Facilities and Information

Computing

You must read and follow the University's Computing Regulations: see the home page for links. Please note that any files in student accounts, and their email etc., may be inspected when any breach of the Regulations is suspected.

In the JCMB, all the Linux machines in the Machine Halls are generally available to all students from CS2 onwards. However, special arrangements may apply to certain groups of machines near deadlines, to ensure adequate resources are available to the course in question. You may also obtain accounts for EUCS public laboratories throughout the University. (Support has registration forms for EUCS services.)

You are allowed to use JCMB facilities until 22:00 without any special permission. Anyone who wants to remain in the building after that time must have a letter of authorization from the Head of School. These can be obtained from the ITO. If you do not have written permission you may be asked to leave by the servitors after 22:00. Access to the machine halls is controlled by your University card at all times.

There are labs available to all Informatics users in Forrest Hill (swipe card required). There are also labs in Appleton Tower. Please check the Computing Support Web pages for up to date information.

Note that you are welcome to use your own computers for doing assessed work, but please bear in mind that: All programs that you write need to run on the School machines, using the software installed there. Some assessed work needs to be submitted via the School machines. You are responsible for making regular backups for work that you do away from the School machines. If you lose work because of a hardware crash on a non-School machine, you are liable to get a zero mark for the relevant exercise. In summary, it really makes sense to use School machines in preference to any other University machines.

Printers, Lecture Notes and Photocopying

You are occasionally required to print documents using laser printers (for example, during the System Design Project). You are therefore permitted a moderate amount of printing and photocopying without cost, provided it is connected with the work of the course. Printer and photocopier use is monitored so that excessive use can be detected.

For some courses, printed lecture notes are provided. Normally, a small number of extra copies will be placed in the CS3 pigeon holes (at the end of the 15 corridor) or by the ITO in Appleton Tower. When these are exhausted it is your responsibility to find copies of the lecture notes (the ITO may be able to help, or the notes may be available on the courses's web page) and make copies yourself - but please do not print copies yourself unless the pre-printed copies have run out! Do not take more than one copy of each lecture note when they are handed out during lectures. Please ensure that spare copies are returned to the lecturer at the end of the lecture.

Technical Support

There is extensive documentation of the computing systems and software available to you (go to http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/systems/). You may also find newsgroups, especially eduni.inf.ug3 and eduni.inf.questions helpful. For further support use the support request form on the previously mentioned page. If you come across any computing equipment that is faulty please report it via the same form.

Email, news and the Web

The newsgroup eduni.inf.ug3 will be used for information on UG3. You should check this several times a week, preferably every day, as there will often be notices concerning current assignments and running of the course. As electronic mail will frequently be used for communication with individual students, you should also check your email (almost) every day, and arrange for your email to be forwarded if you mainly use machines in other departments.

Many UG3 courses also use their own newsgroups: these are named
eduni.inf.course.course-code; for example the Operating Systems group is
eduni.inf.course.os.

You may use email, ftp and the Web, both within the department and outside. However, please remember that the UK national networks are strictly for academic business. Also be aware that international traffic ultimately results in real-money costs. Therefore you must avoid excessive volumes of data. Traffic is logged and heavy users may find their privilege revoked. Moreover, the transfer of large amounts of data is rare in legitimate undergraduate activities, and will usually prompt an investigation.

Extra-curricular computing activities will normally be permitted provided they

• do not involve harassment or anti-social behaviour;
• do not break the law or the Computing Regulations;
• use minimal amounts of computing/network resources.

In particular, they must not involve the ``holding or distribution of any material which is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene or otherwise illegal or is offensive or calculated to make others fearful, anxious or apprehensive'', and must not involve commercial activity. Be aware that abuse of facilities, such as unlawful downloading of films or music, can result in expulsion from the University and criminal prosecution - so please do not abuse these facilities. The School retains the right to withdraw computing facilities if necessary.

Information relating to UG3 is accessible via the Web from the Informatics teaching page.