Deleting accounts

From Syscore

Contents

[edit]

Policy

[edit]

Account classifications

We use five umbrella categories to classify accounts:

  1. Former faculty
  2. Former staff
  3. Former students
  4. Known special cases
  5. Undefined affiliations

Note that account classifications are drawn from University affiliation definitions.

[edit]

Account sunset timetables

The length of time that an account persists after the user has departed from UMBC is determined by the account's classification category. Get more information on the account lifecycle at UMBC.

[edit]

Former faculty

  • Sunset timetable
    • Deactivation: 1 year after the account-holder leaves UMBC
    • Deletion: Never
  • Generally, if former faculty request to keep an account, the request should be honored
    • Assign account holder affiliation with a 2 year expiration
  • Special cases include Emeritus faculty
[edit]

Former staff

  • Sunset timetable
    • Deactivation: 2 months after the account-holder leaves UMBC
    • Deletion: 1 year after the account-holder leaves UMBC
  • We are currently planning to reduce the deactivation time to only two weeks
  • Exceptions may include Contract employees and some Departmental employees
[edit]

Former students

  • Sunset timetables vary according to sub-category
  • Alumni
    • Sunset timetable
      • Deactivation: 14 months after the account-holder leaves UMBC
      • Deletion: 28 months after the account-holder leaves UMBC
    • Alumni have access to the [Alumni Email Forwarding] service, which lets them forward their advertised UMBC email address offsite indefinitely
    • Students who leave and take their final credits elsewhere before graduating currently have their deactivation time counted from when they last took classes at UMBC, not from when they finally graduated (This is likely to change in the future.)
  • Non-alumni (former students who did not graduate from UMBC)
    • Sunset timetable
      • Deactivation: 2 months after close of class registration for a major semester
        • We generally grant account holder affiliation for an additional 4 months if the account-holder says that he or she is skipping a semester, but plans to return to UMBC
    • Special cases include ELC students and Returning students
  • Students who permanently withdraw from UMBC without ever taking classes
    • Sunset timetable
      • Deactivation: 20 days after the account-holder leaves UMBC
      • Deletion: 60 days after the account-holder leaves UMBC
[edit]

Known special cases

Generally we just want to let people have the accounts they want. So try to say "yes" unless there is a compelling reason not to.

  • Emeritus faculty
    • We currently have no way to tell which faculty hold emeritus status. Emeritus faculty are granted unlimited email access for as long as they want it.
    • Any faculty member who requests it should be granted emeritus affiliation for 3 years.
      • Account deactivation notices that are periodically sent to emeritus faculty are customized to reflect their special affiliation, and detail how they can renew their account.
  • Contract employees
    • Some employees are not in the HR database even though they work for UMBC
  • Departmental employees
    • See Contract employees
  • Returning students
    • Students who leave and plan to return in the future.
    • Generally, if the account-holder plans to return after skipping only one semester, he or she should be granted account holder status for 4 months (enough to carry them through the start of the next semester)
    • If the time away is expected to be longer (or is not stated) then the account-holder should be informed that 'your account will be automatically reactivated when you register for classes'
[edit]

Undefined affiliations

  • There are many people that are affiliated with the university in ways that HR and SIS cannot track. These people should have either a department head, faculty member, or similar individual send a one line email to [account_deletion@umbc.edu] stating that they will sponsor the account. You should grant account holder or contractor, 2 year affiliations and set the umbcaccountsponsor attribute on the affected individual's person entry in the LDAP directory.
[edit]

Diagnosing Problems

  • Make sure that the LDAP person entry has a umbcdatasource attribute of HR or SIS, as appropriate. If it doesn't have the attribute set, then the user was probably entered by hand without a valide Student ID or SSN
  • If the socialsecuritynumber attribute has a temporary SSN and account-holder says that he or she is a valid student, then the attribute is probably wrong. Get the account-holder's correct SSN and update the information in LDAP.


[edit]

Webadmin Links

Retrieved from "http://www.umbc.edu/oit/iss/syscore/wiki/Deleting_accounts"