Faculty and Staff Accounts

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) maintains and issues several different types of computer accounts. All faculty and staff, including adjuncts and student workers, receive a UHCL computer account (sometimes called a UHCL Domain account). Your UHCL faculty/staff account is automatically created once you have been officially hired. Use the UHCL Account Pickup & Policy Agreement link to find your username, create a password, and set up your challenge questions. Your UHCL credentials (username and password) are used to access the following UHCL services and systems:

• On-campus computers, including those within the computer labs and within the library
• Office 365 (O365), including Outlook Email
• Blackboard
• Zoom
• Apporto Virtual Computer Lab

UHCL account password information and an overview of other types of specialty computer accounts are described below.

Acceptable Use Policy

All accounts are subject to UHCL's Acceptable Use Policy. Faculty and staff should familiarize themselves with this policy before using any account.

Password Rules

Staff account passwords expire every 360 days. Use the Reset Password tool to change your UHCL account password. If you somehow get locked out of your account, please allow 30 minutes for your account to be systematically unlocked, or, contact the Support Center during our business hours to unlock your account.

• Must be at least 14 characters long
• Must not contain any part of your first or last name
• Must contain 3 of these 4 criteria:
  • Upper-case Letters
  • Lower-case Letters
  • Numbers
  • Symbols

Account Expiration

Full-time faculty and staff accounts have no expiration dates. Accounts expire if an employee leaves UHCL and goes through separation procedures. Account expiration dates for adjunct accounts are set to approximately one year from creation/renewal date. Expired accounts on UHCL domain are not deleted until they have been inactive for a period of just over one year.

Email Accounts

Faculty Outlook email accounts are automatically generated along with your UHCL computer account once you are officially hired by the university. Faculty are expected to check and use their UHCL Outlook email address for all official university communications.

Adjunct Accounts

Adjunct faculty accounts are also auto-generated upon hire. Creations, renewals, and expiration dates are based on the employment dates designated by your department. Adjunct account expiration dates are based according to the termination date set by your department. 

ePerson of Interest Process (POI)

All non-UHCL persons who wish to use OIT resources, must go through ePerson of Interest (ePOI) process.  Through this process, the individual will receive a personal UHCL account automatically, once approved by HR and the process has been completed in our PeopleSoft system. ePOI Types approved by HR are Auditors, Campus Program Workers, Consultants, Future Employees, Future Faculty Employees, Guest Speakers, Guests, Other Students – UHCL Conf Edu, Temps

As a non-UHCL person, you will need to apply for ePOI using the "ePOI Application form". 

It is important to note that OIT is not responsible for processing the ePOI Application form.

Student Worker Accounts

Students employed by UHCL (including TAs, RAs, and general student workers) will have UHCL staff account auto-generated. Students should use their staff account (also referred to as a UHCL account) for all work that they perform as a student worker. Access to file shares and Blackboard will always be granted to the staff account, not the student account.

• Accounts will expire based on the termination date determined by the hiring department. If a student worker’s UHCL staff account is expired, they need to contact the department in which they work so that they can correct the employment dates in eServices/PeopleSoft.
• UHCL staff accounts become the primary email address in PeopleSoft when student workers are hired. All school-related emails (from Blackboard, financial aid, etc.) will go to the student worker’s staff email address. There is nothing that can be done to change that in PeopleSoft. Students who are also employed by the university need to get into the habit of checking their UHCL staff email regularly to avoid missing any critical messages.

Exception/Emergency Accounts

It is a temporary account with a start and end date, and that cannot wait for POI process. Department should send the request to support center.