Students at UTC are being issued a new ID to protect their privacy and
identity.  Instead of the traditional use of the Social Security Number
as the student ID, a new arbitrary ID is being assigned to every
student.  The new ID is a series of lowercase letters and numbers.

As part of this initiative and as requested by the Executive Council,
*all* students are being issued a Generic E-Mail (GEM) address,
similar to the faculty and staff addresses that are already familiar
to us.  These addresses have the form of "[log in to unmask]".
Note that some students with the same name as other students will have
a variation on their name, such as middle initial.  Students will have
the option of having this e-mail forward to any e-mail box of their
choice (e.g. hotmail, yahoo mail, @home, etc.), but otherwise they will
be issued a mailbox at UTC.  The result is that all active UTC students
will have an e-mail address.

Starting with Orientation for new students this summer and reaching
all continuing students by this Fall, students will be issued a UTCID.
Each UTCID is associated with a private password that students will have.

Students will use the UTCID to access on-line reference resources at
the UTC Library from off-campus, to read e-mail, transfer files,
publish web pages, log on to campus servers, and to access web services
that will be offered to students in the future.   The new Blackboard
web courses will also be accessed by students with the UTCID and
password.

Faculty can begin to use the UTCID to access ASIS (Reflection)
information about students, while also still using the SSN during
this transitional period.  This Fall, class rosters, major data, and
other reports and programs about students that are used by faculty
and advisors will be converted to display the new UTCID instead of
the SSN.

Internally, the official UTC enrollment offices, such as Records,
Financial Aid, Bursar, Admissions, etc., will continue to require access
to a student's SSN ID, but the UTCID will be used as widely as practical
and as time permits work to make conversion possible.

As Fall approaches, more information will be posted about the UTCID.

Richard
--
Richard L Gambrell, Director of Computing Systems and Networks
Information Technology Division, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Fax: 423-755-4150                Support Help-Desk: 423-755-4000
Office: 423-755-5316             ITD Business Office: 423-755-5284
Mobile (urgent): 423-432-5122    Main UTC: 423-755-4111
Email: [log in to unmask]