Who uses Departmental Accounts?

Departmental accounts are set up for departmental work, group research, a production application system, visiting scholars or fellows of the department.  They can be used for storing programs or data files shared among a group of users. Application for a departmental account requires the endorsement of the respective department head.  Unlike personal accounts which expire when the individual leaves the University, departmental accounts require annual renewal.  Each departmental account is associated with a staff member (account handler) who is responsible for the renewal or deletion of this account.

Notice for Account Handlers

Once a year in the month of October, a letter will be sent to each departmental account handler asking them to renew or delete the departmental account(s) under their care.  If an account handler has left the university, the department head will be asked to name another handler to look after the departmental accounts.  A second reminder is sent to account handlers who did not respond to the first notice.  When all the responses are in, then a program is run to either renew or delete these departmental accounts.

The Account Renewal Process

In other years before, the renewal of departmental accounts was done with paper forms which were sent back and forth between the Computer Centre and the departments and office clerks had to input the data for either renewing or deleting such accounts.

This year, an electronic form was implemented at a website, and accounts handlers were asked to go to the website themselves and enter the information directly.  The electronic accounts renewal process went very smoothly, and within a month's time, thanks to the cooperation of the account handlers, almost all of the accounts were either renewed or deleted.  The renewable departmental accounts will be extended for another year and those to be deleted will be removed from the system and the occupied disk space will be reclaimed.  The electronic form proved to be a convenient and effort-less way for updating information that would normally take two or more rounds of paper forms and data entry by clerks.
 

Mabel Chau
Tel: 2859 8934
Email: chaumabc@hku.hk