Understanding the Confidential Anonymous Student Hokies Account


Introduction

This article describes

Contents

Explanation

Why is my Hokies ID username in the form anon######? Why is my Hokies account anonymous?

Students who use the Virginia Tech Account Manager to enable student confidentiality and mark their entire student record as confidential will be assigned a Hokies ID with the username in the format of anon######. If you set your account to confidential, the data in your Hokies account will immediately be hidden from view, and you will receive an automated email confirmation.

What are the impacts of being confidential?

Students who mark themselves as confidential change their Virginia Tech username to anon###### within the Microsoft 365 (M365) environment. That means emails sent to them, invites sent to them, adding them to applications such as Microsoft Teams must use the anon###### email. They cannot possess an Exchange Online mailbox, and it effectively breaks/disrupts most collaborative services in M365 for the student. Word and Excel will work just fine but collaborating with an anonymized student becomes less simple.

I forgot my anon username.

If you are a student and you forgot your anonymous Hokies ID username, submit a 4Help ticket by clicking Get Help at the top of the page.

I am faculty or staff. How do I determine who anon###### is?

Please contact your organizational unit (OU) Admin for assistance.

I am an organizational unit (OU) admin. How do I determine who anon###### is?

  1. Log into the CAT.
  2. Enter the anonymous username to search for in the search box at the upper right.
  3. Click on Search.