Safe and Secure
Keep Your Accounts Secure!
To use email, and participate in your online courses, you will need a Canisius username and password. These are mailed to you once you are enrolled at the college, although you should change the password to personalize it, and make it more secure.
Use Multi-Factor Authentication so that if someone else somehow gets your password, they still cannot access your Canisius account and resources.
Do not share your username or password with anyone, including other students, staff or faculty. ITS will not ask you for your password. If you call or go to the helpdesk, they can reset it for you.
At Canisius, password requirements are as follows:
At least 8-characters long.
A mixture of alphabetic letters and numbers
At least one "special character"
Allowed special characters are: ! % * + - / : ? and _
Disallowed special characters are: #@ $ & “ ( ) , < > ` = ; and the space character
Can not contain your name, the words "canisius" or "password."
Passwords are also case-sensitive so it is good (but not required) to include both upper and lower case letters
Your current password must be different from previous passwords
Some other good tips for security:
Setup recovery email, phone, and security questions. (That way, if you forget your security question answers, you can still get in.) MFA at Canisius works excellently with Google Authenticator and similar apps. Click here for a tutorial on setting up Google Authenticator with your Canisius Account.
It is tempting to re-use passwords across multiple accounts. Do not do this! It makes it easier for a malicious hacker to get access to more of your online information or resources!
Avoid passwords that are easily guessable. For example, do not use your birthday, street address, or information you might have ever posted publicly in social media.
A handy trick is to take something like a song lyric or phrase, and replace letters with numbers or symbols.
Backup, Backup, Backup!
What you do at Canisius matters for your future career, in ways you can anticipate and many more ways you cannot anticipate. (For example, employers now regularly ask for job candidates to complete assignments demonstrating proficiency, as part of the interview process!) So you should plan to keep your assignments, course syllabi, and related course material somewhere safe after you graduate.
Have a backup plan, that you follow regularly.
Know the Terms of Service
Like any professional organization, Canisius College has terms of service for use of their wireless and wired internet connections.
Also, specific apps may provide faculty or staff information on your activities within them. In D2L, be aware that professors can know when and how often you logged in, and how often you may have viewed items in the Content Area. In fact, a professor might set up an automated email that arrives in your inbox if you haven't logged into the course space within a week!
As the above example illustrates, this is because D2L and other educational technology provide features so faculty and student support staff can help students stay on track to graduate.
You can also access this information in D2L. Click your name in the upper right, and selecting "Progress" from the dropdown menu.
