UIC Netid Change Policy

Your netid is your identity, in many different ways -- email address, logon, Banner, Bluestem, Listserv lists, lists of netids allowed to access various files, personal URL, and more. Changing your netid is a complex, labor-intensive and time-consuming process, and despite ACCC's best efforts, can result in some service disruption. You wouldn't believe all the different machines, accounts, and files, that can contain a netid and need to be changed about the same time.

In almost all cases, ACCC must enlist the assistance of other organizations such as AITS/Banner and ITS (Medical Center Network), and work closely with them to resolve various non-trivial technical issues associated with a netid change. Approved netid changes will be implemented on a "best effort" basis with no guarantees of timeliness. Please remember that to minimize service disruption, we have to coordinate and synchronize several steps with other organizations, and that takes time.

Netid change requests should come directly from the person whose netid is to be changed and not from someone acting on his/her behalf. Netids will only be changed under the following circumstances:

• Legal name change due to marriage, divorce, etc.
  
  
• Student hired as permanent UIC Academic or Civil Service staff. (Does not include TA's, RA's, Extra Help, or Temp employees.)
  
  
• Proven typographical or clerical error in initial netid assignment. (Must be requested within 30 days of initial netid assignment.)
  
  
• Well explained extenuating circumstances that ACCC may approve on a case-by-case basis. (One time only.)

WARNING -- Please carefully consider the consequences before requesting a change of netid!

• Your email address will change. We can forward your old email address to the one for your new netid for a period of time if you need it. However, when you send email, your new address will appear in the FROM field, and that can confuse correspondants, particularly programs like listserv lists that identify you by your FROM address.
  
  
• Listserv subscription may or may not be a problem. If you just receive email from a list, no problem. But if you post to a restricted list, if you have a listserv password, and particularly if you are a listserv owner, or even if you want to unsubscribe from an existing list, you will have to change your subscriptions and ownerships to your new netid. This may not be obvious until something fails, and cannot usually be corrected without manual intervention. Note that the ACCC may not control all the lists you interact with, and won't be able to fix all problems.
  
  
• Most existing ACCC Unix accounts (mailserv, tigger, and icarus) can be changed while preserving the files. Basically we leave the account as is, but just change the netid associated with it and the name of your homedirectory. Usually this is what you want, but some downsides include:
  • Your personal URL will change.
  • Scripts that contain your netid or homedirectory will need to be changed. This could include spam filters, vacation responses, etc.
    
    
• Login access to some services may be temporarily disrupted while waiting for the netid to be updated across all systems. These services include, but are not limited to, Blackboard, UIC dialin lines, Listserv management, and some Enterprise applications.
  
  
• Netid-based access lists used by applications such as Bluestem will need to be updated if your access is affected. If this applies to you, you will need to identify and make a request for each site that you need to access.
  
  
• Transaction histories tied to your former netid in Banner, and possibly other applications, may not transfer to your new netid.
  
  
• Locally installed applications configured with your netid to enable network/internet access, such as Eudora, ADSM, and SecureW2, will need to be reconfigured to work with your new netid.
  
  
• Netids printed in the published phonebook will be out of date until the next annual publication of the phonebook.
  
  
• It is possible that some unforeseen and/or obscure consequences may later have to be dealt with as they occur.

If your name has changed and you simply want your new name to appear in your phonebook and account records, you may request a change of name without having your netid changed. In such cases, employees should have their name first changed by their department's Human Resources and Phonebook Contact persons, and students should have their name changed at the Office of Admissions and Records. Then send a note to consult@uic.edu to follow-up with changes to your name on your email account(s).

For more information, please contact consult@uic.edu. They can scan your accounts (at least the ACCC accounts) and give you some idea of what would be involved in changing your netid.