The validity period of access rights and its extension

Student access rights are valid for a term or for the academic year, depending on attendance.

• For those registered for attendance for the whole academic year or for the spring term, access rights are valid until September 30.
• For those registered for attendance for the autumn term, access rights are valid until January 31.

Graduating in the middle of the semester does not end the validity of access rights. For example, if you graduate in October, your access rights will remain valid until 31 January.
Read more about the termination of access rights and its affects here.

The validity period of access rights will be extended automatically if the student

• has accepted the new terms of use
• has registered for attendance at the university
• has used their access rights in the last six months

The validity period of Unix access rights should be extended before they expire. This can only be done if the student has registered for attendance. When registering by Sisu, the validity period of access rights can be extended immediately. If registering by other means, extension is usually possible by the next working day.

The validity period of access rights can be extended by using the online tool. The new terms of use can be accepted using the aforementioned online tool or when activating a new user account. If your access rights have already expired, you can still extend their validity period by using the activation tool for new user accounts.

Staff access rights are valid for the maximum of one and a half years at a time.

For temporary staff members, the access rights validity period is linked to the duration of their employment relationship. Access rights for temporary employees will expire 28 days after the end of the employment relationship. However, access rights can still only be valid for the maximum of one and a half years at a time.

The validity period of staff access rights will be extended automatically if the staff member

• has accepted the new terms of use (in effect from 2010) electronically
• is currently employed by the university
• has used their access rights in the last six months

In other cases, and depending on the IT system in question, users can extend their own access rights by using the online tool.

The validity periods of access rights are extended according to the employment relationship information available in the university’s HR system.

The University has many kinds of agreements, such as for grants, visiting researchers, professors emeriti, etc. Access rights related to them do not continue automatically. In these cases, the Helpdesk must be contacted so that they can review the existing agreements in the necessary systems.

A person who does not have a valid employment relationship with the University or has not been registered as an attending student at the University must request a continuation for their username through the Helpdesk. In the request, please state a contact person who supports the continuation of your username. The Helpdesk will extend the validity period if the contact person gives their consent.

The applicant’s role or task in the University of Helsinki – The party who supports the username

• research - research team leader
• teaching - supervisor or overseer in charge
• studying - coordinating teacher or a degree student’s degree programme
• service provider or consultant - project manager or supervisor  
• other - project manager or supervisor

In most of the university’s IT systems, notifications about expiring access rights will be sent by e-mail both to the name-specific (firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi) and to the system-specific (username@laitteisto.helsinki.fi) address two months, a month, two weeks and a week before the expiry date. The notifications are sent based on the information available in the university’s access rights database.

If the user does not want to be notified about the expiry of their access rights, they can prevent it by using the Access rights information online tool and selecting the desired option under Granted access rights > Notifications.

The access rights whose validity period has not been extended by the expiration date will expire automatically. After this, all e-mails sent to the user will be returned to the sender with an attached error notification. The user’s personal website(s) will also no longer be available.

You can request an extension of the validity period of your access rights by sending an e-mail to helpdesk@helsinki.fi. The extension requires attendance if the user is a student or a valid employment relationship if the user is a member of staff. The user must change their password by using the reset service. The password will not be sent to the user in a letter as is done when new access rights are granted.

The expired access rights, with the files included, can be renewed and returned to the user up to a year after the access rights have expired. After this, the files will be deleted.

Further information

• What to do when your access rights expire