Frequently Asked Questions
For general information about the University, see Helpful
Phone Numbers.
How do I update/restrict my
information in the Electronic Directory?
Note: the Directory is updated daily (with some exceptions).
Students:
You may update your information through the Address
Update (requires EID) Web form. These updates usually
appear within 24 hours.
Your UMBS (mail.utexas.edu) mail address will be added to the Directory
automatically. Automatic updates take at least 48 hours after activation
of the mailbox.
The information provided in the Electronic Directory is based upon
publicly available information. You may choose to restrict all or
part of your directory information by visiting the
Restrict My Info
service.
See What
are student privacy rights?
Faculty/Staff:
You may update your entry through either the Address
Update (requires EID) or the Employee
Information System (requires EID) Web forms, by
filling out a Biographical Information Form (BIF) obtained from your
department's personnel officer, or by contacting Human
Resources Services (471-5127). Updates will appear in
the Electronic Directory in about 24 hours (except during September,
when all updates are delayed until yearly appointments have been
completed). For more information, see Where
does the data come from?
Your UMBS (mail.utexas.edu) mail address will be added to the directory
automatically. Automatic updates take at least 48 hours after activation
of the mailbox.
The information provided in the Directory service is based upon publicly
available information. You may request that this information not be released
by the University—including both the Electronic Directory and other
directories such as the printed directory. Faculty and staff members
may restrict their home address or home telephone number by checking
the appropriate boxes on the Biographical Information Form or selecting
the appropriate options in the Employee
Information System (requires
EID) Web forms.
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How can I get someone's e-mail
address if it is not listed in the Directory?
If an e-mail address is not listed in the Directory, it means that
person has not supplied us with an e-mail address. We recommend that
you place a phone call or send a letter to the phone number/address listed
for that person asking for an e-mail address. If the person is a faculty
or staff member, you may contact the department for which they work or
see that department's Web page. Our policies do not allow us to help
locate people.
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Where can I look up alumni?
The Ex-Students' Association provides a directory/e-mail forwarding
service at http://alumni.utexas.net
Alumni must register with the service to perform searches,
but the service and e-mail forwarding are free.
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What are student privacy
rights (relating to Directory Information)?
See the Registrar's FERPA information site for information about student privacy rights and for instructions on how to restrict access to your records.
The following is an excerpt from Appendix C of The University of Texas
at Austin General Information catalog:
Subchapter
9-200. Directory Information and Student Records
Sec. 9-201. Directory Information
- "Directory information" is defined as a student's name,
local and permanent addresses, electronic mail addresses, public username, telephone
listing, date and place of birth, major field(s) of study, participation
in officially recognized activities and sports, weight and height
if a member of an athletic team, dates of attendance, degrees,
awards and honors received (including selection criteria), the most
recent previous educational institution attended, and other similar
information. Other similar information includes a student's classification
and expected date of graduation, the names and addresses of former
students who are credited with funds remaining in their general property
deposit, and student parking permit information.
- Directory information is public information and will be made available
to the public except as noted in subsection 9-201(c).
- A currently enrolled student may request that all or some directory information not be made public by visiting the Restrict My Info service. Directory restriction is available to all students during the first twelve days of a fall or spring semester or during the first four days of a summer session. This request will remain in effect until revoked by the student. In the event of such a request, this information will be treated as student records information, subsection 9-202(a)(1), and, in response to public inquiries, the university will state that it has no information to provide regarding the person about whom the inquiry has been made.
For more information, see the General
Information catalog.
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Where does the data come from?
The Electronic Directory receives data from several sources:
Student Data:
The student data in the Directory comes from the Office of the Registrar.
Information obtained from the Registrar includes:
- Name (displayname)
- Classification (utexasEduPersonClassification)
- Major (utexasEduPersonMajor)
- College (utexasEduPersonSchool), See Why
am I listed under organization X?
- Home Phone (homePhone)
- Home Address (homePostalAddress)
- E-Mail Address (mail)
The information supplied by the Registrar CANNOT be
updated through the Directory Service. Students can update their mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses
through the Registrar's
Online Services. Contact the Office of Registrar for assistance in changing other student information. Directory information about students who
have restricted access to their records will not show up in the Electronic
Directory or in the Official Directory. If a student does not
register for a fall or spring semester, their directory entry is removed.
Faculty/Staff Data:
The faculty-staff data in the Directory comes from the Human
Resource Services (HRS). Information presently obtained from HRS includes:
- Name (displayname)
- Title (utexasEduPersonPrimaryTitle, utexasEduPersonHighestDegree), See Where
do titles come from?
- College and Department Affiliation (utexasEduPersonPrimaryOrgUnitName), See Why
am I listed under organization X?
