QMU CONNECT

Christmas & New Year holidays.

2011-12-14T08:15:00.004Z

Just a reminder to all users that the LRC Open Access area will be fully available over the Christmas and New Year holidays, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. (But it is advisable to ring the University on 0131 474 0000 just to check that the building is accessible before travelling.)

The LRC will operate as normal up to and including Wednesday 21st December. On Thursday 22nd December we will be staffed until 19:00 (7pm) and on Friday 23rd until 17:00 (5pm). We will resume normal staffed hours on Thursday 5th January 2012.

Please remember that off-campus access to all electronic resources is available through the Remote Desktop service. Check the Library Services website - www.qmu.ac.uk/lb - for details.

And finally, please remember to renew your loans! If you renew 21-day loans now they will be issued until January; 7-day loans can be renewed into January from Saturday 17th December (provided they are not required by other readers).

All best wishes for the festive season.

LRC Staff

Catering & Retail Services Promotion - Prize Draw Winner

2011-12-12T06:50:00.001Z

Bernie Quinn is QMU’s PayPal User Prize Draw Winner for November. Bernie a Lecturer in International Hospitality & Tourism Management was thrilled to win the Mountain Bike (Prize kindly donated by Coca Cola).

Bernie said “Can’t believe I won this fantastic prize; as a keen cycling family it’ll get some serious good use! I do actually use PayPal all the time to top up my QMU cashless card so it’s nice to get this back as a bonus”.

Congratulations Bernie!

Make sure you are in with a chance to Win December’s Prize by topping up your Smartcard online. It is a great way to beat the queues at the AVM machines.

Students and staff who top up their Smartcards online in December will automatically be entered into December’s prize draw. All you have to do is top up your Smartcard online using PayPal http://apps.qmu.ac.uk/cashless/AddFunds.aspx A winner will be randomly selected from our system on the last day of the month. The lucky winner will be notified early in January.

As always, the prize draw is open to all PayPal users on campus.

For your convenience there is a dedicated Thin Client terminal located on level 0 next to the Santander pod for the purpose of logging on to your PayPal account or you can top up at any terminal on campus.

MyRI @ QMU

2011-12-07T14:35:00.003Z

The fantastic Irish-based MyRI (My Research Impact) project tutorials on bibliometrics have been adapted for Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.

The QMU version is available here.

Campus Services at the awards

2011-11-10T07:32:00.005Z

Last week was a busy week for awards ceremonies. On Tuesday, November 1 QMU was represented at the Green Business Awards, in the energy efficiency category.

The Green Business Awards celebrate excellence in green practice, strategy and products. They seek out and scrutinize the most innovative, ambitious and effective initiatives by UK business for achieving environmental sustainability, and implementing smart business practice. They are the "Green Globes" and are the UK's most comprehensive awards on the subject.

It was very pleasing to come away with a highly commended award for our work in reducing the energy consumption of our IT systems.

Our second foray down to London was for the Green Gown Awards 2011 on November 3. QMU has previously been quite successful at these awards with a win and highly commended in 2009. This time round, we were shortlisted in two categories, Green ICT and Space Efficiency. Again we came away with a highly commended award.

Fraser Muir, Director of Information Services at Queen Margaret University, said: “Despite our early success with our energy efficient building and technology, we have not rested on our laurels. We are totally committed to climate change and sustainable development and are continually refining our processes to reduce energy consumption and improve space efficiency. We are delighted that our efforts in progressing this important work are, once again, being recognised by both of these prestigious awards.

In both, we have worked to reduce the energy consumption through a number of areas and technologies but what benefits has this delivered for the university:

• Thin-client infrastructure saves the university over £55k in electricity costs per year
• Projector replacement with LED technology will pay for itself due to not requiring replacement lamps over the life of the product as well as £2k of electricity savings
• Data room temperature increases save approximately 4% of electricity consumption in cooling per degree increase
• Server virtualisation has delivered 68000kWh savings per year on the servers we have virtualised so far
• Power down of terminals and PCs is saving 100000kWh per year
• Remote access saved the university approximately £90k in lost productivity to adverse weather in November/December last year
• Use of multi-function devices to replace individual desktop and workgroup printers, copiers and scanners has saved 15,000kWh/year as well as delivered significant efficiencies in consumable replacement and support
• In the four years since deploying thin-client, we have saved just under 800000kWh. Since starting our Green ICT strategy, we have saved over 1.2m kWh. At today’s prices, that equates to £144000.

2011-11-10T07:31:00.001Z

E-books

2011-11-02T07:01:00.004Z

From humble beginnings, Library Services have steadily increased the number of e-books available to all students and staff. Now numbering over 70,000 titles, our e-book collection covers all programmes delivered at the University.

E-books offer a cost-effective method of supplying course texts – no more having to wait and share a small number of print books, now everyone has access whenever they need it. Very shortly we will be able to offer the ability to download e-books to your portable device, such as Kindles or iPads.

All e-books are searchable through the library catalogue http://millennium.qmu.ac.uk/

Research Support Lunch

2011-10-13T10:09:00.005+01:00

The LRC will be hosting a drop-in lunchtime session from 12-2pm on Tuesday 15th November for QMU research staff.

Please come along to find out more about our research support services including eResearch and its MePrints personal webpages, how eResearch is being used for the REF, open access publishing advice and our eData service.

As lunch is being provided, it would be appreciated if you could let Helen Muir know if you are able to attend for catering numbers.

QM Desktop goes live

2011-09-09T18:13:00.015+01:00

Updating to the latest version of the QM Desktop has been particularly challenging this year, and IS staff are extremely grateful to staff and students for bearing with us through the transition. However we thought you would like to know what improvements and benefits the new QM Desktop brings, as these are not always immediately visible.

