Onyen is the name for UNC’s campus-wide identifier that you can use to gain access to various electronic resources on campus. Although it is a word, you can think of it as an acronym for the “only name you’ll ever need.” The distinctive name is intended to prevent confusing it with the myriad other user ids that exist across campus. Several factors make it stand out from these other user identification schemes:
- Onyens are the only electronic service keys available to all members of the campus community — faculty, staff, and students alike. (There are about 45,000 of them right now.)
- Every Onyen is associated with a particular person via his or her PID.
- Each Onyen has its own password which can be used over secure connections for encrypted sessions to Web and other servers across campus.
- Although Onyens are managed by one department (ITS), they are available for use as authentication keys to any campus department or group which has to allocate resources to University affiliated people. Yet these groups are freed from having to administer the creation of user ids or the management of passwords.
With these factors in mind, Onyens represent a significant part of the commitment by Information Technology Services to provide equitable campus-wide access to a range of ITS and other services. As technology permits, Onyen based access will be used for an increasing number of services both within ITS and across campus.
The document Onyen Policy outlines the policies, standards and terms of agreement associated with Onyens.
UNC students, staff and faculty can use the onyen.unc.edu home page to create and manage their Onyens, to subscribe to Onyen services, and use Onyen functions.
