Closing an Account at CUED
The user admin team will normally send you an email advising you that your account is due for closure 2-4 weeks before the scheduled closure date. Student accounts are normally scheduled for closure a few days after the first University Congregation (at which degrees are awarded) after the end of your studies. Staff and visitor accounts are normally scheduled for closure one or two months after you officially leave the department.
If you do not reply to the email we send you your account will be closed as scheduled. If you need to extend your account for any reason you must contact us as soon as possible explaining your situation.
Extending your Account
If you need to keep your account open for a short period, you need to let user-admin know for how long and for what reason.
Longer term account extensions are available for those who are involved in collaborative academic work with members of the department. If you wish to extend the use of your account to allow you to complete work here you should obtain the appropriate form and return it completed to the IT Helpdesk.
Please note it is not possible to keep old accounts on the system indefinitely. Accounts used from remote sites and unused accounts can create a security risk, and the department doesn't have the resources to provide long-term computing facilities to ex-members of the Department.
EMAIL Forwarding
When your account is closed, your email facilities will also be removed. Different arrangements are available for different Cambridge email addresses. You will have had:
| Name of email service | format of email address | Facilities available at closure of account |
| cammail | Userid@cam.ac.uk | A redirection service is available |
| Engineering | Userid@eng.cam.ac.uk | Mail can be forwarded for up to 3 months to an address that you provide. If you have an academic need for a longer email forwarding period, please let user-admin know. This facility also applies to your personal alias (if you have one). |
| Hermes | Userid@hermes.cam.ac.uk | None. |
If you are a graduate of the University of Cambridge you can apply for the cantab.net email service, see http://cantab.net/ for details.
The Computing Service provide information about how to move mail from Hermes to an external account before you leave.
Backup of your Account
A copy of your Engineering Department central system account is archived after your account is closed. This will be retained for at least 5 years, but users with significant research data are encouraged to make backups onto optical discs to take with them when they leave the Department. The IT Helpdesk are happy to help with this process and there are backup facilities in the IT Helpdesk Office.
Passing files to someone else
Occasionally users may wish to leave others with access to some of their files. It is against the University's rules to do this by allowing them login access to your account, i.e. by disclosing your password to them. The easiest solution is temporarily to give them read access while they copy them into their own account. However be aware that others will also have access to them while this is being done and they could misuse sensitive or confidential data.
If you intend to pass files to someone, please arrange it before you leave. Any queries write to helpdesk.