Touch command. permission denied - linux

Question

I was able to connect to my school server via SSH. I had an assignment in which I was supposed to use the touch command to create a new file. Yet it keeps returning permission denied. Others were able to do the same thing. Though why do I keep getting this error?
Below is what was the input from the terminal.
Last login: Tue Aug 23 09:16:18 on ttys000
Dominiks-Air:~ fsociety95$ ssh djaneka1#navajo.dtcc.edu
djaneka1#navajo.dtcc.edu's password:
Last login: Tue Aug 23 09:16:35 2016 from pool-72-94-210-193.phlapa.fios.verizon.net
Navajo is Linux shell server provided to staff, faculty, and students. The
operating system is RedHat Enterprise Linux 5.
Alpine, a Pine replacement, has been provided as a mail client. Run "pine"
at the command prompt.
This server also provides web space to users. Web pages can be stored in
the ~/www directory. This is also accessible by mapping a drive in Windows
to \navajo\homepage. The URL for your homepage is
http://user.dtcc.edu/~username/.
Your home directory is also accessible in Windows by mapping to
\navajo\.
If something appears broken or missing, please email path#dtcc.edu.
Could not chdir to home directory /u/d/j/djaneka1: No such file or directory
-bash-3.2$ touch today
touch: cannot touch `today': Permission denied
-bash-3.2$ pwd
/
-bash-3.2$ touch today
touch: cannot touch `today': Permission denied
-bash-3.2$
Edit: here is the result of ls -al
-bash-3.2$ ls -al
total 204
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 Aug 22 16:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 25 root root 4096 Aug 22 16:50 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Aug 3 14:01 .autofsck
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Jan 30 2009 .autorelabel
-rw------- 1 root root 2050 Aug 3 14:00 .bash_history
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 May 4 04:14 bin
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 3072 Aug 3 13:57 boot
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 4060 Aug 3 14:02 dev
drwxr-xr-x 87 root root 12288 Aug 23 10:05 etc
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 1 2009 home
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 12288 Jun 1 04:09 lib
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Mar 24 2008 lost+found
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 1 2009 media
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Aug 3 14:02 misc
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 26 2012 mnt
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 0 Aug 3 14:02 net
drwxr-xr-x 9 root root 4096 Jan 5 2009 nsr
drwxrwxr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 12 2015 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 219 root root 0 Aug 3 14:01 proc
drwxr-x--- 12 root root 4096 Apr 22 10:06 root
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 12288 Aug 4 04:02 sbin
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 1 2009 selinux
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 1 2009 srv
drwxr-xr-x 11 root root 0 Aug 3 14:01 sys
drwxrwxrwt 38 root root 4096 Aug 23 10:07 tmp
drwxr-xr-x 34 root root 4096 Jun 21 08:29 u
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Apr 16 2010 usr
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4096 Apr 16 2010 var
-rw------- 1 root root 2865 Dec 16 2008 .viminfo
-bash-3.2$
EDIT:
Here is what I see after trying touch today in /home

Answer 1

So to try and create a new document in the root directory you need to be recognised as root. That means using the sudo command.
However for that you would need a password that you may not have. If you do perfect. But in any case I would not recommend adding files to the root directory.
Instead try the following:
cd home
touch today
This should work just fine and answer your question.
Still if you need/want to create today in your root directory try the following
sudo touch today
You will then be prompted for the root password that you can type (if you have it obviously)
In any case I suggest reading this which may be very helpful for you.

Answer 2

I wonder if this was ever truly answered.
If I was looking at it, I would try to see what the system thinks is the home directory of djaneka1, since it may have been setup partway and not completed, leaving stuff owned by root that should have been owned by djaneka1.
If you use the pwd command, and get back the "/" (root) directory there is something wrong with your setup.
The message: Could not chdir to home directory /u/d/j/djaneka1: No such file or directory
tells you it can't find your home directory.
-bash-3.2$ pwd
/
the command "pwd" revealing "/" is just an artifact of the system not being able to find your home directory.
To find what the system thinks is one's home directory,
one can search the file named '/etc/passwd' for one's login name.
I expect this is a possible result if you do that:
$ fgrep 'djaneka1' /etc/passwd
djaneka1:x:1505:1506::/u/d/j/djaneka1:/bin/bash
since it complained that it couldn't find that directory.
This needs to be fixed by someone who has more rights to the system, like root.
there is nothing djaneka1 can do a