- Office Address (postalAddress)
- Office Location (utexasEduPersonOfficeLocation)
- Office Phone (telephoneNumber)
- Office FAX (facsimileTelephoneNumber)
- E-Mail Address (mail)
- Home Phone (homePhone)
- Home Address (homePostalAddress)
- Pager Number (pager)
The information supplied by HRS CANNOT be updated
through the Electronic Directory Service. You may update your Employee
Information System (requires EID) Web form or seek assistance
from your department's personnel officer and from Human
Resource Services (471-5127). The new information should
appear in about 24 hours. Information checked in “Information Release
-- Do Not Release My…:" will not show up in this service.
Entries for faculty and staff are deleted at the beginning of the fiscal
year for those individuals who no longer hold active appointments (this
usually takes place in the first data feed after October 1).
Many individuals have elected not to supply information such as FAX
numbers. If this information is not present in the Directory service
for an entry, it is because those individuals did not supply the information.
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Where do titles come from?
Faculty/Staff Data:
The title field for faculty/staff entries comes from data supplied
by HRS and is of the form "appointment."
"Appointment" is the first occurrence of an employee's majority
appointment with the University. Note that some professors may be listed
as researchers over non-teaching semesters due to the appointments made
by their departments. Personnel officers of those departments can override
the researcher title provided to the Directory by using Define's *PNINFO
(DR3). An employee may also contact HRS's Employee
Records Services (471-5127) and ask that a title be overridden.
"Highest degree" is obtained from information supplied on
Biographical Information Forms.
For questions or more information about your title, contact your department's
personnel officer.
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Why am I listed under a
certain college/school/department?
Student Data:
This information is obtained from the college or school in which a
student's major is offered.
Faculty/Staff Data
This is complicated: the Directory service is based on data from the
University's corporate employee databases. There is no easy way to determine
where a University employee should be listed using these records. The
only data contained in these records that offer any guidance are the
account titles out of which employees are paid and campus mail addresses.
Neither of these indicates exactly where an employee should be listed.
An employee is listed under the organization to which his or her account
title belongs (the account out of which he or she is paid). If an employee
has a dual appointment and is paid out of two accounts, the majority
appointment determines the organizational listing. For example, if
an employee is appointed for 60% of his time to the Center for Silly
Studies and is appointed for the other 40% of his time to the Center
for Serious Studies, he will be listed under the Center for Silly Studies.
If an employee is evenly split between multiple departments, he will
be listed under the last occurrence of an appointment in the personnel
databases.
Human Resources Services (HRS)
(471-5127) may override some of this information. Please contact HRS
with any questions you may have.
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What is the vCard and how do I use it?
The vCard is a platform-neutral electronic address book entry that is
stored in a file format your address book applications can read and save.
Every person in the UT Directory has a vCard that you can click and save into
your default address book. For Mac OS users, this is usually the Address Book
program; for PC users, it is often the Outlook address book. This is an easy
way for you to save contact information, including e-mail addresses, phone
numbers, and office locations so that you do not have to look them up in a
separate application.
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What is the Certificate and how do I use it?
The Certificate is a public encryption key that you can save into
your contact list and then use to send encrypted e-mail to that recipient.
University faculty and staff who have been issued Digital Certificates
have a Certificate entry in their directory listing.
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How else can I access
the Directory?
There are a variety of methods to access the Directory. The most common
is through our Web gateway. However, the Directory is also available
via Finger and through the use of the Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (LDAP).
- Web: http://www.utexas.edu/directory/
- Finger: finger "john doe"@directory.utexas.edu
- LDAP: various clients including e-mail clients
and browsers
- server: directory.utexas.edu
- port: 389
- base: dc=directory,dc=utexas,dc=edu
- maximum entries returned: 50
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How can I get a copy of this database?
The information contained in the Directory is sourced from the University's
administrative computing systems; the information is accessible only
through that system and its interfaces and is to be used only for official
University business or projects. Contact your ITS Applications service
representative for more information.
The contents of the Electronic Directory are copyrighted
by The University of Texas at Austin —access and/or
abuse are subject to criminal prosecution under both state and federal
laws.
Security features have been implemented to prevent "trawling" of
this directory. These features may result in searching difficulties for
users, but are intended to protect the privacy of University students,
faculty, and staff.
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May I send unsolicited or commercial
e-mail to addresses from this directory?
This online directory service is provided by the University to facilitate
the research, teaching, learning, and service missions of the University
Community. Solicitation on University computing and network resources
is prohibited by the Rules and Regulations of the University of Texas
Board of Regents. Accordingly, the contact information provided in this
online directory service may not be used for transmission and distribution
of unsolicited e-mail or other commercial purposes.
The University does have an official University
Group E-mail System (requires EID) which can be used
by authorized persons to send e-mail to large groups in the University
community, including all students, faculty and staff.
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Why was the directory down?
There are two Directory servers behind a network redirector. If one
goes down, all queries should automatically be redirected to the other.
If this should fail, send mail to iadteam@utlists.utexas.edu.
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