Audience: Franklin University students. This process also applies to active faculty, but is written to a student audience.
Disclaimer: The results and functionality of the following article only apply to the audience listed above.
Topics
- Clarification of Name Types
- Changing Your Preferred First Name
- Recent Changes to the Process
- Changing your Preferred Pronoun in Canvas
- Troubleshooting
Clarification of Name Types
Preferred First Name: Your preferred first name is a display name that can be altered to show as you wish in certain parts of Franklin University student systems. If no preferred first name is specified by you, your legal name will be displayed instead by default.
- Your preferred first name will only show up in some systems including Canvas and your email. However, some other systems require your official record with Franklin University, which follows your legal name.
Legal Name: Your official record with the University will follow your legal name. Therefore, even if you have changed your preferred first name (instructions below), certain parts of our University systems will be unaffected by this change if they require a legal name. For example, your student record, your transcript, and other processes will continue to rely on your legal name.
- If you are looking for an legal name change for your official student record, please click here.
Instructions for a Preferred First Name Change
Preferred first name changes need to be set in Self Service and may take up to 8 hours to apply in systems such as Canvas, your email, and more.
1. Log into selfservice.franklin.edu with your student account.
2. Click on your name in the upper right hand corner and select User Profile.
3. In your user profile, select Edit Personal Identity to update your preferred first name. Make sure to save changes when finished. If nothing is populated in the Preferred First Name field, the first name in Canvas and other systems will pull from the official student record.
Recent Changes to the Process
A recent change was made to this process to allow all preferred first name changes to originate from a single application (now Self Service). Formerly, the option to Edit your profile in directly inside of Canvas allowed some name change data to not be overwritten. However, due to this process being simplified to only allow preferred first name changes to be authored from Self Service, if you formerly changed your name in Canvas-only, we suggest using the instructions above to update your preferred first name through Self Service.
Changing your Preferred Pronoun in Canvas
If you wish to change your pronouns as displayed in Canvas, this can be done. However, this process takes place by editing your Canvas profile, unlike the preferred first name change which takes place in Self Service.
- Self Service also offers the option to update your pronouns, but those pronouns do not feed into Canvas.
1. In Canvas, click on Account and the Settings to open the Settings menu.
2. On the right-hand menu, select Edit Settings.
3. After choosing your pronoun selection, use the Update Settings button for your changes to be saved.
Troubleshooting
1. Please make sure to only make preferred first name adjustments in Self Service. Changes formerly made in other systems such as Canvas, will likely be reverted (changing 4.10.24).
2. Please do not include special characters such as: " * & and more. Such characters will be removed. However, hyphens will be accepted.
3. Please allow up to 8 hours after your changes are made in Self Service for this change to reflect in systems such as Canvas.
4. If you are not currently registered for courses, your preferred name change will update 8 hours after your next course registration. Changes do not show up for students who are not registered for current or future courses.
5. If you have questions regarding a university system where the preferred name change is not displayed after making a change, please consult the Help Desk. Some systems may not accept preferred name changes if they require legal names for regulation.
Wish to log a request with the Help Desk? Use your Franklin University username and password to login: Log A Request