By Connie Merriman

As part of the ongoing process of enhancing and expanding the availability of computing resources at Old Dominion, the Office of Computing and Communications Services is reviewing the entire student account process. The ultimate goal is to provide students with personal computing accounts they can utilize and benefit from throughout their academic career at the university. OCCS staff believe acquiring and maintaining computing accounts help students develop skills they will continue to use long after graduation.

Currently, Local Area Network (LAN) accounts are required for some academic courses. These are generated by faculty request at the beginning of each semester and are active for one semester only. OCCS is proposing that a Novell NetWare LAN account be created for all students to access PCs in the university public computer labs and the OCCS-maintained departmental computer labs on the main campus and at the two higher education centers.

An account, including some data storage space on a university server, would be recommended for the fall 1999 semester and become mandatory in the spring 2000 semester. Generic accounts will continue to be available for lab computer log-in through the fall 1999 semester; however, an individual Netware account will be necessary to access server storage space. It is expected that generic accounts will be discontinued with the spring 2000 semester.

A process must be developed to securely distribute an account ID and password to registered students. Although an account will be available to all registered students, it is likely OCCS will activate accounts only for those students who need or want to use the labs. The current Lotus Notes account activation process can be duplicated, giving students the ability to activate Netware accounts. Students would be required to access the Web application, which authenticates them by last name, student ID and birthday. The account ID and password would then be noted on the screen.

OCCS would like to hear from faculty, staff and students regarding the student account process at Old Dominion, including comments on the implementation of student Netware accounts. Suggestions for additional changes or improvements to the student account process are also welcome. Communication should be e-mailed to occshelp@odu.edu.