Expired PIN Numbers Delay On-Line Grades

Expired and, in some cases, forgotten personal identification numbers (PINs) have delayed more than 3,000 undergraduates from checking fall semester grades, posted Feb. 4 on the Registrar's Web site.

Though a September letter from Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) warned that unchanged PINs would expire by Nov. 2, HASCS figures show that thousands of students paid no heed.

Without a working PIN--which HASCS' security system requires for users to access their grade reports--a student must request a new one or wait for the old-fashioned report card.

According to HASCS Manager of User Services David M. Sobel, a new PIN can take anywhere from three to 10 days, depending on the time of the request and mail delivery.

More than 3,200 users requested a new PIN in the first nine days of February alone, said Coordinator of Residential Computing Service Rick Osterberg '96, a number which he predicts will top 4,000 by the end of the month.

In January, he said HASCS processed more than 1,000 requests for PIN resets.

Although the total number of requests also include those from Faculty and staff--who may use PINs to alter course Web pages, for example--Osterberg said he estimates 80 to 90 percent of the requests came from students.

But despite the abnormally high level of expired or forgotten PINs--"larger than we expected," Osterberg said--FAS Registrar Arlene Becella said she is nonetheless pleased with the on-line system thus far.

Becella said this "transitional" challenge should resolve itself as usage of the on-line program becomes more commonplace.

"If [this] continued each term, then I would start to worry about it," Becella said. "I think we just have to fine-tune it a little bit."

Osterberg said he attributes some of the volume to student users having little use for their PINs outside of checking grades on-line and therefore have less incentive to keep PINs up to date.

But Becella said that as the College continues to move traditionally paper-based activities--such as registration and course selection--to the Web, the demand for PIN resets should decrease.

In the meantime, Becella said she plans to increase publicity for the one-semester-old on-line system to encourage users to change their PINs and to use the Web site more often.