Applicant Account Creation

On the first page of the Online Computer Science Graduate Application System there will be a link to a page where a new user may create an account. The user will provide his OUAC number and an e-mail address. The application will then check the database to ensure that there has not already been an account created using the OUAC number or e-mail provided.

Please note that this is not a very secure method of creating an account. Technically, anyone could create an account with any number whether it is his own OUAC number or not. However, because we do not have any OUAC data we have no way of confirming who a particular OUAC number belongs to. Thus, for now, we will have to accept that errors may occur and establish a way of manually altering the database if an account is created wrongfully.

The application then creates a random eight character alpha-numeric password for the user.

After creating the password the application sends an e-mail to the new user with instructions of how to log into the page ( ExampleAccountCreationEmail ).

After successfully sending the e-mail the account is finally created in the database. The OUAC number, e-mail, MD5 Hash of the random password, and creation date are all stored as an applicant record. Finally, a success message is displayed in the browser.

The applicant record also has a field for an activation date. The first time the user logs into the system the activation field will be set. To save space, if an account has not been activated in a reasonable amount of time, the account will be removed and the user will have to re-create the account.