Members of the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) Academic Assembly raised questions regarding several prominent issues to Penn State officials at last night's meeting in 330 HUB-Robeson Center.

Rodney Erickson, executive vice president and provost, and Janis Jacobs, vice provost of undergraduate education and international studies, attended the meeting in an effort to respond to student concerns including file sharing and student identification numbers.

The most significant issue discussed was file sharing and the university's recent agreement with Napster.

Several Academic Assembly members voiced concerns about whether the student information technology (IT) fee would cover faculty, staff and alumni costs for the new file-sharing service.

"The student IT fee will not be used to support anything but the student portion," Erickson said.

The service will be offered to on-campus students in the spring and will be available to off-campus students next fall.

Students who do not have access to the service in the spring will still have to pay the same IT fee as those who have access.

Also discussed at the meeting was the upcoming change in student ID numbers.

Jacobs said the change would most likely occur by January 2005.

Erickson said the process would be a long and expensive one because many on-campus services will have to be modified.

"As many as 10,000 different programs use Social Security numbers in some way," he said. "Each program is going to have to be altered."

Erickson said the idea of assigning random ID numbers to freshmen while allowing upperclassmen to keep their current numbers would be complicated.

"It would be more difficult to run two parallel systems," he said.

Mark Levin, vice president of operations for Academic Assembly, asked why students would not be able to choose their own ID numbers so they would not have to memorize new ones.

"I have my Social Security number memorized, but I will have to keep a new number in my wallet," he said. "If I lose my wallet, that number is out there."

Jacobs said the new ID numbers would be tied solely to Penn State, and the only information they can obtain will be student records.

"If you lose your Social Security number, they can access your bank accounts and other personal information," she said.

Assembly members did not question Erickson about increasing tuition or why the university has yet to receive this year's state appropriations though Erickson is well informed of the budget concerns.

Anne Hainer contributed to this report.