Some students wonder why their computer username is a “Z” followed by six numbers. Information Technology Services and Registration and Records reveal why the ID system is as it has been for 13 years.

Paper system

Originally, very fine, nearly-translucent paper was used to either write or type a student’s records and grades, said Robin Hendricks, assistant director of Registration and Records.

This paper was later upgraded to a hard copy type

of paper about as thick as manila paper where students’ grades and records were typed into a system that included labels and punch cards.

“Teachers had a punch card that the instructor would mark what the grade was. It was put through a machine that generated a sticky label to put on the student’s records,” Hendricks said.

If a student who went to NIU when this records process was still in use should need their records for any reason, NIU still has them and can recreate them on the computer, Hendricks said.

For a while there was an overlap among students using the paper system and computer systems, because newer students were registered in the computer while older ones were a part of the old process, she said.

Creation of the Z-ID

The system was created when computers were introduced to

NIU as a new technology and did not allow every student to have an ID or an NIU e-mail in the 1980s.

IDs were based off of what

college and department a student was in, and students only received IDs if they were enrolled in a class where computers were necessary.

Other letters were already in use for different IDs. The letters “A” through “K” were reserved for administration while the letters “L” though “Z” were reserved for academics, said Sylvia Gorman, ITS associate director of Enterprise Systems Support.

Not every student would have an ID, and IDs were constantly reassigned every semester.

“Students would have four or five depending on their classes that were deleted at the end of the semester,” Gorman said.

In the 1990s ITS wanted something that would work across the university for all students, and wanted every student to have access to an e-mail account and a home directory, Gorman said.

As it turned out, not only was “Z” at the end of the alphabet, it was also the only letter in the alphabet that was not taken. Even letters like “Q,” “Y” and “X” meant something in NIU’s old system.

It was easy to update a program using letters “L” through “Z” to “L” through “Y,” Gorman said.

The numbers are random numbers assigned sequentially to each student as they are enrolled, and there are 1 million six-number combinations possible for use in the Z-ID.

“I took an existing program and updated it,” said ITS systems programmer Dave Ulrick.

Ulrick said ITS is in the process of implementing a new student ID system.