Students should not panic if they cannot access this semester's grades after Dec. 18, said Robin Anderson, director of multimedia technology at Information Technology Services (ITS).

To convert every Penn State student's Social Security number to their new Penn State ID number, eLion will be temporarily shut down beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Dec. 19. ITS plans to have the Web site available again by Dec. 26, Anderson said.

"I think [eLion shutting down] is bad for the students because we spend the whole semester working for these grades and then have to wait," Chris Beegle (junior-information sciences and technology and astrophysics) said.

Courtney Poillon (junior-marketing) said the eLion shutdown complicates being able to access her grades.

"I'll be on vacation by the time eLion comes back online, and then I'll be going abroad, so I don't know when I'll be able to get my grades," Poillon said.

Mary Engelman (junior-meteorology) said she thinks the shutdown will be bad for students who plan to graduate and will not know if they failed a class.

Professors who do not enter grades before the shutdown must wait for the system to come back online.

To avoid this inconvenience, instructor Patricia Buchanan moved the Statistics 100 (Statistical Concepts and Reasoning) and 200 (Elementary Statistics) finals to the last week of classes instead of holding them finals week. She said she decreased the amount of material covered on the final to compensate for the shorter testing time.

"The finals are usually Thursday or Friday, and I just couldn't take that this year," Buchanan said. "Maybe they should have done this at a different time."

April Gonzales (senior-meteorology) also said the timing of the eLion shutdown is inconvenient.

"I don't understand why they don't do it later in the break to give people a couple days to see their grades," Gonzales said. "We need to know our grades to know what classes to schedule for the next semester."

Linda Mattioni (junior-integrative arts) said she likes having her finals during the last week of classes because it means she will get to leave earlier.

"[eLion shutting down] sucks, but they have to do it sometime. I'm sure if there was another way besides taking eLion offline, then they would," Michelle Iseman (junior-business management) said.

The conversion is expected to run smoothly because ITS has been running practice tests over the past year, Anderson said.

"I think the only thing that will be difficult for students to get used to is using their new number on everything," Anderson said.

Anderson said university policy requires all computers associated with Penn State, including those of all branch campuses and staff members, be purged of every student Social Security number within 90 days of Jan. 1, 2005.

ITS and Administrative Information Services (AIS) are responsible for the conversion of the central database. Beyond that, individual departments within the university must convert their own records.

Jeremy Wright, systems administrator for College of Communications, said that AIS informed the department of what to expect. Individual colleges can run student Social Security numbers through an online conversion utility set up by AIS, Wright said.

"I think this can ultimately benefit everyone involved because it helps decrease the risk of identity theft," Wright said.

Will Kerr, senior research programmer at the Schreyer Institute of Teaching Excellence, said he thinks AIS has developed a time-efficient plan for converting the numbers.

Every student's new ID number begins with the number nine, Kerr said. Scantron sheets have been adapted for next semester with '9' already in place so students do not try to use their Social Security number, he added.

"I feel better that we won't be carrying around Scantrons with students' personal information on them," Kerr said.

Regarding disposal, Anderson said students should treat their old ID cards like credit cards.

Social security numbers can be read from the magnetic strip, so students should cut their cards before they are thrown away.

Students will be able to check on the progress of eLion's availability by going to the Web site http://ais.its.psu.edu/ssn.