ECE Labs Keycard Access Policy

Keycard Access Policy

It is the policy of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering that students who have current accounts in the ER4 labs may be granted keycard access to both the ER4 computing laboratories and to the buildings which house those labs.

Keycard access control lists are generated each and every quarter based on official OSU rosters. Rosters are processed the week before classes begin and then again in the second or third week of the quarter. These access control lists are then submitted to the University agency which controls the keycard readers.

You may have to swipe your BuckID three times at a reader if the first pass fails. The second pass the light will almost immediately go to red as the reader is checking your BuckID against the local cache on the reader itself, not with keycard control. The third pass the reader will make a second attempt to contact keycard control and verify your access to the lab/door.

If your keycard is not working...

... please try it again. There is a known issue with the current keycard system where communication timeouts between the reader and its home system occur before the home system is able to search its database fully for access requests. You may have to try your card as many as five times before it will respond. This is an issue that is completely outside the department's control, however there is hope on the horizon... they keycard system is scheduled to be replaced with a completely new system during Autumn Quarter 2007. That said, the date has not yet been set, and the scheduling is also out of the department's control.

If your keycard is still not working...

... and it is the quarter break, rosters may not have been processed yet. Individual keycard requests will not be processed before that time.
... and you registered late for classes, please wait before you submit your keycard request. We will rerun rosters in the second or third week of the quarter and you will be granted access at that time.
... and you are not currently taking an ECE class, then you will not have appeared on the ECE rosters from which access is granted. ECE students who pay the Engineering Computing fee, regardless of the ECE enrollment status, qualify for keycard access. If you believe you fall into this category, send a note to site and provide detailed information about your situation.
... and you have been patient and still don't have access, send an email to Site with a subject line of "Keycard Request". In the body of the message include your Name as it is registered with the University, your BuckID number (only the 10 digits following the 600908), your OSU Name.Number pairing, the lab/door you are unable to access and the date and time you attempted to access the lab/door. We will verify your enrollment against the rosters and then submit your information to keycard control. You will get an email from the site staff letting you know that this has been done. Keycard control may take up to two business days to process a request, though they are often much quicker. Try you card periodically over that period of time to see if it works.
... and you have submitted a request to site and your card is still not working two business days after you have been informed by Site that your information has been forwarded to keycard control, send an email to Site with a subject of "Keycard: Continuing Access Problem". Again include your Name and BuckID number. This time also include the date and time that you most recently tried to access two different card readers and list which two card readers you tried. This information will be sent to keycard control for their diagnostics.