Summer Change: Matching Your Name to What's in JHED
In the long list of changes coming to online courses this summer, there's one that seems small but will most likely cause some unhappiness in the student community. Effective June 1, 2010, they way your name appears in JHED (the official system of record for personal information at the University level) will be the way your name appears in all academic, online courses offered by the School.
Some students deliberately use a different name, or nickname, when creating their eLearning accounts. This is because a student may prefer to be referred to as "Fred" instead of "Frederick." That's perfectly reasonable and understandable. The problem comes when faculty have to report student grades back to the University at the end of the term. Although it's fairly clear that "Fred Smith" and "Frederick Smith" are most likely the same person, this is not always the case. Faculty need to know that the names of students in a class in the University registration system match the names in online courses (or CoursePlus, for that matter) exactly.
As a result, once a student enters a JHED ID in to their eLearning account, their name will shortly thereafter be matched with the student information in JHED. This ensures that there is consistency between how a student's name appears in JHED, ISIS (the University system for enrollment), and online courses.
If you never get a JHED ID, this change doesn't apply to you.