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Lee Reilly 2013-05-27 21:05:23 -07:00
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README.md
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@ -4,7 +4,17 @@ If you have a product or service and offer **academic discounts**, there's a goo
Swot is a community-driven or crowdsourced library for verifying that domain names and email addresses are tied to a legitimate university of college - more specifically, an academic institution providing higher education in tertiary, quaternary or any other kind of post-secondary education in any country in the world.
**Pop quiz:** Which of the following domain names should be eligible for an academic discount? `stanford.edu`, `america.edu`, `duep.edu`, `strath.ac.uk`, `wunizar.es`, `usask.ca`, `hil.no`, `unze.ba`, `fu-berlin.de`, `ecla.de`, `bvb.de`, `lsmu.com`. Answers at the foot of the page.
**Pop quiz:** Which of the following domain names should be eligible for an academic discount? `stanford.edu`, `america.edu`, `duep.edu`, `gla.ac.uk`, `wunizar.es`, `usask.ca`, `hil.no`, `unze.ba`, `fu-berlin.de`, `ecla.de`, `bvb.de`, `lsmu.com`. Answers at the foot of the page.
### Installation
Swot is a Ruby gem, so you'll need a little Ruby-fu to get it working. Simply
`gem install swot`
Or add this to your `Gemfile` before doing a `bundle install`:
`gem 'swot'`
### Usage
@ -22,11 +32,11 @@ Swot::is_academic? 'lee@leerilly.net' # false
#### Verify Domain Names
```ruby
Swot::is_academic?('harvard.edu') # true
Swot::is_academic?('www.harvard.edu') # true
Swot::is_academic?('http://www.harvard.edu') # true
Swot::is_academic?('http://www.github.com') # false
Swot::is_academic?('http://www.rangers.co.uk') # false
Swot::is_academic? 'harvard.edu' # true
Swot::is_academic? 'www.harvard.edu' # true
Swot::is_academic? 'http://www.harvard.edu' # true
Swot::is_academic? 'http://www.github.com' # false
Swot::is_academic? 'http://www.rangers.co.uk' # false
```
#### Find School Names
@ -35,7 +45,7 @@ Swot::is_academic?('http://www.rangers.co.uk') # false
Swot::school_name 'lreilly@cs.strath.ac.uk'
# => "University of Strathclyde"
Swot::school_name 'lreilly@stanford.edu'
Swot::school_name 'http://www.stanford.edu'
# => "Stanford University"
```
@ -48,43 +58,13 @@ Contributions welcome! Please see the [contribution guidelines](CONTRIBUTING.md)
**Special thanks** to @weppos for the [public_suffix](https://github.com/weppos/publicsuffix-ruby) gem :metal:
### Copyright
Copyright (c) 2012 Lee Reilly. See LICENSE.txt for further details.
### Pop Quiz Answers
Hopefully, you'll be surprised by some of this:
| Domain | Academic? | Comments |
|--------|-----------|----------|
|`stanford.edu`|:heavy_check_mark:|OK, this was an easy one so you could get at least *one* right|
|`america.edu`|:heavy_multiplication_x:| Prior to October 29th 2001, anyone could register a `.edu` domain name ([details](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.edu#Grandfathered_uses)) |
|`duep.edu`|:heavy_check_mark:| Alfred Nobel University is a *Ukranian* University *in the Ukraine* i.e. not in the USA :us: |
|`strath.ac.uk`|:heavy_check_mark:|The University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland|
|`unizar.es`|:heavy_check_mark:|The University of Zaragoza in Spain|
|`usask.ca`|:heavy_check_mark:|The University of Saskatchewan in Canada|
|`hil.no`|:heavy_check_mark:|Lillehammer University College in Norway|
|`unze.ba`|:heavy_check_mark:|University of Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina|
|`fu-berlin.de`|:heavy_check_mark:|Free University of Berlin in Germany|
|`ecla.de`|:heavy_check_mark:|ECLA of Bard is a state recognized liberal arts university in Berlin, Germany |
|`bvb.de`|:heavy_multiplication_x:|It's a soccer team from Germany|
|`lsmu.com`|:heavy_check_mark:| Lugansk State Medical University in the Ukraine |
### Known Issues / Bugs / "Features"
### Known Issues
* You can search by email and domain names only. You cannot search by IP.
* You don't know if the email address belongs to a student, faculty, staff member, alumni, or a contractor.
* There may be a few false positives, missing institutions... maybe even a couple of typos. Contributions welcome!
![](http://i.imgur.com/K8vsw.gif)
### Preventing Abuse
Just because someone has verified that they own `lreilly@stanford.edu` doesn't mean that they're a student. They could be faculty, staff, alumnni, or maybe even an external contractor. If you're suddenly getting a lot of traffic from websites like [FatWallet](http://www.fatwallet.com) or [SlickDeals](http://www.slickdeals.net), you might want to find out why. If you're suddenly getting a lot of requests from a particular school, you should look into that too. It may be good business, word of mouth, or someone may have found a loophole.
In short, Swot gives you a high confidence level and not a guarantee. You should put some controls in place or at least monitor how's it doing from time to time.
**Please note:** just because someone has verified that they own `lreilly@stanford.edu` does *not* mean that they're a student. They could be faculty, staff, alumnni, or maybe even an external contractor. If you're suddenly getting a lot of traffic from websites like [FatWallet](http://www.fatwallet.com) or [SlickDeals](http://www.slickdeals.net), you might want to find out why. If you're suddenly getting a lot of requests from a particular school, you should look into that too. It may be good business, word of mouth, or someone may have found a loophole. Swot gives you a *high confidence level* - not a guarantee. I recommend putting some controls in place or at least monitor how it's doing from time to time.
### What is a swot?
@ -99,3 +79,24 @@ or
or
> [anagram] Stupid Waste of Time
### Pop Quiz Answers
Hopefully, you'll be surprised by some of this:
| Domain | Academic? | Comments |
|--------|-----------|----------|
|`stanford.edu`|:heavy_check_mark:|OK, this was an easy one so you could get at least *one* right|
|`america.edu`|:heavy_multiplication_x:| Prior to October 29th 2001, anyone could register a `.edu` domain name ([details](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.edu#Grandfathered_uses)) |
|`duep.edu`|:heavy_check_mark:| Alfred Nobel University is a *Ukranian* University *in the Ukraine* i.e. not in the USA :us: |
|`gla.ac.uk`|:heavy_check_mark:|Glasgow University in Scotland|
|`unizar.es`|:heavy_check_mark:|The University of Zaragoza in Spain|
|`usask.ca`|:heavy_check_mark:|The University of Saskatchewan in Canada|
|`hil.no`|:heavy_check_mark:|Lillehammer University College in Norway|
|`unze.ba`|:heavy_check_mark:|University of Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina|
|`fu-berlin.de`|:heavy_check_mark:|Free University of Berlin in Germany|
|`ecla.de`|:heavy_check_mark:|ECLA of Bard is a state recognized liberal arts university in Berlin, Germany |
|`bvb.de`|:heavy_multiplication_x:|It's a soccer team from Germany|
|`lsmu.com`|:heavy_check_mark:| Lugansk State Medical University in the Ukraine |
If you verified this by visiting all of the websites, how long did it take you? Did you have fun? Imagine you had to do this 10 - 100 times every day. Now you know a little something about the inspiration for Swot. Swot can verify them all in a fraction of a second and remove a :poop: part of someone's job.