KU Discontinuing Personal Website Service

For many years, people.ku.edu has served as a personal web space option for KU students and employees. Due to several significant factors, KU will discontinue all people.ku.edu personal web spaces on Jan. 31, 2024.

Students, faculty or staff who still actively use their people.ku.edu site should reach out to ku-people@ku.edu as soon as possible to discuss alternatives. KU IT may grant extensions on a case-by-case basis to accommodate transition needs.

Key Factors Driving This Change

Better Alternatives

When people.ku.edu was first introduced as a service for personal websites in the 1990s, few alternatives existed for hosting online content. External web hosting platforms were not available or affordable for students, faculty and staff. And, other online services, such as Canvas and Sharepoint, didn’t exist for sharing academic and research content. Today, there are many options both on campus and externally to meet academic, research and personal needs.

Efficiency

The people.ku.edu sites are hosted on servers that have reached end of life, and the operating system is no longer supported. Continuing people.ku.edu as a service would require migrating to new servers, even though many of these websites are no longer being used or updated. Alternative KU systems and external hosting options are now available to accommodate personal websites.

Security

The operating system is no longer supported, creating vulnerabilities and increased security risk. KU IT has alternative solutions for hosting online content on more modern, secure systems.

Alignment with KU's technology vision

As part of Jayhawks Rising, we aim to strengthen service to our community by keeping pace with new technology. Sites hosted through people.ku.edu are now well behind current standards.

While it may be inconvenient for some, this transition represents an important step toward more efficient, secure and modern web services at KU. The goal is to make this transition as smooth as possible. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.