Authenticated HGopher

HGopher is a Windows Gopher client written by Martyn Hampson of Imperial College, London, England. This version has been modified by the University of Delaware to support a local SSN/PIN authentication and authorization scheme.


U-Discover! is Delaware's campus-wide information system. Publicly available, general information commonly found in CWISs is merged with personal, private information from institutional databases.


Students are presented a variety of useful information on the CWIS. Several postings, such as "Winter (95W) Courses", are generated by programs of the student records system on the administrative mainframe.


Students cannot enter the SIS+ Personal Access area without supplying an SSN/PIN. SSN/PIN authentication is routinely used for touch-tone drop-add and library book renewal. This version of HGopher encrypts this information before passing it across the network.


Personal student information is generated by existing programs from the mainframe-based student records system. These programs read data from the live, production files allowing all reported information to be up-to-date and accurate.


All access is menu driven. This screen was generated by a program in the student records system, listing all active terms for our sample student.


Upon selection of a term, the grade report program is invoked and the report is packaged in a gopher text packet. The HGopher client displays this report in the text viewer of choice... in this case the Windows Notepad.


New releases of Internet software are made available to students through Gopher or Mosaic. This screen shows available software and related documentation. After examining the README documents, software is downloaded, unzipped and installed on the student's PC.


Carl.Jacobson@mvs.udel.edu
University of Delaware