Accounts

As employee you have 2 accounts:

• U-Account: Radboud University's account for several central university services. The U-account is also called RU-account. This is your main account. Every employee of the university has such account.
• ScienceAccount: Faculty of Science account to login to science machine and for you Science Email. This account is only available for people working at the Faculty of Science also known as the FNWI faculty.

An E-account is given in special cases as an alternative to an U-account:

• External phds/employees/contacts (without ru salary) don't get an u-account but they can register for a so called E-account at the central personal department.
• Students which are hired for educational support get an E-account to which a separate employee email address can be attached.

In the past a student account with a s-number would get a @student.ru.nl email address, however nowadays they will also get an @ru.nl email address.

Change password

• U-Account: https://account.ru.nl/PasswordChange or https://account.ru.nl/PasswordReset/
  For the U-account you are asked to change the password every year, otherwise, your account will be blocked.
  For the U-account it is important that you replace the RU password on a mobile device, often stored on the device to avoid having to log in every time, with the new password. Otherwise, an app that often polls your account for new items may cause your account to become blocked if it does that too often with a wrong password.

• ScienceAccount: https://diy.science.ru.nl/ChangePassword

Which login for which services?

Source: C&CZ

• With the RU login, you get access to many RU applications, the most important ones are:
  • RU-email and RU-calendar
  • Printers: all Peage printers.
  • The RU Portal.
  • The RU brightspace electronic learning environment.
  • The RU application for employees to choose their flexible conditions of employment.
  • The RU mailservice, with @ru.nl email (RU Exchange Outlook Web App email) The corresponding email address is John.Smith@ru.nl. University mailings will use this address. If you do not want to read your mail on this mail server, then have it automatically forwarded to a different email address. See the RU Mail manual on how to do this.
  • Wi-fi: the Eduroam wireless networks with username U-number@ru.nl.
  • Software: SURFspot, for relatively cheap software, often also for home use.
  • RU Intranet: RadboudNet.
  • BASS, the RU financial/logistic system (BASS-FinLog) and personnel system (BASS-HRM).

• With the faculty Science login you can use:
  • The Do It Yourself website to change your password and other settings of your Science account.
  • Science network disc space.
    On the website [diy.science.ru.nl], you can see the drives to which you have rights or which you are the owner.
  • Linux login-servers.
  • Mail: Science mail. The corresponding email address ends in science.ru.nl, for example: J.Smith@science.ru.nl. Extra email addresses of the form John.Smith@science.ru.nl can be requested. Faculty mailings will use this address. It is possible, if needed, to automatically forward this mail to a different email address through the Do It Yourself website.
  • VPN (network access from home): the Science VPN service.
  • Wi-fi: the Eduroam wireless networks with username science-login@science.ru.nl.
  • Printers: the few C&CZ-managed accounted printers.

Former student as employee both s- and u-account

confusing situation

When a former student of the Radboud University becomes an employee then a confusing situation occurs:

• the former student account 'firstname.lastname@ru.nl', which is connect to an s-number (student number), stays the primary account. This account gets upgraded as employee account, but stays connected to your s-number.
• a new ru-account 'firstname.lastname2@ru.nl' is made so it can be connected to its u-number.
• The email address 'firstname.lastname2@ru.nl' is an alias for 'firstname.lastname@ru.nl'.
• Only the primary account can be used for ict services like email/calendar/printing/...
• This means that on many systems you have to login with your s-number even though you are not a student anymore!!!
• The none-primary account (u-account) is purely made to allow you to login the BASS with your u-number to let you do administrative work as employee in the systems of the Human Resources.
• Because your primary account was a student account you had to pay your printing budget yourself. The upgrade of your primary account to an employee account doesn't change the printing budget. To solve this you can contact to the Post&Print office, email: postprint-cf@ru.nl, phone: +31 24 361 26 09, to let them change the printing budget on your primary account to that of the department you became an employee off.
• You can use any card with a RFID chip to authenticate you at the Peage printers. Just hold the card for the printer. When it's not registered yet, the printer won't recognise it, and will ask you for credentials. Then type the credentials of your primary account. For former students this means your s-number and password. If authentication succeeds, then from then on you can use your card to login to the printer. You can use your ru-card for authentication at the printer, but as former-student remember to register with your former s-number, and not with the u-number on the card!!
• the two @ru.nl accounts are independent and each have their own password which has to be changed every year. If for one account you get notified that you have to change the password, and you have changed it. Then the ict department advises that you call them to also let them trigger the change of the password for the other account. Then change the password for that other account using the same password. Then next year you get the change request for both accounts on the same day.

Some historical background information

The u- and s-numbers originate from the systems of the Human Resources. If you are a student you are registered in their systems with a unique s-number. If you're an employee you get registered with your contract using an u-number. There are even e-numbers which are for external people which are guest here, but do not have a contract.

Some people had different functions within the university, and therefor got several u-, s- and e-accounts.

In the past the ICT department made for each u- and s- number a separate ict-account. However recently the university decided to let Microsoft host several legacy ict-systems like email and calendar (office), but also new systems like onedrive,sharepoint and teams.

For each account on this cloud service of Microsoft the university has to pay a licence. However this become to costly if the university had to pay several licences for the several accounts a single employee could have. Therefore they decided to assign one of the u-,e- or s- accounts as the primary ICT account, for which a license is payed. All the other accounts are only used for the administrative systems for the Human Resources(BASS), but not for ICT related services, like email, calendar, printing etc.. . For ICT related systems you always have to use your primary ICT account. In Microsoft Windows environments this primary account is designated by a User Principal Name (UPN), which is basically an account in email address format. For the Radboud University the UPN is of format firstname.lastname@ru.nl .

Explanation s-, and u- account in historical context

A student has a primary account, in Microsoft language an UPN (firstname.lastname@ru.nl), attached to its s-number from the Human Resources.

When a student becomes an employee he gets a contract at the Human Resources with an u-number. For the ICT departent this person had already a primary account (UPN), so they keep it the primary account for ICT related services. (email/calendar/printing..).

However there are also systems from the Human Resources related to your u-number. To let you login to these systems using your u-number the ICT department creates another ICT-account specifically for this purpose. This account is independent of your primary account. Using this account one can login to the BASS system to do administrative work related with the Human Resources. But you cannot use any of ICT related services like email/calendar/printing.. with this account. Every ICT account has an email address. But because the primary account already had an email address, they make the email addresses of all secondary accounts just alias to the email address of the primary (UPN) account. E.g. the second account gets email address firstname.lastname2@ru.nl which is just an email alias to the email of your primary account firstname.lastname@ru.nl .

Conclusion:

• when coming student/employee for the first time at the university you get:
  • a s-,u- or e- number at the Human Resources
  • the ICT department creates an primary(UPN) ict account for you related to this s-,u- or e- number. Using this account you use all ict services and also do administrative systems for this specific s-,u- or e- number.
• if later get somehow another s-,u- or e- number at the Human Resources, then
  • your original primary account stays your primary account
  • for this new s-,u- or e- number a new 'light' ICT account is made. With 'light' we mean that:
    • you cannot use any of the ict services like email/calendar/printing... with this account
    • the email address of this account is just an email alias to the email address of your primary account
    • this account is just specific to make you able to login the administrative systems of the Human Resources to do administrative work related to the account's corresponding s-,u- or e- number.

The 'bright' future

In the 'nearby' future all systems should be adapted to only use your primary account, and all secondary accounts are gone. As student/employee you then only have to login with firstname.lastname@ru.nl to every system, and you can forget that you ever had an u- or s- number!

Then hope, Microsoft will not 'become' evil.