Year group in email address

[enjay]

I'm sure we've been advised by DfE or similar not to include a student's year group/admission year/age in their email address/display name, but after a quick search I can't find this guidance - can someone point me at it? We have some students with duplicate names (6 in total from just 800 students!), I've added middle initials to the display names for differentiation but been asked to include year groups too. I think I need to refuse this, but can't find the supporting evidence for that.

[Passat1983ICTech]

cant you get in the info of AD see if this works that way

[enjay]

cant you get in the info of AD see if this works that way

 

I don't fully understand your question, but my issue isn't how I alter their display names, but whether I should.

[jthompson]

There's another thread somewhere about exposing this information in email addresses. No mention of official guidance as I recall, but one suggestion is to use the last few digits of the students' admission numbers in usernames and email addresses. That should avoid any duplicates. If you want to include some sort of cohort component in the usernames, you could perhaps use an arbitrary number, rather than the actual intake year, etc.

 

I put the question of whether we should adopt a new username format to senior staff and the DSL, but yet to hear back. I'd be interested if there is any official guidance.

Edited July 13, 2017 by jthompson

[Bedders]

There was some discussion related to the use of year of admission in this thread http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/185099-account-naming-strategy.html that may be of use.

 

EDIT: Ninja'd in there whilst I was searching

[RichCowell]

I don't recall anything about admission year being advised against - that's the most logical way of organising them... IIRC, the advice was not to include any gender or full name, so we've always done them as 16jbloggs for that reason...

[jthompson]

EDIT: Ninja'd in there whilst I was searching

 

(You can have my points since you actually linked to it)

[enjay]

Let me clarify, as I think some people have misunderstood my request.

 

I'm not trying to change their logon names, I'm trying to change their display names in email so staff can make sure they email the right one. For that reason, adding admission numbers won't help tell the students apart either, as staff don't know the students' admission numbers (obviously!).

 

We have Joe Bloggs (logon jbloggs) and Joe P Bloggs (logon jbloggs1), what I have been asked to do is change it to "Joe Bloggs - year 7". This is what I think we've been advised against, but I can't find that advice.

[Bedders]

Let me clarify, as I think some people have misunderstood my request.

 

I'm not trying to change their logon names, I'm trying to change their display names in email so staff can make sure they email the right one. For that reason, adding admission numbers won't help tell the students apart either, as staff don't know the students' admission numbers (obviously!).

 

We have Joe Bloggs (logon jbloggs) and Joe P Bloggs (logon jbloggs1), what I have been asked to do is change it to "Joe Bloggs - year 7". This is what I think we've been advised against, but I can't find that advice.

 

Add their intake year into the Description field in Active Directory?

Create separate address books for each year?

[enjay]

Add their intake year into the Description field in Active Directory?

Doesn't help staff tell them apart when sending an email or sharing a Google Doc.

 

Create separate address books for each year?

Google Mail uses a single address book, plus document sharing happens outside of email so you might not see the different address books even if they existed.

[jthompson]

"Joe Bloggs - year 7" would need to be updated each year, and historic emails could still carry it as "Joe Bloggs - year 7" in years to come. You've then go the potential of two different Joe Bloggs, in different year groups, appearing in messages as "Joe Bloggs - year 7". You've then got another pair of conflicting names for them being introduced the year after, also. You'd be better off adding an admission number component (that won't change) to the display name, to at least give staff the option of looking them up in the MIS (or just learning them from habit if they teach a Joe Bloggs).

[enjay]

"Joe Bloggs - year 7" would need to be updated each year

 

It is only 6 students, I can cope with that.

 

historic emails could still carry it as "Joe Bloggs - year 7" in years to come. You've then go the potential of two different Joe Bloggs, in different year groups, appearing in messages as "Joe Bloggs - year 7"

 

Don't think that's a problem. Even if I did go in to the message archives for some reason, I'd see it was from jbloggs1@ so know which Joe Bloggs sent it.

 

You'd be better off adding an admission number component (that won't change) to the display name, to at least give staff the option of looking them up in the MIS (or just learning them from habit if they teach a Joe Bloggs).

 

That's no better than a middle initial, staff would still need to refer to SIMS. I want something front-and-centre making it clear which Joe Bloggs is which.

[Bedders]

That's no better than a middle initial, staff would still need to refer to SIMS. I want something front-and-centre making it clear which Joe Bloggs is which.

 

How about intake year e.g. 'Intake2016', rather than 'Year 7'?

[elsiegee40]

The problem is that sooner or later you will end up with 2 Joe Bloggs in the same year group... or as happened to my son a Joe Bloggs and a Joe Bloggsy (the other boy literally had the same name with a Y on the end). They used to forward incorrectly addressed emails to each other.

 

You will probably never find a perfect solution

[howartp]

How about intake year e.g. 'Intake2016', rather than 'Year 7'?

 

We use Intake201* for everything administrative within the department here.

 

I don't think we do anything with display names, they just duplicate if it happens.

[enjay]

How about intake year e.g. 'Intake2016', rather than 'Year 7'?

 

That would still denote the age of the student.

[enjay]

The problem is that sooner or later you will end up with 2 Joe Bloggs in the same year group... or as happened to my son a Joe Bloggs and a Joe Bloggsy (the other boy literally had the same name with a Y on the end). They used to forward incorrectly addressed emails to each other.

 

Already got that problem actually - two of our duplicates in the same year (thankfully not the same classes!), but I can at least reduce the confusion for the other four.

 

You're right though, confusion is unavoidable. We also have three J Bloggs, but at least the first names are different (although similar in the case of two of them). Also, we had a student and a teacher with similar names, which is why all our students are in the address book in the format "Joe Bloggs (student)".

 

I'm going to go with the initials, make sure the staff are notified and the students know which one they are. As you said, they can just forward emails to each other. I don't like the idea of indicating age in their email address but maybe that's just me and I made up seeing guidance on that topic, though.