Faculty and Staff Accounts
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) maintains and issues several different types of computer accounts. All faculty and staff, including adjuncts and student workers, receive a UHCL computer account (sometimes called a UHCL Domain account). Your UHCL faculty/staff account is automatically created once you have been officially hired. Use the UHCL Account Pickup & Policy Agreement link to find your username, create a password, and set up your challenge questions. Your UHCL credentials (username and password) are used to access the following UHCL services and systems:
- On-campus computers, including those within the computer labs and within the library
- Office 365 (O365), including Outlook Email
- Blackboard
- Zoom
- Apporto Virtual Computer Lab
UHCL account password information and an overview of other types of specialty computer accounts are described below.
Acceptable Use Policy
All accounts are subject to UHCL's Acceptable Use Policy. Faculty and staff should familiarize themselves with this policy before using any account.
Password Rules
Staff account passwords expire every 180 days. Use the Reset Password tool to change your UHCL account password. If you somehow get locked out of your account, please allow 30 minutes for your account to be systematically unlocked, or, contact the Support Center during our business hours to unlock your account.
- Must be at least 12 characters long
- Must not contain any part of your first or last name
- Must contain 3 of these 4 criteria:
- Upper-case Letters
- Lower-case Letters
- Numbers
- Symbols
Account Expiration
Full-time faculty and staff accounts have no expiration dates. Accounts expire if an employee leaves UHCL and goes through separation procedures. Account expiration dates for adjunct accounts are set to approximately one year from creation/renewal date. Expired accounts on UHCL domain are not deleted until they have been inactive for a period of just over one year.
Email Accounts
Faculty Outlook email accounts are automatically generated along with your UHCL computer account once you are officially hired by the university. Faculty are expected to check and use their UHCL Outlook email address for all official university communications.
Adjunct Accounts
Adjunct faculty accounts are also auto-generated upon hire. Creations, renewals, and expiration dates are based on the employment dates designated by your department. Adjunct account expiration dates are formula based according to the termination date set by your department.
Student Worker Accounts
Students employed by UHCL (including TAs, RAs, and general student workers) will have UHCL staff account auto-generated. Students should use their staff account (also referred to as a UHCL account) for all work that they perform as a student worker. Access to file shares and Blackboard will always be granted to the staff account, not the student account.
- Accounts will expire based on the termination date determined by the hiring department. If a student worker’s UHCL staff account is expired, they need to contact the department in which they work so that they can correct the employment dates in eServices/PeopleSoft.
- UHCL staff accounts become the primary email address in PeopleSoft when student workers are hired. All school-related emails (from Blackboard, financial aid, etc.) will go to the student worker’s staff email address. There is nothing that can be done to change that in PeopleSoft. Students who are also employed by the university need to get into the habit of checking their UHCL staff email regularly to avoid missing any critical messages.
Student Organization/Academic Club Accounts
The officers elected to lead university-approved student organizations or academic clubs can request UHCL email accounts for their respective groups. The Computer Account Application requires the signature of the appropriate Office of Student Involvement and Leadership staff that oversee the student organizations or if an academic club, the faculty advisor. Accounts will be set to expire at the end of each September. Renewal requires the approval of either the Office of Student Involvement and Leadership or the faculty advisor. Please contact Support Center for more information.
Guest Accounts
Faculty and staff can request temporary accounts for their on-campus guests if that guest will be using an on-campus computer. Please contact Support Center for more information at least one week in advance of when the account is needed. Guest logins can be requested for a specific period of time but typically are good for one day only. A temporary account allows guests to log onto any PC on campus.
Oracle Accounts
For classes that require students to use Oracle, those accounts should be requested by the instructor for your entire class prior to the beginning of each semester. Please contact the Support Center at least a week in advance of needing student access to Oracle.
UNIX Accounts
UNIX accounts are automatically created for all students registered for Computer Science and Software Engineering courses. UNIX account support is provided by the College of Science and Engineering and not by the Support Center.