Sometimes guests at MSU will need access to Technology resources, even though they are not an MSU Faculty, Staff, Retiree, Emeritus or Affiliate. 

Examples of this would be Summer Camps, Conferences, visiting student groups or visiting non-MSU Faculty groups.

Below is a guide for Technology Access for users who are guests, or not affiliated with Montana State University.

For information on the type of individual who would qualify for Affiliate Appointment, visit this link https://www.montana.edu/policy/non_employee_appointments.html

Note, the Renne Library does have MSU Guest Access computer systems. These do not require a login and are open to the general public. The available software on these systems is very limited. The number of systems is also very limited. More information can be found here https://www.lib.montana.edu/services/tech-help/#TechnologyInTheLibrary.

 

Requesting Access to Physical Technology Resources

If you have a person/group that needs access to a computer and they do not qualify as student, faculty, staff, retire, emeritus of affiliate, you can request temporary access to MSU computers by providing the following information in an email to helpdesk@montana.edu:

  • Camp/Conference/Program Name
  • Camp/Conference/Program Sponsor
    • Must be a current MSU Employee and not a student.
  • Date access begins
  • Date access ends
  • Attendee Name
  • Attendee Phone Number
  • Attendee Email Address
  • Brief description of how the technology and/or or software will be used.

Access requests must be made 14 days prior to date of need.

Why

University Information Technology is committed to the protection of MSU computing and information resources that are critical to the instruction and research mission of the University. This process allows UIT to understand and manage who is accessing MSU computing and information resources and for how long.

MSU Licensed Software

Accounts created to allow access to MSU computers, will not have access to the Microsoft software such as PowerPoint, Word etc. Guest would need to bring a device that has this capability or have their own Microsoft account with this access.

MSU has some software that is licensed for University use. But the licenses are restricted to who can use it. Most often it is only licensed to be used by Students, Faculty, Staff or any combination of either/or.

Therefore if your Summer Camps, Conferences, visiting student groups or visiting non-MSU Faculty group has attendees that are not affiliated to MSU, even though the University is licensed for the software, it does not mean it can be used.

MSU Licensed software can be found here  https://www.montana.edu/uit/purchase/campus-licensed-software.html

 

Non-MSU Licensed Software

If your Summer Camps, Conferences, visiting student groups or visiting non-MSU Faculty groups needs access to software not licensed by MSU, you need to request this as far in advance as possible.

Minimum recommendation is six-months in advance.

To bring new software into MSU, it must be reviewed by the following groups:

  • Legal – To ensure the terms and conditions are acceptable
  • UIT Information Security Group -  To ensure that the software meets IT security requirements to be put in our environment.
  • UIT – Ensure that the software can function in our computing environments.

 

In order to be reviewed, you must contact the vendor before submitting your request, and ask for the following information:

  • Software Terms and Conditions
  • End User License Agreement (EULA)

We recommend you start this process as soon as possible as vendors are very slow to respond and without the above information, your request cannot be fulfilled.

After you have obtained the above information, submit it using the UIT Service and Support Portal https://www.montana.edu/uit/servicedesk/index.html or email it to UIT at helpdesk@montana.edu