Access for high school students

[dpbrown]

I am a teacher at Monticello HS in Va. and we have used Autodesk and Fusion 360 for years.  Suddenly my students can no longer access/download the "free educational software" of fusion unless they provide "verification" that violates privacy policies.  Autodesk is requiring Minors (those under 18 yrs of age) to provide picture ID's and Transcripts which contain personal information, something we are not allowed to do, and cannot tell our students to do either.  It is really sad that Autodesk has chosen to go this route so they can access customers info to add to their marketing database.  I understand verification, but to ask for pictures and transcripts is excessive (and illegal, in some cases).  If you wish me to verify that I work at the school and can vouch for my students status, I can do that and providing their names and school emails; but to require something that requires parental permission to release is over the top.  You will be losing a lot of potential customers/users because of this.  Bad form, Autodesk, bad form.

[sagarl]

Autodesk remains committed to supporting education by providing eligible students, educators and educational institutions with free access to the same products and services used by our customers in industry, extensive learning content and curriculum, and support. Verification enables us to confirm student and educator eligibility to access all of the benefits of the Autodesk Education plan, with the added customer benefit of one, annual Education plan renewal date, instead of needing to manage multiple product serial numbers and license expiry dates. 

Our current verification  process applies to individuals only and we are unable to accept lists of student data from teachers/schools.  In those cases where students are asked to provide additional documentation in support of their access request, there are a number of document types which may be provided, and photos are not required. Documents need only contain the following 3 data points and other personal information can be obscured:

• Your full legal name – which must match the first and last name on your Autodesk account
• Name of the educational institution at which you are enrolled or employed
• A date within the current school term or within the last three months

More information on the verification process, and a link to a student confirmation of enrolment template, can be found in our detailed FAQ.

Protecting the privacy of our customers is of the utmost importance to Autodesk. The Autodesk Privacy Statement applies to the data you provide when you register for an Autodesk Account or submit information for Education plan access verification. For more information about Autodesk's privacy and data collection/usage practices, please consult the Autodesk Privacy Statement. Lastly, I can confirm that any user who signs up for an Autodesk account through the Education Community website, and is under 18 years of age is automatically opted-out from receiving any marketing communications from Autodesk.

I hope this provides you with further clarity and reassurance.

-Lianne

[dpbrown]

As a public school educator I must use materials and software that is available to ALL of my students.  Many parents do not wish to provide the info you ask beyond their students name and School System generated and maintained (safeguarded) email account.  The student USING the email acct is proof of their enrollment and status as a student in our schools.  No one but school employees, students and administrators have a k12albemarle.org address.  Because I must respect the wishes of my students and parents, I cannot use your products.  This is a sad state of affairs.  There are other cad providers who are not placing these extra restrictions on my students, and I will be forced to eliminate autodesk from the possible cad offerings my students will be exposed to.  I wish this wasn't so.

[dpbrown]

"Verification enables us to confirm student and educator eligibility to access all of the benefits of the Autodesk Education plan, with the added customer benefit of one, annual Education plan renewal date, instead of needing to manage multiple product serial numbers and license expiry dates. "

Hmmm.

So this is a result of cost cutting?  Or is it due to reduced staffing due to covid19? Or just an easier way to do it?

[sagarl]

Confirming a user's eligibility for the Autodesk Education plan, helps us to continue our commitment to supporting education and providing all eligible students and educators worldwide, with free access to use the same Autodesk products and services as used by our commercial customers in industry, in addition to providing free learning content and curriculum and education support. 
The added benefit of the Education plan is that instead of a student or educator needing to track and manage multiple serial numbers and expiry dates across the various products they may use, there is now a single renewal date for access to all of the benefits within the Education plan; and, customer notifications to renew their eligibility, prior to their access to the Education plan expiring. All of which we believe will result in a better customer experience.

-Lianne

[dpbrown]

This still doesn't explain WHY Autodesk has chosen to require additional documentation. A student name and a School email address in a School System Domain answers the question of student status in a school. Can anyone answer WHY?

[sagarl]

A school email address is not required to create an Autodesk Account, and is not considered as part of the confirmation of eligibility process, since many students continue to have access to school email accounts even after they have graduated.

-Lianne

[litecka]

To whom it may concern, i am teacher at university and i teach Inventor for 7 years. In the same time we had the same problems with Inventor licences.

Fortunately, I managed to verify using the authorization letter. But my students have a verification problem. They scanned their ISIC card, but your system rejected it. The ISIC is valid for one year (on the front) and then it is extended every year with a sticker on the other side, but your system did not evaluate it correctly. Although they sent both scans of both sides. What should we do now?
It would not be more appropriate for one person to be verified on behalf of the university and he would confirm his students. I also think that the system has been good for 3 years so far, I understand your reason. It will be necessary to find a compromise solution in the future. I think that the cooperation between educational institutions and Autodesk is beneficial for both.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it is not quite comfortable for our teachers that Autodesk requires more personal information. However, we found ways to access the information the teachers give us. By the way, when I was writing the pharmacy personal statement in order to apply to pharmacy programs, I wanted to use some services in order to perfect it, but many of them asked too much personal information and I didn't like it. But I managed in the end to find the best one which helped me to edit my admission essay in order to know for sure that will get accepted, and I was.

[Anonymous]

I think there I post all the details

[Anonymous]

I think that with this pandemic, we all switched to online and it gave us a lot of headaches, especially that many of the teachers weren't used to it. And unfortunately, we couldn't have the same communication with our teachers, as we used to have. I was in my last year of high school and I wanted to speak more with them about how to write a good essay to be accepted by a college and many other things, but I couldn't. Thanks to the Internet, I found a service that helped me to write my pharmacy personal statement and supervised me throughout the process, I don't think I could have made all that things on my own.