Student Accounts when student ID verification is not an option

[kmcgheeCMFPG]

My school district, and I am pretty sure many out there too, will not permit me to use student ID's to register for an account. It is a violation of privacy policy. Is there some other method that can be used to setup student accounts. I want to continue using this software as I think it is the most superior one out there in terms of cloud based for student use but essentially I have been told, find another software to use, IDs will not be permitted.

[Phil.E]

I teach Fusion at night at a local community college, and also work with local HS students on FIRST robotics projects. I've never heard of the problem you are talking about.

The only problem I know of is when students do not have a "edu" domain email. It's not easy for our system to determine if you are a real student. We need to improve this, but it doesn't affect many schools because most of them (97% or so) are using .edu email accounts.

(EDIT)

I just realized you are a teacher. If the students have .edu email addresses, why are they not creating their own Fusion (student) accounts? 

[jgreenEBECL]

We teach it to various year groups, on an 8 week rotation. It has started asking for ID even though they are signing up with a domain from the school that has been registered. We are against the clock now for a solution, in 30 days we simply won't be able to teach it any more. 

The school will simply not allow a mass upload of student information to verify, not that there is an option for that !! 

[Phil.E]

I don't understand.

Autodesk student accounts are not "bulk managed" in any way that I know of. Each student is responsible for signing up for their own personal account. I know dozens if not hundreds of high school students who have done this. Unless something has changed I'm not aware of, the experience should still be rather simple.

Can you post a screen shot of the form you are using that asks for this? 

Right now I'm going to sign up for a student account and record it in a screencast video. I'll post that in a little while. 

[Phil.E]

I just made this video minutes ago. Feel free to slow it down or hit pause. I edited out some of the typing.

In this test I signed up as a high school student, 16 years old, and about to graduate. At no point was I asked for a student ID. 

This is the experience of thousands of students all over the world. I hope this can help your students have this same experience so they can enjoy and learn Fusion 360.

[jgreenEBECL]

Thanks for taking the time to do that. Those menus and process are the exact same way that we are doing it, except after the part where the students select their institution it asks them to upload ID. This started to be a problem for us in about December. 

J

[kmcgheeCMFPG]

@Phil.E I am not sure how you have not heard about the ID problem but its pretty clear cut, any time I test it out, or a student does it, like mentioned above by the previous post, at a certain point (after selecting the school) in the registration process it requires that the student upload a student ID. Our school district does not provide email addresses to students so they are forced to make gmail emails. Regardless the issue is this: Autodesk is requiring students upload their id to verify. It is against policy in British Columbia, Canada to put student personal data (such found on their id card) on any storage space/server not in Canada. Given Autodesk is headquarted out of USA, is is assumed that is where the data is stored thus I cannot use student ID's. So I am stuck with three options as I see it, the first is to hope that Autodesk will allow me to have a class set of logins like "insertschoolname#1", "insertschoolname#2" etc, second is to let me email them a list of students to verify from my educational email. Third is I need to move on and find another program to use with students. I would prefer not to do this as I like what fusion is but I have classes to teach and need a program.

[Phil.E]

Thanks for reminding me. Weeks ago when I replied to this, I did not know about a new program being put in place to reduce fraud in the student licence pool. This involves increased verification.

Since then I've discovered that it's not universal, not every student is required to do it. It's currently a new system that is going through a testing phase. It sounds like you are seeing 100% coverage for your students.

I do not want you to give up. I'm going to send your note to the team working on it.

One thing I've discovered while teaching Fusion myself: My college class has startups, education licenses, free personal users, and commercial users. It's a 3 credit class, which is only 40 contact hours. The curriculum does not use Generative design, collaboration, or file translation from other CAD systems such as Inventor. As such, I can teach Fusion 360 to a wide array of license types and there is zero impact to the learning path because those are the major differences between student accounts and personal accounts.

If that is possible for you, consider the fact that personal accounts do not require this verification. Sorry for the hassle, and I hope this gets sorted quickly to avoid further disruptions. 

[kmcgheeCMFPG]

@Phil.E Thank you for responding, do personal accounts not cost money?

[Phil.E]

There is no cost for personal. Just be aware of the limitations I mentioned above. If the primary focus of your classes is  like mine: parametric modeling, 3D printing, drafting, rendering, manufacturing, or animations, you will find the free version is sufficient.

[kmcgheeCMFPG]

@Phil.E Sadly the main reason for using Fusion360 in the classroom is the team aspect and it appears that this is not part of the personal product. 

[d_vail]

I'm having a similar problem with an extremely slow verification process for students in my online Revit class (ARCH-1307-51420 Architectural Graphics I, at Dallas College). About a quarter of my students are being asked to upload Student IDs to confirm their Student status; once they upload their scanned-in ID cards, they get no response from Autodesk and they are unable to download and install an academic version of Revit. Is there any way to facilitate this verification process? We're a week into the Fall semester, and are dealing with the added challenge of all online courses this semester, due to the Pandemic.

[reichertd]

I totally agree, it would be nice if the teacher can verify the students,  I remember years ago, the Autodesk University would allow me to signup students and verify them as students, saved a lot of trouble. 

I see a number of people saying you don't need to add the ID' I follow these instruction with my students, and it gives them 30 days to get their ID uploaded.

On another note, we are on the quarter system,  and students don't receive their ID's until sometime in Octobers, so the first quarter is over half completed. 

I hope this gets fixed soon, or I will be forced to start using another software. 

[reichertd]

Is it possible to have them change their account from Edu account to a personal account, but use their school email?

[gabe.anderson]

Hi @reichertd-

Thanks for sharing feedback and sorry for the frustration your students are experiencing with the verification process.

Although we don't have a system in place that would allow teachers to verify their students, we're exploring how to improve the process for schools in the future, so your feedback is helpful.

In the meantime, students can use a letter on school letterhead for proving eligibility. You can download a student template here, which can also be accessed via this Autodesk Education plan FAQ doc.

A student ID is not required. 

I hope this helps!

-Gabe