Services

• A passport identifies you as a citizen of your nation and qualifies you to request entry to other countries.
• Your Penn State account identifies you as a member of the Penn State community, and makes you eligible to be granted access to various Penn State resources.

• Once you have a passport, each country you wish to visit typically must issue you a visa granting you permission to enter that country.
• Once you have a Penn State account, each of the resources you need must grant you permission to log in.
• What you can access with your account changes as your relationship to the University changes.

You can use it to schedule a campus tour, apply for a job or degree program at the University, or register to access library services. If you enroll in a course, you may be granted access to Canvas via the “Limited Access Option”.

Unless and until you either become an active student, faculty or staff member, or your account is sponsored by a department in the University, your account will remain in Limited status.  You will not be granted access to additional resources.

See How does my Account Type affect what I can access?

Students To be considered an active student, you must be enrolled in at least ONE credit-earning course for the current or upcoming semester. If you’re unsure of your current student status, please contact the Registrar’s Office for further information.

Faculty and Staff:To be considered an active faculty or staff member, you must have a current appointment in WorkDay, the employee information system. For questions regarding your appointment status, please contact HR Shared Services for assistance.

Other Active Affiliations:  If you study or do work for the University, but don’t meet the criteria above for active student, faculty or staff, chances are your account has been sponsored by the department you’re associated with.  If that’s the case, the sponsoring department must request that you be granted access to the specific resources you need.  See Sponsored Accounts to learn more.

Standard Access

Once you become an active student, faculty or staff member, your account is upgraded to what we call a “Standard” account.  A Standard account is eligible to be granted access to a wide variety of additional resources such as a PSU email address, Office 365 applications, G Suite applications, and Computer labs.

The specific resources to which you’re ultimately granted access depends on the nature of your affiliation with the University.

• Access to some resources is granted only upon the request of your college or department.
• Access to many resources is automatically granted to all active students, faculty, and staff.
• If you have some other affiliation with the University, the specific resources to which you’ll be granted access depends on the nature of your affiliation and role.​​​​​​​

Standard Services

The following is a partial list of the standard tools and services that are available to active students, faculty, and staff:

• A Microsoft Outlook Email Address.   Your PSU email address consists of your Penn State user ID @psu.edu.  For example, if your Penn State ID is xyz123, your email address would be xyz123@psu.edu.
• Office 365 Applications.  Office 365 includes both online and/or desktop versions of an array of Microsoft applications, including but not limited to the Outlook email desktop application, OneDrive, Teams, OneNote, Calendar, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Project, Stream, and Yammer.
• G Suite. G Suite is Google’s suite of cloud-based applications.  Use applications like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Drive, and Google Meet to create, store, organize, and share files, and to facilitate collaboration and communication.
• Zoom.  Zoom is a cloud-based video and web conferencing platform used to conduct online meetings and webinars.
• PSU Wireless.  A secure wifi connection available on Penn State campuses.
• PSU VPN software.  Software that allows you to establish a secure, encrypted connection to the Penn State network when you’re off campus.
• LionPATH.  Penn State’s student information system. Automatically granted to students and faculty.  Students use LionPATH to register for courses, view grades, pay tuition and fees, and obtain transcripts, among other things.  Faculty use LionPATH to manage class enrollment and post grades.
• WorkDay.  Penn State’s employee information system (Employees only).
• Canvas.  Penn State’s course management system.  Canvas is used to supplement class materials and post assignments for in-person and online courses.
• Adobe Creative Cloud.  A collection of creative apps and services that includes Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and more.
• Computer Labs.  Computer workstations Penn State makes available in classroom and public spaces for academic and instructional use.
• WebLabs.  The ability to use your web browser to connect to a lab computer from another location.
• Software Downloads. This site offers software titles at no cost to users without the wait for orders to be processed manually.
• PASS​​​​​​​​​​​​​​.  Universally-accessible disk space and file storage space is available for all Penn Staters, departments, and courses.

How you get access to different resources varies.

• In many cases, your access to a given resource is automatically triggered when the Admissions Office, Registrar’s Office, or Human Resources updates your status or records an event in a Penn State system. For example, you may gain access to certain resources when you accept an offer of admission and pay your admission fees, accept an offer of employment, enroll in classes, or start working for Penn State.
• In other cases, your school, department, manager, faculty advisor, or other individual must submit a request that you be granted access.
• Some resources will require you to register, download, and/or install something; others will not.
• In most cases, when you’re granted access to a resource and/or asked to log in to a website or application, you’ll receive an email notification with a link and instructions for doing so.

Exactly when you get access to a specific resource depends on:

• The specific nature of your affiliation with the University ( e.g., undergrad student, grad student, faculty, or staff;  new, re-enrolling, transferring ) and/or
• The college or department that requested it on your behalf.​​​​​​​
• If you aren’t yet able to log in to something you believe you should have access to, contact your supervisor, your advisor, or the appropriate office (Undergraduate Admissions, Graduate Admissions, World Campus, the Office of the Registrar, or Human Resources) to find out when you can expect to be granted access.