At UNH, most computer coursework is carried out on the Blackboard system. A few (relatively rare) courses require use of the CIS Unix login servers (Fermat and Newton) instead of, or in addition to, Blackboard.
If your course requires that students use the CIS Unix systems for anything beyond normal patterns, you can request that students registered for the course be added to a "course group." This allows a couple of things:
- You can restrict access to some computing resources (like files or programs) to members of the course group;
- You can arrange for commands to be automatically run by members of the course group when they log in, possibly giving them a computing environment customized to their academic needs.
If you are the instructor of a course that requires a CIS Unix course
group, send mail to the System Administrators (sysman@cisunix.unh.edu)
providing:
- The course identifier, as it appears in the Time and Room Course list.
- The course section numbers, if more than one.
- The course reference number(s).
- An e-mail address to which we can send course-related mail, if that's different from yours.
Students taking your course will be automatically added to the course group. (And if they drop the course, they will also automatically get removed from the group.)
If you want students in your course group to automatically run course-specific commands when they log in, you should put those commands in a publically-readable file and notify the System Administrators (again, sysman@cisunix.unh.edu) via e-mail of its location. It's strongly suggested that you do this well before the first day of classes. We'll check it to make sure it's OK.
Your students can go to the
Blackboard website (blackboard.unh.edu) and click on the "Login Help" tab to
- Discover their username if they don't know it.
- Set their initial password.
- Change their password, if they want.
- Set their "Security Question"; this will help them regain access to their account if they forget their password.
Students' new accounts will be unusable until they set their initial passwords. (Most will have done this already, though.)
Other things you might want to know:
-
You can request that your personal CIS Unix account be added to the
course group. You can also request a separate (so-called) course
administration account, and have that account added to the course
group. Contact the System Administrators (
sysman@cisunix.unh.edu) for more information on this. - Course groups are generally deleted shortly after the last final exam day of each semester.
- Course group memberships are adjusted automatically via our daily (Monday-Saturday) update from the registrar's student database. This usually happens in the early early morning.
- You will be notified of course group activity via e-mail to your address you specified in the request.
- If your students are having difficulties with their CIS Unix account, they may need to visit the Dimond Academic Commons Information Technology Support Center (on the main level of Dimond Library). The hours of operation are here.
- You should make your students aware of the CIS Unix "Acceptable Use Policy." The current version of the policy is on the web at http://pubpages.unh.edu/notes/ethics.html.
- As always, let us know if you have any questions, problems, gripes, requests, non-negotiable demands, etc. Routine questions are best entered on the CIS Help Desk Questions web page or calling the Help Desk (2-4242). Please also feel free to contact System Administrators directly: e-mail is (one more time) sysman@cisunix.unh.edu. Have a good semester.
Page Maintenance: Paul A. Sand <pas@unh.edu> Last modified: 2012-05-07 9:39 AM EDT
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