Who are you?
The question bombards us every time we check our e-mail, log on to a library computer or schedule classes, though we seldom think about it in that way.
It proves that the age-old question of identity has not escaped the digital age. But for Ohio State students, faculty and staff, the answer is usually not the start of philosophical contemplation.
The answer is a simple matter of name-dot-number.
Shorthand for the more than 170,000 unique online identities at OSU, name-dot-number is made up of a last name, a period and a number. Students and employees use their name-dot-numbers to send e-mails, log in to OSU’s network and verify their digital identities.
Everybody at OSU has one. But how exactly is it assigned?
The numbers are assigned sequentially, said Kristina Torres, a member of the communications team for the Chief Information Officer.
It is based on how many people with the same last name have been admitted to or hired by OSU.
Name-dot-numbers, which are the total package of the last name coupled with a number, are unique to one individual and assigned for life, she said.
Contrary to what students might think, numbers are not reassigned or recycled, she said. It’s something that’s “with you forever.”
A computer program assigns name-dot-numbers to students and employees, so there’s no way to haggle for your lucky number.
“You get what you get,” she said.
But there are gaps between numbers sometimes. It’s because students who are admitted to OSU are given numbers, regardless of whether they enroll, Torres said.
Those in charge of managing the name-dot-number system are part of a group called Identity and Access Management.
It might sound like one step away from Big Brother, but Torres said it’s not as ominous as it sounds.
Identity Management, or IdM, is tasked with finding secure ways to store all the bits of information that make up a person’s digital identity, and organizing it by name-dot-number.
Verifying an online identity is especially important when access to all kinds of information can be granted to anybody sitting in front of a computer screen, Torres said. The process is called “authenticating” or “proving you are who you say you are,” she said.
But aside from all the technical details, name-dot-numbers are part of a real-life OSU identity.
Obscure and uncommon last names might be rewarded with low numbers or even a coveted “dot one” — desired if only because it seems it would be easier to remember. Numbers for common last names such as Smith and Brown, though, climb into the high thousands.
Geoff Smith is the head of OSU’s Rare Books and Manuscripts Collection at Thompson Library.
And he is a rarity himself, being somewhat of a prototype for the most common last name at OSU. He is Smith.1.
“It didn’t mean anything to me at the time,” he said, when the number was assigned back in the 1990s.
Now, people are often impressed by it.
“It means you’re old,” he said he tells number-struck inquirers.
He said he thinks he was given the first spot because the Office of Information Technology is affiliated with the library, and when the office was handing out the first name-dot-numbers, it started there.
“If I had been in English or engineering, I probably would have been 112,” he said. “Smith.112, not 112 years old,” he said laughing. He has been at OSU since 1983.
Still, he doesn’t romanticize the distinction of being the first Smith.
“I wish that it had the influence people think it does,” he said.
One of Identity Management’s main duties is to piece together the various systems that make up OSU’s online world, like an interstate, Torres said.
When students enroll for classes on BuckeyeLink, for example, they first must verify their identity using their name-dot-number and password. It is Identity Management’s job to act as the guard at the castle gate, granting pass-through rights only to those who have sufficiently authenticated their identities.
The job of verifying will be made easier next year, Torres said, when Identity Management completes a project it has been working on for the past year: the Identity Vault.
The vault, which Torres said is not as “glamorous” as the name suggests, is a central repository for identify information. Teams have completed various parts of it, from the actual infrastructure of the server to code-writing. It’s expected to be finished next year, she said.
One benefit is that it increases efficiency as data are updated or changed.
For example, when people change their names, the vault recognizes the connections between the identities and links them together, making the data stored there more organized and easier to retrieve.
But what happens to an old name-dot-number after changing names?
Alissa MacAdam, a fourth-year in human nutrition, knows the answer.
She recently updated her name after getting married. She went from being the 421st Sullivan to the 12th MacAdam. She doesn’t know why, she said, but she also received a third name-dot-number consisting of a hyphenated combination of both last names, too.
And all three of them are still active.
But her original one is still the first thing that pops into her head, she said. Even digital married names take some getting used to.
It’s also caused a bit of a split personality for MacAdam. She uses one of her three name-dot-numbers to check her e-mail and another to check Carmen, the online course management system, she said.
“I never use the hyphenated one,” she said. “It’s too long.”
Kim Carter, a 2009 graduate of OSU’s veterinary school, had only one-name-dot number while she was a student here, but one was enough.
Her number was 666. The so-called Satanic “number of the beast” from the Bible’s Book of Revelation is about as unlucky as 13 on steroids to the superstitious.
It might be humorous to many, but for Carter, it was truly unfortunate. She was the president of the Christian Veterinary Fellowship.
“I immediately wanted to change it,” she said on the phone from Canton, Ohio, where she is now a veterinarian. But she never got around to filling out the paperwork. And it was certainly easy to remember.
She said some were wary of e-mailing her, and she was used to getting funny looks from people unfamiliar with the system, who thought she had chosen the number for herself.
Getting a new e-mail was one of the first things she did after graduating, she said. She probably decided she was better off with a nondescript Gmail account. After all, who wants a Satanic veterinarian?
But her OSU identity did have its advantages.
“It was definitely a conversation-starter,” Carter said.
Although it might seem impersonal to be identified by a number, with vast stores of data being updated in real-time every day, Torres said it would be difficult to identify students, faculty and staff without a system like name-dot-number.
As technology evolves, interactions with the system might become more sophisticated — more personal — but a number will likely always be a part of the equation, Torres said.
That might just be a sign of the times.
