You can connect to the CISORA database from the Wachman labs or remotely.  I am not entirely sure about all of the difficulties you may have connecting remotely.  But I will try to resolve those issues as they come up.

Here are instructions for connecting from the Wachman labs (room 200, in particular):

Use the SQLPLUS utility.
Username:  sp08_<the account name provided to you>
password:  <provided to you>
Connect String:  CISORA  or cisora.cis.temple.edu


Instructions for connecting from a remote machine:

There are two issues here.  First, the database is most likely firewalled.  To get around that, you will probably have to access some Temple machine (either a lab machine or your office machine) that has Oracle installed and is behind the firewall.  I don't believe there is anything I can do about this.

Second, whatever machine you use needs to have Oracle properly configured to point to CISORA.  Here is what you need to do that:

1) Find the installation directory for Oracle (eg, "C:\oracle\").  Let's call that the <oracle_home> directory.

2) Navigate to the following subdirectory:  <oracle_home>\ora92\network\ADMIN\

3) Check that a file called "tnsnames.ora" exists in that directory, and make sure that it contains the following:

PROD.CIS.TEMPLE.EDU =
  (DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS_LIST =
      (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = megatron.cis.temple.edu)(PORT = 1526))
    )
    (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVICE_NAME = PROD.www)
    )
  )

CISORA =
  (DESCRIPTION =
    (ADDRESS_LIST =
      (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = oracle2.cis.temple.edu)(PORT = 1521))
    )
    (CONNECT_DATA =
      (SERVICE_NAME = cisora)
    )
  )