Technical Note - ECS Login Account Registration

Summary

This technote provides some details about the account registration procedure on the ECS systems.

Details

How Do I Register My Account?

You can register your ECS account by logging on to an ECS workstation (office or lab computer) using the username "register" and password "register". Alternatively, if you have access to the Internet via another computer you can register by going to the ECS Registration web page. In either case you will be presented with a series of screens which guide you through the process.

Note: ECS/MSOR student login accounts become active one week before the start of the trimester in which a student is enrolled in courses. Any attempt to register a student login account before this time will result in an error.

The first couple of screens provide information about the process and also explain the rules you must follow when using ECS facilities. Following that you have to identify yourself. If you are a student you will need to enter your family and given names as they appear on your student ID card, as well as your student ID number. If you aren't a student, one of the ECS IT support staff will have given you your login name and an activation code (one time password) that you will have to enter.

Following the identification stage, the registration process will:

• Let you set up email forwarding
• Let you choose a different login name (ECS/MSOR graduate students only -- see the technote on changing your username)
• Let you set an initial password for the login account you are registering
• Send you an email containing useful information about the ECS computer systems.

On completion of the registration process you should be able to log on to the ECS system using your assigned username and the password that was set during account registration.

When Do I Have to Register My Account?

There are three situations when a person will have to go through the account registration process before they can use their ECS login account.

• Their account has just been newly created (for students because for the first time they are enrolled in a current ECS/MSOR course that requires the use of ECS computers; for non-students because they are commencing employment with ECS or MSOR or for some reason have been given a "guest" account on the ECS system).
• A student has previously registered but their account expired more than one month ago (for eg, if they were enrolled in courses in one trimester and then skipped one or more trimesters before enrolling again, or if they withdrew from all their courses more than a month before the end of a trimester). The reason for requiring that these accounts be re-registered is that if they haven't been used for more than one month there is a reasonable chance that the password will have been forgotten and account registration is the most convenient way of resetting it. More information about ECS account suspension can be found in the Account Expiration technote.
• The password for the account has been forgotten and been reset by ECS programming or office staff. In this case the registration process is shortened. Once the person registering has been identified it skips straight to the password selection page. It also doesn't send the welcome and ECS system information emails (since the person has probably already ignored them once before!)

When Don't I Have to Register My Account?

Students don't have to (re-)register their accounts at the start of a trimester if they were enrolled in an ECS/MSOR course up until at least four weeks before the end of the previous trimester. This means that any student with "continuous" enrollment in ECS/MSOR courses will only have to register their account once. But note that "continuous" enrollment includes the summer trimester, so in reality most students will have to register at least once at the start of each academic year.

One exception to this is for students whose accounts remained active during the period in which they were not enrolled (for eg: if they were employed by ECS/MSOR as a tutor or research assistant, etc).

If you aren't sure whether or not you need to register, the easiest way to check is to try logging on to your account with its last known password. If this works you don't have to register! If it doesn't, try the registration process. If you are told that your account is already registered that means that we didn't think you needed to (re-)register. The reason you couldn't log in using your old password may just be that you have forgotten what it was, in which case see the Reset Password technote.