of web pages to be controlled. The more advanced applications can include a near endless list of additional features, including: categories; commenting; user logins; polls; statistics; file managers; FAQ managers; and so on. CMS applications generally fit into the following loose categories: Blogs (also known as weblogs), CMSs, Portals (modular features that can be added into a standard three-column page layout), and Frameworks (do-it-yourself systems).

      • Blogs: WordPress, b2evolution, Dotclear, Geeklog, LifeType, PivotX, Serendipity, Textpattern
      • CMSs: Drupal, ClassicPress, CMS Made Simple, Composr CMS, concrete5, Contao, GetSimple, Grav, ImpressPages, Known, liveSite, MODx, Nucleus CMS, Omeka, Omeka S, phpwcms, PyroCMS, SilverStripe, Soholaunch, TYPO3, WebsiteBaker, WordPress
      • Education: Chamilo, Commons In A Box, eFront, HAXcms, Moodle™ LMS, Mukurtu, Scalar
      • FAQs: phpMyFAQ
      • Frameworks: CakePHP, Code Igniter, Coranto, Laravel, Nette, Smarty, Symfony, Zend Framework
      • Portals: Joomla, e107, Mahara, Mambo, PHP-Fusion, Subrion, Tiki Wiki CMS Groupware, Xoops, Zikula

Photos and Files Apps

Includes image galleries and other applications that assist in the management of website images, music, videos, and other multimedia.

      • Files: ownCloud, Codiad, GateQuest File Manager, Nextcloud Hub, OpenDocMan, Power File Manager, ProjectSend, Pydio
      • Gallery: Piwigo, Coppermine, Koken, Lychee, TinyWebGallery, Zenphoto

Surveys and Statistics Apps

Includes different statistical applications that enable website traffic to be monitored and analyzed, and polling and survey applications can be used to query the views of website visitors.

      • Poll/Survey: LimeSurvey, Aardvark Topsites, Advanced Pool, phpESP, Simple Poll
      • Statistics: Matomo, phpMyCounter, Seo Panel

Miscellaneous Apps

Forms, clocks, e-cards, URL shorteners, and other novel applications.

      • Bookmarks: SiteBar, Wallabag, YOURLS
      • Clocks: iTron Clock
      • E-cards: WebCards
      • Education: OHMS Viewer
      • Email: Contact Form
      • Forms: Form Tools, phpFormGenerator
      • Geneology: webtrees
      • RSS: Feed On Feeds, Freshrss, selfoss, Tiny Tiny RSS
      • Search: Search Engine Project

Do you have examples of other active UVA Create sites?

We have approval from the account owners to share their URLs only in this internal document. If you wish to share these examples with faculty or student contacts in a newsletter or email, please contact the site owners of these sites before sharing. Thank you!

Are there any Terms of Use or Restrictions to the UVA Create service I should be aware of?

Yes. UVA Create should not be used to provide core University services, for long term access or storage of research data or publications, or most commercial activities. Complete restrictions are listed within the UVA Create Terms of Service.

How do I create a site?

See the Getting Started section of the Community Documentation.

Account Management

Who manages UVA Create?

The service is provided by UVA Library through a third party contract with Reclaim Hosting. Both teams provide support in the following ways:

    • UVA Library – This support team consists of representatives from Library IT & Scholars Lab. They provide account management support (passwords, site storage limits, subscriptions fees, web archiving, etc.) as well as consultations and training around site design, site pruning and web application/platform selection.
    • Reclaim Hosting – This team provides technical support for your account, including but not limited to set up, installing web applications, domain management, upgrades, plugins, errors, troubleshooting, backups, and cpanel management.

What am I responsible for as the Account Owner?

Account Owners are responsible for website set up, design, migration, functionality, maintenance, intellectual property, security, service fees, and complying with the UVA Create Terms of Service and University of Virginia policies. They are additionally responsible for the behavior of other site contributors.

How much does an account cost?

Each account is $15 per year. This includes the hosting service, administrative and technical support, and a uvacreate.virginia.edu subdomain.

If you would like to purchase a top-level domain name (.com, .org, .net), you will need to pay an additional $15, which can be done during sign up.

You will be prompted one month before the end of your license to renew for another year.

You can use a departmental PCard if available to pay for your account or a personal debit/credit card.

Account Renewal – How do I pay my invoice?

