Guidelines for New Students: a Tech Timeline

As a CCAC student you will have a wide array of technological services available to you, from your academic email account to free applications you can install on your home computer. Your key to the use of these tech tools is your NetID account - NetID for Network Identification - the network account that gives you access to computers on campus, to the student portal, to Blackboard and to much more. For these and a variety of other reasons, it's important to get your NetID account set up as soon as you can. Please follow this simple timeline to set up your account.

1. Apply for Admission (Contact Admissions Office for answers to questions about this stage.)

The first step is to apply for admission at discover.ccac.edu. You will be asked to create an account at the beginning of the application procedure. This account is not the NetID account. Your Discover account will enable you to submit your application and to schedule placement tests. But it is not the account you will use to access your academic email or log onto computers on campus when you are actively taking classes at CCAC.

The username for your Discover account will be an email address you supply. If you forget the email address you used to set up your Discover account, the Admissions Department can help you. To schedule placement tests, click Events.

(Note: if you have applied for Financial Aid, you will have limited NetID availability after you have completed this first step. You'll be able to create a NetID account that will enable you to access MyCCAC to view your financial aid package. If you have applied for Financial Aid, please follow the directions for creating your NetID in Step 3 below.)

(Contact Registration Office for answers to questions about this stage.)

The next step, after you've taken the placement test, is to register. To register for your first semester at CCAC, you will need to meet with an advisor.  This usually takes place on a campus, but under certain circumstances exceptions can be made. For details, review the registration procedures. If you are a first-time visiting student (a student enrolled at another college), be sure to review the information for visiting students.

(Contact the ITS ServiceDesk at 412.237.8700 for answers to questions about this stage.)

After you've registered for a course at CCAC, you will be able to create your NetID account, and to unlock the technological tools available to you at CCAC.

Upon creating your NetID account, you should be able to log into computers on the CCAC network. One to two days after you've created your NetID you should have access to MyCCAC (my.ccac.edu), where you will be able to view your financial and registration information. If you are not able to access MyCCAC by the end of the second day after you've created your NetID account, please contact the ITS ServiceDesk. You should also be able to access your academic email account 24 hours after the NetID account is created.  

Blackboard accounts are created separately, but they will use the same credentials for authentication. Blackboard accounts are typically created approximately two weeks prior to the beginning of a course utilizing Blackboard. Online courses will generally be on Blackboard. However, if your course meets on a campus, it's up to your instructor as to whether he or she wants to use Blackboard. So it's possible that your course will not be one that uses Blackboard; and if it isn't, you will not have a Blackboard account. They're created only for students who need them.

4. Maintain Your NetID Account

For the sake of information security, NetID account passwords are good for 120 days only. This means you will need to change your password regularly. You can change it or reset it (even if you've forgotten it) at NetID Self Service. If you are not able to change your password at NetID Self-Service, please call the ServiceDesk at 412.237.8700. For security reasons, we cannot reset passwords by email or by chat.

You will need your student ID number to reset your password.

Password requirements

 Your password will expire every 120 days

• Your password must contain at least 8 characters from at least three of the following categories:
• • Uppercase letter
  • Lowercase letter
  • Number (0 through 9)
  • Special character (for example,!, $, #, %)
  • • Any Unicode character that is categorized as an alphabetic character but is not uppercase or lowercase. This includes Unicode characters from Asian languages.
  • You will not be able to change your password less than 2 days since you last changed it.
• Your new password cannot be the same as any of your last 6 passwords
• Your password cannot contain your account username
• Your account will lock if you experience 5 invalid attempts to log in over 3 minutes; once this occurs, you will need to wait 15 minutes to try again