University of Luxembourg Student ID explained
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Introduction
For those being a student at the University of Luxembourg, might have wondered what that student ID means.
If it's just a stupid random number, or if there is some more information in that number.
A lot of the IDs are a simple string of digits, but then there are others, which also contain letters.
The purpose of this short article is to explain the real meaning of the ID.
Overview
A Student ID consists of 10 characters.
The first 8 characters are composed of digits only, while the two last two are in HEX and hence may contain digits [0-9] and characters [A-F].
Details
To better explain the meaning of the contents of a student ID, lets represent it in a slightly different way:
- The first part may either be a 0 or a 1. 0 means that one registered for the winter semester, a 1 means one registered for the summer semester.
- The second part represents the academic year one registered for the first time at the university. This is only a two digit representation.
- The next 5-digit part is a (non-random) sequence number representing the number of registrations in that academic year. The sequence also contains non-valid registrations (non-paid or other).
- The last part is a checksum.
Checksum Calculation / Verification
In order to calculate the checksum, the first 8 digits of the student ID are used. First the digits are prefixed with a "1". Next the remainder is calculated, modulo 97. Finally the remainder is converted to HEX, and appended to the initial 8 digits (or checked against the last 2 digits, for verification).
Example
Let's take for example the following student ID: 008016692D, or 0-08-01669-2D
What we learn from this ID:
- The student registered for the winter semester
- Academic year 2008
- 1.669th registration in 2008
- Checksum 2D
Checksum verification:
100801669 % 97 = 45 -> HEX: 0x2D
So it is a valid student ID
