To assist with the student off-boarding process and our students move to Harvard alumni status, the Department of Information Technology has compiled a comprehensive list of student accounts and systems with off-boarding guidance where appropriate. The information below has been drafted in consultation with the Office of Alumni Affairs and Career Advancement, Offices for Student Affairs, and Operations Office to address some of the questions that arise each spring for our new graduates.
Eligibility to most SPH and Harvard services is based on your active affiliations (e.g. student, staff, faculty) and school (SPH). When “active” status ends, eligibility ends immediately, or after an extended period of eligibility known as a grace period. Grace periods are noted below. Please note that some people hold more than one affiliated role at the same time. In such cases, a status change to end one of the roles will only affect access that is based on that role.
Please note that all policies are subject to change due to technology changes, software policy changes, security considerations or other service owner considerations. Changes will be noted on this site, and new systems/accounts will be added as necessary.
| Account/Service | Expiration |
|---|---|
| HarvardKey | HarvardKey credentials including 2-step authorization continue to work indefinitely after graduation.
Harvard University’s central alumni resources at http://www.alumni.harvard.edu utilize the HarvardKey for authentication. Most other SPH and University systems are restricted to active students. More information on specific systems may be found below. |
| Harvard University Identification Cards | Harvard Identification cards are deactivated immediately following commencement. |
| Student printing | Student printing access is tied to your Harvard University Identification card; therefore, printing access ends immediately following commencement. |
| O365 email/calendaring including OneDrive, Sharepoint (@hsph.harvard.edu accounts) | The Harvard University policy for Microsoft Office 365 accounts (designated by student@hsph.harvard.edu) states that accounts expire 365 days after a student’s graduation.
This grace period gives students time to continue to use their email address after graduation for job searches and other communications. The Department of Information Technology can provide guidance on how to create a personal archive of your mail as well as copy other O365 files to local drives ahead of the end of the grace period. Alumni are notified at 10 days prior to account expiration and at 5 days prior to account expiration. |
| Gmail email/calendaring (@mail.harvard.edu services, pre-May 2017 students) | If you were on the previous Gmail system for students (designated by student@mail.harvard.edu and pertaining to students enrolled between 2011 and May 2017), there is currently no expiration date. These accounts will be available for the foreseeable future. |
| Alumni email forwarding (@alumni.harvard.edu) | The Harvard Alumni Association has reinstated this service in April 2023. Information will be distributed to the classes of 2021-2023 in the spring and additional classes as 2023 progresses. |
| SPH Network and Personal Drives (P/:, S/:, G:/) | Access to services end on June 30th for all graduates including March, May and November graduation dates.
The SPH Helpdesk can provide guidance to assist you in moving any personal files to personal computers or other devices. |
| My.Harvard portal | Access to My.Harvard continues after graduation with information tailored toward alumni. This tab allows students to do items like review course history/grades and print an unofficial transcript. |
| SPH Virtual Computer Laboratories (VDI) | Access to services end on June 30th for all graduates including March, May and November graduation dates. |
| Zoom video conferencing | Access ends immediately following commencement for all graduates including March, May and November graduation dates. |
| Qualtrics | Access ends immediately following commencement. This includes access to any surveys created and survey data.
Please see Qualtrics FAQ for off-boarding information. |
| Canvas courses | Access to courses on Canvas is available for up to two years after graduation. Some collaborative features of courses will be in a “read only” state after the course has concluded (e.g., discussion boards, assignment submissions). Features that rely on student library access privileges will not be available. Please also note that faculty may opt to remove their courses and/or select content ahead of the two-year time period. We recommend copying materials locally to your computer to ensure continued access to content of interest from your courses.
If a course was recorded, videos will be available for up to two years after the course was offered. Faculty may opt to remove course videos ahead of the two-year time period. Videos are not available for download. If you have questions or problems accessing materials, please contact the Harvard Chan IT Helpdesk at helpdesk@hsph.harvard.edu. |
| Harvard Library Access | Student access to Harvard libraries is removed immediately after graduation (March, May or November dates).
However, all Harvard alumni now have access to a wide variety of electronic resources from the Harvard Libraries. While this catalog is not comprehensive it does provide access to many of the most popular journals and other resources through the Harvard Libraries. Additionally, alumni can apply for borrowing privileges at Countway and Widener Libraries for a fee, and SPH Office of Alumni Affairs recently launched alumni access to one of the largest publishers of online journals. Your alumni representatives serving on the Harvard Chan School Alumni Council are continuing to seek new ways for Harvard Chan School alumni to access Harvard’s vast scholarly resources. Visit the SPH Office of Alumni Affairs benefits page to see what scholarly resources are currently available to our alumni and how to access them. |
| FAS Odyssey High Performance Research Computing | If you have access to Odyssey for research in collaboration with a faculty sponsor, continued access/decommissioning of your account beyond graduation is determined by your faculty sponsor.
Please contact your faculty sponsor for additional information. |
| SPH WordPress Accounts | Access to any SPH websites that are restricted to an active SPH group (e.g., active SPH students, active SPH community) will expire immediately upon graduation.
If you have editing privileges for a particular SPH site, access persist until/if the SPH website owner removes your access. |
| Harvard Wiki http://wiki.harvard.edu |
Access persists to Harvard wikis after graduation utilizing your HarvardKey.
Access to particular a wiki is dependent upon the permissions of the wiki. For example, if a wiki is open to “all SPH students,” upon graduation, your access to that particular wiki would expire immediately upon graduation. Alternatively, if a wiki was open to you as an individual, your access persists indefinitely until/if the wiki owner removes your access. |
| Harvard MessageMe | Access ends immediately following commencement. |
