The School of Education provides a wide range of IT facilities and support.
Selly Oak Campus, Orchard Learning Resources Centre
General information
Edgbaston Campus, Building 45
Open access student IT facilities are located in the Education building as follows:
| Room 139 (Student Common Room): | 4 Workstations |
| Room 207: | 5 Workstations, Flatbed Scanner, Black and White & Colour laser printing. |
| Room 225 (ICT Workroom): | 25 Workstations, Black & White laser printing. |
| Research Study Rooms: | 27 Workstations, Black & White laser printing. |
We try to keep the IT facilities open after hours while the Education Library is also open. In effect this means that the only month when we shut early is August. The late openings start in the first full week in September.
There are times when the entire University is closed. For the 2005-2006 session, check the University Diary for details of this and other important dates.
Room 139: Open all hours that the Education Building is open.
Rooms 207 & 225:
| Usual opening times | August only |
| Monday 9:30 to 19:30 | Monday 9:30 to 16:30 |
| Tuesday 9:30 to 19:30 | Tuesday 9:30 to 16:30 |
| Wednesday 9:30 to 19:30 | Wednesday 9:30 to 16:30 |
| Thursday 9:30 to 19:30 | Thursday 9:30 to 16:30 |
| Friday 9:30 to 19:00 | Friday 9:30 to 15:00 |
| Saturday 10:00 to 14:00 |
Using the ICT rooms outside normal hours
It is not normally possible to gain access to the labs outside of these times. However, on occasion, one of the 'key holders' may be working late and would keep the rooms open. Any person working outside normal building hours and not taking part in a taught course needs to sign in the out of hours book by Reception and obtain a pass from the Head of School's secretary.
Class Bookings and general usage
The ICT workroom (Room 225) is used extensively for taught classes. There will usually be a notice on the door if there is a class in progress. Some tutors don't mind students using 'spare' machines but any student doing so must remember that there should be no noise ie no talking nor printing for the duration of the teaching session. Always check the timetables posted just inside 225 in advance so that you are not disappointed and please leave the room promptly if a class is due to start.
There is a wide range of software available on all the PCs. All the computers have Microsoft Windows XP, from which Windows based applications may be run. Users must only run software that is already provided.
When software is added, removed or updated, this is performed centrally. Anyone who has ever installed software will realise that many packages need the machine to be restarted before they work properly. The process we use to distribute software to machines will often mean that they get to the login screen and then restart several times before the process is through. This is perfectly normal and does not indicate a fault. Please be patient. The machines are in constant use and it is almost impossible to make sure that the updates are carried out when no user is waiting.
The main word-processing package used is Microsoft Word 2003. Microsoft Excel 2003 is the main spreadsheet package. Education software applications can be found on the 'Start' menu under 'Programs', 'School of Education' and are grouped by subject. University site licensed software applications such as Endnote, SPSS and NVivo can be found on the 'Start' menu under 'Programs', 'Information Services'.
There are many packages on the system which are specifically for particular courses or subjects. Your course tutors will tell you which you should use.
International characters and keyboards
We have installed most of the western European languages and the common associated keyboard layouts.
When using Internet Explorer, Chinese, Japanese and Korean fonts and keyboard methods are installed allowing web pages to be viewed and web forms (including web e-mail) to be filled in using the correct script.
Information Services provides a range of electronic online databases, electronic journals and web resources covering most of the major subject disciplines. Many of the services are available through the elibrary system. Such resources include British Education Index, BookFind & Web of Science. There are also newspaper archives and business & Management resources.
Some resources require users to enter their university computing usernames and passwords. Some resources can be accessed off campus with the same username and password. There is also an Information Services web site which will provide links to the online library catalogues, subject resources and training materials. Further details can be found on the Information Services Web Site at http://www.is.bham.ac.uk
Please also see Proxy Server access facilities (below)
Digital laser printers are available in room 225 and 207 . This is charged at 5p per sheet. There is also colour laser printing available in room 207, charged at 30p per sheet. You will need to credit your account in advance at a University autoloader. The nearest point you can do this is in the Main Library, zone GA. There also autoloaders located in the Learning Centre and in the Orchard Centre on the Selly Oak campus. Research students have an additional printer in room G44.
Printing paper is provided by the Computing Assistants. Please put any waste paper in the recycling bin provided in each room - do not put used paper back in the printer as it may cause a jam. To avoid jams, we ask that students do not open nor adjust the printers even if they feel themselves well able to do so. Very often one person’s time saver will cause problems for the next user.
The current Anti-virus software is McAfee Virusscan. This is automatically updated and will scan all files as you open them, including those on floppy disks, USB flash drives, etc.
Members of the University can obtain their own copy of this software from the Sales Desk in the Main Library.
We allocate a 100MB of personal storage space to our students. This is located on drive U. If there is some academic reason for increasing your storage, visit the School Computer Officer and explain. Remember storage space, like everything else, is ultimately finite so the system is designed to be fair and stop one person using up all the remaining space inadvertently or otherwise.
There is a flat bed scanner in 207 that can be used for scanning in text or pictures. It is totally illegal to scan any material where you do not have the copyright owner's express written permission. This does not count as photocopying and the rules are different.
To use the scanner, log into the computer next to it. Put your documents into the Automatic Sheet Feeder (notice the embossed labels 1, 2 and 3 to help) and a dialog box will pop up. I suggest that you can select either text or picture depending on the type of document and scan to Microsoft Word.
Proxy Server access for off-campus research
A proxy server facility is now available to all staff/students with a University of Birmingham campus network login. Instructions on setting up access are available from: http://www.helpdesk.bham.ac.uk/eresources/offcampus.shtml
This service enables access to campus restricted resources including the eJournals Directory - http://www.ejournals.bham.ac.uk and some of the bibliographic databases e.g. Education Research Abstracts - http://www.tandf.co.uk/era/
Please note that some resources still require users to login with an Athens username and password, even if they have set up proxy server access. These resources are accessible from any PC with Internet access.
If you have any queries about the proxy server, please contact the Helpdesk via the website: http://ehelpdesk.bham.ac.uk/eua/index.jsp
Fax: +44 (0) 121 414 4865 | School e-mail: education@bham.ac.uk
