Center for Information Technology

ObieID (Technology Account)

Your ObieID is your primary Oberlin College technology account. It provides access to most online services including email, course registration, OberView, Blackboard, a license for Microsoft Office 365, and more.

Get an ObieID

New Students

After you have paid the deposit to Oberlin, your ObieID will be sent via email to the personal email address used on your admissions application.

New Faculty and Staff

After the Department of Human Resources has created your employee record, your ObieID will be sent via email to the personal email address used on your job application.

Before You Begin

Locate the welcome email sent to your personal email address. Before you begin activating your account, make sure you have:

  • Your ObieID. Your username beginning with your first initial and ending with the first seven letters of your last name. E.g., jsmith
  • Your temporary password. The password issued to you along with your ObieID, usually a string of 8 random characters.
  • A smartphone or YubiKey hardware token. During activation, you'll be prompted to set up multi-factor authentication (MFA) with Okta. Take a few minutes ahead of time review the the Okta Multi-Factor Options at-a-Glance and decide whether you'll use your smartphone to enroll or would prefer to get a YubiKey.

To activate your ObieID, you must have either a smartphone that is compatible with Okta Verify or a YubiKey to set up multi-factor authentication. If you require a need-based exemption or Okta Verify is not available through the app store in your home country, please contact support@oberlin.edu as soon as possible, including your ObieID and a brief explanation in your email. CIT staff will work with you on a case-by-case basis to find the best MFA solution for you.

Setting Up Your ObieID

View a complete enrollment walkthrough video to get up and running in 5 minutes.

  1. Visit OberView (https://oberview.oberlin.edu). Search for and launch the Manage my ObieID Account task.
  2. Enter your ObieID and temporary password.
  3. Follow the onscreen instructions to change the temporary password to a strong password of your choice.
  4. Follow the onscreen instructions to enroll in multi-factor authentication (MFA). MFA will help prevent your password from being stolen, guessed, or hacked.
  5. Follow the onscreen instructions to establish a secondary email address, an SMS-capable phone number, and/or a phone number where you can receive voice calls to receive temporary verification codes from Oberlin College.
  6. Once you’ve set a password, MFA, and password recovery options, you can use your ObieID to log in to your Oberlin Gmail account and more.

Contact the CIT Help Desk at support@oberlin.edu or (440) 775-8197. The staff there can resend your initial email or reset your password.

The list below is not exhaustive. Visit oberview.oberlin.edu to see all services that can be accessed using your ObieID. As an added bonus, once you’re logged in to OberView, you won’t need to log in to each service individually; you‘ll already be logged in!

Your ObieID will normally follow the form: first initial of first name, followed by first seven characters of last name. Thus, if your name is Martha Washington, your ObieID will be mwashing.

All ObieIDs are unique forever, so if two people on campus whose ObieID should be “mwashing,” the second person’s ObieID will have a digit appended with letters of the last name included to equal a total of 8 characters.

Thus, Martha Washington and Mark Washington would be assigned mwashing and mwashin2, respectively.

Each person whose ObieID  was created before February 2, 2022 was also assigned an alias in the form of firstname.lastname@oberlin.edu.

You cannot use this email address to log in to Gmail, Blackboard, or other websites that require your ObieID, but you can use it to receive and send email.

For security reasons, ObieID passwords expire every 122 days. You will receive an email message 10 days prior to expiration to remind you to change your password.

If your password has expired, you can use Okta to reset it.

Send an email to support@oberlin.edu containing the details of the change and, if you have not already, notify the Office of the Registrar (for students) or the Department of Human Resources (for faculty and staff).

CIT will contact the appropriate office and ensure that the name has formally been changed with the college. Then, we will contact you to let you know that the ObieID change has been completed.

See more details about the process:

ObieID and Email Address Change Policy

If you need to have an account created for an organization, complete the Group Email Request form.

Read the instructions below or view a short screencast on How to Change Your ObieID Password using Okta.

  1. Visit OberView (https://oberview.oberlin.edu). Search for and launch the Manage my ObieID Account task or go directly to okta.oberlin.edu.
  2. Log in using your existing ObieID and password. If you've set up multi-factor authentication, respond to the MFA challenge when prompted.
  3. Click on your name in the main menu bar.
  4. Click Settings.
  5. Click the green Edit Profile button.
  6. Enter your current ObieID password and click Verify.
  7. If you're enrolled in multi-factor authentication, respond to the MFA challenge.
  8. In the Change Password module located in the upper right:
    • Enter your current ObieID password.
    • Enter your new password.
    • Enter your new password again.
    • Click Change Password.

When you're finished, make sure to log out completely.

  1. Visit OberView. Search for and launch the Manage my ObieID Account task or go directly to okta.oberlin.edu.
  2. Below the username and password fields, click on Need Help? Then click on Forgot your Obie ID or Password?
  3. Enter your ObieID. Click on one of the reset options below to receive an SMS message, voice call, or email to your secondary address containing a verification code.
    Note: If you have not established a password reset phone number or secondary email address, this step will not work. Contact the CIT Help Desk at (440) 775-8197 for assistance.
  4. Use your secondary email account or phone number to retrieve the code Okta sends you. Enter that code on this page. Click Verify.
  5. Set a new password using the onscreen guidelines. Click reset password.

You should not have any apps assigned to you in Okta; this is normal. To access your Okta settings page from this view, click on your name in the upper right portion of the main menu bar and click Settings.