Once you sign-up, you’ll have a digital space of your own to design, build, and cultivate as wish. BuffsCreate is all about you and your choices— What would you like to build? Consider it a possibility space! Start imagining.

All users of BuffsCreate are expected to abide by the Terms of Use and CU Boulder acceptable use policies. BuffsCreate domains are hosted on Reclaim hosting (learn about their privacy policy.)

Get started!

With BuffsCreate, you may go in many different directions. The primary limiter is your imagination. Some students may create a professional portfolio, a personal blog, a digital project or text, a community wiki, and so many other possibilities. The creations are as numerous and diverse as is our community at CU.

Some classes may use BuffsCreate for course related contributions.  

Please do keep in my mind your work on BuffsCreate is subject to the policies of appropriate conduct and web authoring as detailed by the University, learn more.

CU Boulder learners will receive a free subdomain that looks like [yoursubdomainname].Buffscreate.net.

If you choose, you may purchase a custom domain like [customdomain].com (can also end in .org or .net)  for $15/ year.

Domain names are simply addresses to websites. For example www.Buffscreate.net is a domain name.

A subdomain is a component of the larger domain, for example: myname.Buffscreate.net. You may also create subdomains of subdomains.

Subdomains organize the site from a technical perspective, but they also serve as indications to the users that they are in a new/different space.

In practice, this means that you may create as many subdomains as you’d like– in other words, perhaps, you’ll create a blog (blog.myname.Buffscreate.net), a photo gallery (photos.myname.Buffscreate.net), and a portfolio that lives on your main domain (myname.Buffscreate.net.) In each subdomain you can actually create a distinct site that runs on different applications (wordpress, omeka etc.).

You’ll have access to BuffsCreate throughout your time at CU. When you leave, you’ll have a few options.

1. Transfer your creations to Reclaim Hosting, which is the hosting provider for Buffscreate. This will cost approximately $30.00 per year. It’s easy and we can help you do so in just a few steps.
2. Transfer your creations to another web hosting service.
3. If you’ve built only using wordpress, you can transition to wordpress.com.

Have more questions? View all of our migration guides here.

A Domain of One’s Own grew out of an initiative started at the University of Mary Washington and was largely spearheaded by Jim Groom, Martha Burtis, and Tim Owens. The initiative is now over five years old and includes a robust community of institutions and advocates.

At the core, the initiative rests on the belief that there is enormous learning potential in granting individuals ownership of their own domain space and digital identities. Drawing from Virginia Woolf’s notion of a room of one’s own as a necessary construction in order to write and create, the domain is a space through which learners will find “time, creative license, and a space to express oneself freely (Schleef.)”

The initiative also grows from an understanding that in digital spaces we often forfeit our own data, control, and representation to commercial sites. Woolf took issue with social imbalances that disempowered women. Similarly, this initiative works to readjust power and control of commercial sites and institutional structures that limit learners agency and control.

It is a simple project in that it simply grants domains to learners.

It is a complex project in addressing digital and information literacies and ownership of one’s own digital identity.   

Campbell, G. (2009). A Personal Cyberinfrastructure. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2009/9/a-personal-cyberinfrastructure

 

A Domain of One’s Own. (2012, July 27). Wired. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/insights/2012/07/a-domain-of-ones-own/

 

A Brief History of Domain of One’s Own, Part 1. (2016, September 21). Retrieved September 27, 2018, from http://umwdtlt.com/a-brief-history-of-domain-of-ones-own-part-1/ Schleef, D. (2016, June 3). Who’s Afraid of Domain of One’s Own? Retrieved July 26, 2018, from http://umwdtlt.com/whos-afraid-domain-ones/