• Out of Hours Work
• Personal Workspace
• Staff Common Room
• Photocopying and Printing
• Stationary and Telephones
• Technical and Equipment

Research students have access to the department every day of the week from 7am to 11pm.  We believe that these hours provide students with adequate time in which to work.  Should you need to access the department’s facilities outside of these times you should speak to the Department Facilities Manager, JJ Giwa (5.25, x33669) and we will endeavour to come to a temporary arrangement.

Please remember that you are required to keep your identity card with you and displayed at all times, even in normal working hours.

The following is a basic outline of the CS policy for allocating personal workspace to research students:

• Every postgraduate research student (PhD) will be assigned a personal desk during the agreed period of study (this period is generally 36 months for a full time PhD student).
• Part-time students will have shared use of a desk and its associated resources; desk allocation for part-timers may not necessarily be located in the particular research group the student belongs.
• PhDs will be expected to vacate the assigned desk at the end of their period of registration.  Students and their principal supervisor will be notified shortly before entitlement to a personal desk space ends.
• A hot-desking area is provided on Level 7 (room 7.07) in MPEB for writing up students, if they are subsequently required to make corrections to their thesis.
• Periods of absence (ie interruptions and/or studying abroad) should be notified to JJ Giwa.  Agreement to temporarily use the desk in your absence will be made.
• A 'desk' comes equipped with a chair, some drawers, a filing cabinet and a workstation (this is policy, but is not always feasible given resources). There is an understanding that sharing will take place; that a person temporarily without a workstation who wishes to make use of one can use one on the desk of someone who is not at their desk.

Please note that desk allocations can be altered or amended with prior consultation with the appropriate student and/or principal supervisors, although the Head of Department may impose allocations where agreement cannot be reached.

For the Department of Computer Science's full policy on the allocation of personal workspace for research students, please see here.

Since most research students work in open plan offices they should be aware of the department's code of conduct, which has been written for all staff, academic visitors and research students.  Please do try and comply with the guidelines as they have been set to ensure the best working environment!

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Despite its name the Staff Common Room is also a space available to research students.  It is equiped with a shared fridge, microwave, and coffee machine, all of which are available for research student use, and currently also houses a foosball table!

Because it is a social meeting place, it is not always the best place to hold a meeting! 

If you plan to have a meeting, you can book a room by emailing the Departmental Office (room-bookings@cs.ucl.ac.uk).  Please ensure you do this with at least 2 days notice.  If a last-minute meeting, the Departmental Office should be able to advise you as to whether any rooms may be available.  For Campus wide room bookings you should contact Central Room Bookings on roombookings@ucl.ac.uk, or see Central Room Bookings website for more contact details and room availability.

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Photocopying, printing and scanning facilities are available to all research students in the department free of charge.  The machine is located in the copier room (5.24).  There are no limits to students' quotas, though we do ask that you try to restrict your usage to work-related jobs.  Please report any problems with the machine to the Departmental Facilities Manager, JJ Giwa, in the Department Office (5.25, x33669).

UCL libraries also have photocopying facilities. These require a specific card which can be purchased from machines in the libraries themselves. 

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The department keeps stationery, pens, pads of paper, folders, ohps, etc. which students can use freely but must sign for.  This procedure is exactly the same for staff as well as students, again to try and keep usage to that that is necessary.

We currently endeavour to provide all research students in the department with a direct telephone line at their desk space.  Student telephones are restricted to internal calls only and are for work purposes, not for personal phone calls.  To ensure it is not misused users will be charged for any calls that exceed the £20 monthly limit.  If the project you are working on requires you make calls exceeding this limit your PI needs to arrange with the Department Facilities Manager, JJ Giwa (5.25, x33669) for the excess to be charged to the project.  If you require a phone itself, you should also request this from the Department Facilities Manager.

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We aim to provide new PhD students with an existing machine when they first arrive, until their requirements are clear.  For students whose equipment is not covered by Research Council, project grant, or other funding source, the Department of Computer Science will also fund a new workstation. 

This purchase has to be firstly discussed with a student's supervisor & the Gradute Tutor (all research students will only get bought equipment once).  Once agreed, the primary supervisor should send their specifications to the CS Technical Support Group by emailing request@cs.ucl.ac.uk (cc to the Graduate Tutor - a.hunter@cs.ucl.ac.uk & Postgraduate Administrators, postgradadmin@cs.ucl.ac.uk), who will provide a quote and organise the purchase.

For technical support generally see the Department's Technical Support Group pages as well as for information about other facilities, and additional guides to setting up and using the department's technical facilities, software etc:

• Local tools under Unix (and DOS/Windows); X, text editors (emacs, jove, vi), document preparation (psroff, TeX, LaTeXe, FrameMaker, Word, WordPerfect), electronic mail, bulletin boards (especially Internet);
• Access to UCL ISD facilities;
• Departmental document series;
• Other local facilities.

Technical problems or requests for assistance should be sent to request@cs.ucl.ac.uk for the problem to be picked up by the TSG Helpdesk (Room 4.22, x37280).

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