Software Access & Licensing Restrictions

Use of software applications made available in the CAEN Lab Software Environment (CLSE) is limited by license restrictions and other agreements entered into by the University of Michigan (U-M) with various authors, publishers, and vendors. Many of these agreements include terms that prohibit copying, redistribution, commercial use, or other specified actions.

The information below describes how access to use software in the CLSE may be restricted due to licensing, or other factors. Details about the restrictions on specific applications are available on our software listing. Questions about the types of software licensing restrictions listed below can be directed to the CAEN Help Desk.


Restricted to Student Instruction

Most software applications available in the CLSE are licensed as a “Student Instruction” license. This includes work for a U-M course in which a student is currently enrolled. Students who are enrolled in a U-M course during the current term are granted access automatically to run software licensed for student instruction. In addition, anyone assigned a role of primary instructor, secondary instructor, or graduate student instructor (GSI) of a U-M course in the current term will be granted access automatically.

Student instruction licenses are usually less expensive to purchase and are cost-effective to deploy in the CLSE, but are restricted from being used for research purposes.

Restricted to Academic Research

In addition to student instruction, some software applications are also available for use as an “Academic Research” license, which includes student research directly related to obtaining a degree from U-M. Some software may also be licensed for non-commercial research use by regular employees. CAEN may, on a case-by-case basis and depending on license terms or availability, grant research staff with regular appointments (as verified by University data systems) access to software applications licensed for academic research (see Requesting Access to Specific Software Applications).

Since academic research licenses are more expensive and may have limited availability, non-student researchers are generally expected to provide their own software to support their research, and to budget for licenses in grant proposals.

Restricted to University Role

Most software applications have license terms that restrict their use only individuals with a particular role or position at U-M. For example, many instructional and research applications are licensed for use by Michigan Engineering students or faculty, but would not be available to temporary employees or visiting scholars. Refer to our software listings to determine which role(s) are eligible to use a given software application.

Individuals who would not otherwise have access to certain software may request access to individual applications (see Requesting Access to Specific Software Applications). CAEN administrators review all requests against license terms for the requested application(s), and grant access on a case-by-case basis according to eligibility and availability.

Restricted to Course Enrollment

A few course-specific applications only offer the number of licenses needed to support the enrollment of one or more U-M courses. Only the students enrolled in the course(s) or the instructors teaching the course(s) may run these applications on the CLSE. For example, Synopsys software tools are automatically accessible to students enrolled in certain in-person EECS courses.

Restricted to On-Campus Networks

Many software applications have license terms that restrict their use over the network to on-campus locations only. These applications are not available in the Windows Remote Desktop or Linux Remote Login services when connecting from off-campus networks (including U-M VPN networks).

Restricted to Specific Computer Labs

In limited circumstances, the license terms and costs of individual applications can prevent them from being installed on every computer running the CLSE, so they may only be accessible in certain labs, or even on specific computers.