FYI- information concerning Directory Services, passwords, use in Blackboard and student email

Issue: Faculty Passwords Changed in Blackboard
SISCOPYID updates—necessary to enable proper security roles in SIS Version 8—triggered the pushing of the password contained in the Directory to Blackboard. This was, more often than not, the old PIN password format. As the SISCOPYID changes have happened, faculty members have found themselves unable to log in to Blackboard, because the Directory password overwrote the password they had previously been assigned by their LSA.

The immediate solution is for users to change their password at https://tncc.my.vccs.edu and accounts will be synchronized across all systems.

Issue: New Accounts for Students with Multiple Emplids
Many students with multiple SIS Emplid’s have discovered that a new Blackboard and email account was created for them when looking up their username at https://tncc.my.vccs.edu. Their old email and Blackboard accounts are not connected to their DS2 usernames, which means they cannot access their Blackboard or e-mail content through https://tncc.my.vccs.edu. The migration of data to DS2 carried over accounts with the most recent activity for students with multiple emplids. It created new accounts for the less active emplids. VCCS ITS will correct this issue with a batch process on Thursday evening. After the process is run, most students with this problem will have reverted back to their former accounts. There is a subset of these affected students who shared a Blackboard and Email username across their multiple emplids. These students will not have their account reverted to their old username. This is a design issue with DS2 which we are continuing to address.

If students have used their new email account, they will be able to access it directly- http://email.vccs.edu/index.pl, not through My VCCS. These new accounts will be removed from the email system when those students who have used them have been notified by ITS.