IT facilities for new students arriving in Bristol

[20 June 2012]

IT Services welcomes new students starting at Bristol this autumn. Internet access is available in your residence and around the University, so it's easy to get online. While studying you will have access to IT facilities including:

• University portal, MyBristol
• Your online learning environment, Blackboard
• University Remote Desktop
• Access to electronic library resources.

See the information for new students webpage for further details of these services.

How to access services

To access most online services you need to log on with your University username and password. Please note that your username is not the same as your email address.

Username

For almost all University services your username is your initials followed by 5 numbers, e.g. ab12345.

Use this format to log on to the portal MyBristol, and other services that use our Single Sign On System.

Exceptions to the standard username include the format ab12345@bristol.ac.uk. Eduroam wireless uses this format. This allows you to connect at many universities, using the same eduroam username wherever you are.

Another notable exception is the login for your Google email for life account. Usernames for this are in the format ab12345@my.bristol.ac.uk.

Password

You have a single University password, shared across all the services mentioned above. You chose your password during online registration. You can change your password at any time by going to

<http://www.bristol.ac.uk/password>.

If you forget your password, visit the IT Service Desk in the Computer Centre on Tyndall Avenue.

Email addresses

New undergraduate and taught postgraduate students entering the university this autumn are the first to benefit from a new email for life service, hosted for the University by Google. This will continue to operate even after you complete your course.

The easiest way to access your email is through the MyBristol portal, but you can also go direct to Google at www.gmail.com.

You chose your email address for life during online registration, in the format emailname.2012@my.bristol.ac.uk, for example: justin.bieber.2012@my.bristol.ac.uk.

You may notice that official emails from the University are sent to ab12345@bristol.ac.uk but still arrive in your Google mailbox for life. You should not use this format yourself as it is a temporary solution while all students migrate to the new service run by Google. It will stop working in the future, and will definitely stop working when you leave the University.

So, when you give out your email address use emailname.2012@my.bristol.ac.uk, as this will be your address for life.