If you have received an invoice to renew your account, you will need to pay the annual hosting fee by the deadline outlined in the renewal notice. Invoices are sent one month before the account suspension deadline. Unpaid invoices will result in suspension of your site and potential loss of your domain registration.

Go to the UVA Create home page and click on the “Create/My Account” menu tab at the top of the page. This will allow for you to sign into your existing account. You should be prompted to pay any outstanding invoice when you sign in, as well as given the option to pay later.

If you have multiple accounts that you manage, you may have to navigate/toggle to the correct account after you sign in.

Note: If your domain is managed by an outside vendor (not UVA Create or Reclaim Hosting) you will need to make sure that domain registration is also renewed or your site may not load properly.

Can I pay for multiple years up front?

No. Our current service agreement is year-to-year only.

Can retired faculty use UVA Create?

Yes, as long as you have retained your UVA computing ID. This is necessary as you will only be able to access your UVA Create account cPanel via Netbadge authentication.

Can I have more than one Administrator/Owner for the Account?

There are two levels of account administration to keep in mind.

    • Account Owner – cPanel administrator, account and domain payments. There can be only one person with UVA netbadge authentication set up as Site Owner. You can, however, be the owner of more than one account. This will need to be manually set up by Reclaim Hosting (with UVA Library permission) and will allow for you to toggle between accounts once signed in.
    • Web Application Managers – The Account Owner can invite and manage multiple web application managers, designers, editors to set up, contribute to and maintain the web application depending on the application that is chosen (for example WordPress). These other roles do not need UVA Netbadge authetication.

Is there a storage size limit per account?

    • All accounts will receive 1Gb of storage quota by default. An increase in storage quota up to 5Gb may be requested and will be considered on a case-by-case basis, however, guidance on archiving, compressing or deleting content will be given first. Sites over 5Gb will be referred to external hosting providers. All requests should be made to uvacreatesupport@virginia.edu.
    • If the allotted storage quota is exceeded the account will temporarily be suspended until storage size has been resolved.

Requesting Support

Who do I contact for help and troubleshooting?

UVA Library General Interest Form

Reclaim Hosting Technical Support Form (You must sign into your account in order to access the form.)

Migrations and Redirecting Domains

Can I migrate an existing site to UVA Create?

Yes, you can.

See the Registering a Domain section of the Community Documentation.

This applies regardless of whether you have a preexisting domain for a site you are migrating or if you would like to purchase a specific domain for your new UVA Create account/site.

NOTE: You may need to do additional troubleshooting around design adjustments, plugins reinstallation, etc. after migration as you may be migrating to a newer version of your application. Please plan in extra time accordingly.

How do I redirect my faculty.virginia.edu / people.virginia.edu domain after I migrate it to UVA Create?

Email a request to website-redirects-request@virginia.edu. As of May 2021 the Web and Content Management team plans to keep redirects for at least two years. Longer-term options may be available.

What training resources are available?

Documentation is available at https://uvacreate.virginia.edu/support/. This page includes information on everything from setting up your account to understanding file management to installation of the most commonly installed one-click apps from the UVA Create app list.

If you have specific questions about getting started, please submit a request via https://uvacreate.virginia.edu/interest-form/.

Reclaim Hosting additionally maintains a Support site that includes Frequently Asked Questions and a Community Forum, https://support.reclaimhosting.com

What happens to my site when I leave UVA?

UVA Create is hosted by Reclaim Hosting. When you leave UVA, your site can easily be migrated over to Reclaim Hosting, whom you would contract with directly moving forward. If you wish to move your site to another hosting service, the Library can help you create an archive of your files that can be exported from UVA Create, and then imported onto another hosting site’s server.

Do I need to worry about Copyright?

If your site will be public facing you should credit any copyrighted materials (images, quotes, videos, etc.) and in some cases, gain consent from the copyright owner prior to use.

More copyright guidance here:

You may also consider using open access, copyright free materials or create your own.

University of Virginia Communications has a site devoted to branding and UVA related images that you can request access to depending on your university role.

How Accessible does my site have to be?

All UVA branded sites must meet UVA Digital Accessibility requirements under policy IRM-008.

Please see UVA’s Digital Accessibility resources and guidance on applicable laws, understanding “digital accessibility,” and creating accessible web sites and content.

What are some Security Precautions I can take with my site?

Spam

Bitninja & Delisting your IP Address