Here I’ve tried to jot down some things you may find helpful when settling in.
HWB = Henry Wellcome Building, ION = Institute of Neuroscience.
Getting official
You’ll need a smartcard to access the building, library etc. If you are new to the university, take your contract / letter indicating guest member of staff status or whatever to the Walton library. They should also be able to advise about getting a university log-in to access the computers. If you are already a student, see HWB reception.
Computing
The university computing services are here. Their webpages are reasonably comprehensive although it is often difficult to find what you need on them. Jenny will need to ask the computing officers to give you access to the Readlab space on the dendrite server. Once you have this, then you should be able to access //dendrite/home3/readlab. Username “nreadlab” is an account for all lab members to use, including students.
//dendrite/home3/readlab/library contains a lot of PDFs of papers relevant to Readlab research, so if you can’t find something you need online, check there. Files are named by their first author.
You will probably want to create your own directory to store your work in at //dendrite/home3/readlab/Projects/myproject. Stuff on dendrite gets backed up a few times a day. You can restore previous versions of a directory or file by rightclicking on it and selecting “Restore previous versions”. Be careful you don’t accidentally overwrite a new file with an older one if you do this!
Google calendar
We coordinate work in the lab using google calendar. If you don’t have an account, it’s free to register. You can then set up a lab calendar in which you can enter work appointments so that Jenny can see them. Ask Jenny to send you an invitation to view her calendar, and let he r view yours. Of course, you can also invite other people in the lab or outside it to view your calendar. We run a special “psychophysics lab” calendar to enable people to book time in room 204. We only bother with this when there happen to be several people needing to use it, but it does stop clashes when things get busy.
Lab meetings
We have weekly lab meetings where people report back on their progress over tea and cake. These are usually on Fridays at 3pm. We ask that by 12pm, everyone circulates a document to other lab members briefly summarising their progress that week. In the lab meeting, people then do a brief presentation, using a projector to display any figures or other results. Everyone is free to comment and share ideas about how to proceed.
See here for information on ION seminars and other events.
Stationery
The HWB office has basic office supplies. Suzi in room 285 or Carole in the HWB office will generally be able to help you out with anything like that.
Kitchen facilities
The Henry Wellcome Building has a nice area called The Wintergarden. It has kettles, microwaves, fridges, etc as well as tables to eat at. Feel free to use it, just respect basic common-sense rules, such as wash up any dishes you use and don’t leave stuff festering in the fridge. You’re meant to label anything you put in the fridge with your name and date. There’s tea and coffee too, which you can use if you put the appropriate amount into the honesty box. There’s a notice giving the current prices. It will be more cost-effective to either bring your own supplies, or join the Coffee Club, where you pay around £40 for unlimited coffee, tea and milk over about 6 months or until the Coffee Club next runs out of money. (Students here on short projects can negotiate a discount!). See Karen Curry re Coffee Club.
Where to get food
The nearest place is a rather basic canteen in the Dental School — go out past reception, turn right and carry on through two double doors past the Medical School reception; then it’s on your left. Then there’s a canteen in the Baddiley-Clarke building (out of the HWB, then turn left) and a small shop selling sandwiches, fruit and basic groceries at North Terrace.
This guide for undergraduates has a more comprehensive list of food in and around the campus.
Travel
The University provides overseas travel insurance for staff travelling on University business. You just need to print out the form at http://www.ncl.ac.uk/internal/finance/insurance/Coverstaff.htm (I’ve got a copy here) and take it with you. There is no charge.
To claim travel expenses such as tickets, meals, you’ll need receipts. University staff do this online, students fill out a form.
Paying participants
Lots of people in my lab do psychophysics experiments where we pay volunteers for their time. This is done using petty cash. The critical things are:
- EVERY TIME you pay someone, you must fill out an official receipt form, date and sign it yourself and get the volunteer to sign it.
- DO NOT use the same receipt for different occasions – if two payments are listed, we need two forms.
- NEVER use petty cash to pay for sundry expenses, e.g. refreshments for participants, travel. These have to be claimed for on a completely separate system. If you intend to claim back expenses, you need the receipt or no reimbursement.
- Only put on the form the total amount paid to the volunteer, don’t break it down into so much per hour plus so much towards travel or whatever.
University services
- Porters: if you need something heavy moved or large amounts of junk taken away, you can fill out a request form at http://estates.ncl.ac.k/.
- Print Services: These are located in the Robinson Library, but you can send them jobs and get quotations by email.
- Room bookings: You can search for free rooms and book them here.
Childcare
There is a nursery close to the university (not run by it), called Childsplay (0191 232 6957, 17 Claremont Place NE2 4AA).
The university is a member of the childcare voucher scheme. This is a complicated way of getting extra tax credit on childcare costs. You agree to have your salary reduced by up to £217 a month, and in return, you get given childcare vouchers of the equivalent value. Thus, you avoid paying tax and NI on the amount by which you had your salary reduced. The catch is that you cannot claim family tax credit as well, so you have to work out which is the best deal for you.