Update to Server 2008 Enterprise:

Improved performance and savings on both hardware and energy using our virtual platform

Greater flexibility to handle peaks and troughs through the year and the week
Update to Citrix which gives:

Improved performance

Improved audio

Improved video

More stable applications on our thin-client terminals

Update to Office 2010

Use the new Navigation pane to better organise your documents

Streamline your Outlook inbox with Conversation and Ignore features

Utiltise new tools in Word, Excel and PowerPoint to create professional-quality documents

Update to Remote Desktop

Improved remote performance

Better experience for collaborative partners

Santander branch arrives on campus

2011-09-02T11:22:00.003+01:00

The Santander branch pod arrived on campus today, Friday September 2.

The branch will operate several days a week and will offer banking services to staff and students.

This will be particularly useful, we hope, to the new students matriculating with us this year.

Large print jobs

2011-08-25T14:10:00.001+01:00

On behalf of Executive Board, and in an effort to introduce efficiencies and cost-savings in printing, a limit on the size of staff print jobs that can be sent to the MFDs will shortly be introduced. This does not affect submissions to the Printroom.

This limit will be set to 50 pages, on 01 September and reduced further in due course.

Staff are strongly encouraged to consider whether the document needs to be printed at all, or in its entirety. If absolutely necessary, submit large print jobs to the Printroom, via the online Web2Print service.

You can find more details on the Web2Print service, training materials and information on what and how much has been printed to the MFDs on the Intranet at:

http://intranet.qmu.ac.uk/sites/is2/print/.

QM Desktop launch date & drop-in sessions

2011-08-22T08:41:00.010+01:00

Over the past few months you may be aware that Information Services are preparing a refreshed QM Desktop for the forthcoming academic year. The refreshed QM Desktop will have some key software changes this year which will include : Office 2010, MindManager 9, SPSS 19 and Nvivo 9. See links below for further information:

What’s New in Office 2010
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/products/whats-new-in-office-2010-FX102459418.aspx

Differences Between Nvivo 8 and Nvivo 9
http://www.qsrinternational.com/FileResourceHandler.ashx/RelatedDocuments/DocumentFile/792/Differences-NVivo8-NVivo9.pdf

What’s New in MindManager 9
http://www.mindjet.com/mindmanager-whats-new

What’s New in SPSS 19
http://public.dhe.ibm.com/common/ssi/ecm/en/ytd03023usen/YTD03023USEN.PDF

The refreshed QM Desktop for the forthcoming academic year will launch on 29th August 2011.

Update: the refreshed QM Desktop will now go live on 08 September 2011

Training Material
Information Services are preparing new material for the Office 2010 suite which will be available via the Technology Training Intranet site in due course

We will be holding drop in sessions on Tuesday 23rd and Wednesday 24th August between 10:00 – 16:00 in room 1127. The sessions will give staff the opportunity to experience the new refreshed QM desktop along with some of the key software changes before the official launch date.

QMU Campus Services shortlisted for two Green Gown awards

2011-08-11T06:42:00.005+01:00

Campus Services has been shortlisted in the Green Gown Awards 2011 in two categories: Space Efficiency and Green ICT. The Green Gown Awards, now in their 7th year, recognise exceptional initiatives being taken by universities and colleges across the UK to become more sustainable.

The finals of the competition will take place on the 3 November 2011.

Homecoming archive exhibition

2011-07-25T07:09:00.004+01:00

As you may remember, QMU received the archive from EventScotland for the year long event “Homecoming Scotland 2009”. With our partners ServicePoint, Microsoft, the Scottish Government and CompanyNet, we have set up a website homecoming09archive.qmu.ac.uk and a travelling exhibition.

You can be the first to see the exhibition here on site, before it leaves for its nationwide tour which starts in the National Archives of Scotland from 25th July to 12th August. Come in to the LRC and then pop along to the Phone Zone (on the bridge) for a look at the exhibition, or email Lindsey Short (Project Archivist) or Fraser Muir as Project Manager for more information.

CONNECT goes mobile!

2011-06-24T07:26:00.005+01:00

Want to read the QMU Connect blog and news on the go? Then use the QR code here or browse to http://goo.gl/9shoN on your iPhone, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Android or any device that has mobile internet.
Never miss another update from Campus Services!

Queen Margaret University travel plan

2011-06-17T13:38:00.008+01:00

Travel Plan 2010 – 11

The green travel plan at the university has proved to be a great success in improving the efficiency of travel to and from the campus.

This has been achieved by holding numerous meetings with local authorities and public transport providers to enhance the transport links to the campus. Continued relationships are being maintained with First, Scotrail and Lothian Buses, this ensures the best possible services for students and staff. Scotrail are introducing a new train service as of the 23rd of May 2011, this additional service from Dunbar to Edinburgh stops at Musselburgh rail station at 17:22 allowing for more flexibility in journey planning.

Lothian Buses have also increased the frequency of their number 15 service to 4 per hour during the evening peak period. Accessibility of these services has been improved due to the availability of ticket purchasing on campus. Lothian Buses continue to work with the university to develop a clear bus information leaflet to identify all available services to staff and students.

The survey has also identified a demand for daily parking tickets, and these are now available onsite for staff and students parking on campus. The university website is also regularly reviewed and updated to provide updated travel information.

Travel Survey 2011

To understand the existing travel behaviour and constraints and plan for the future, a simple and effective questionnaire survey was undertaken. The 2011 Travel Survey ran between 28th February and 1st April 2011. The 27 questions were specifically targeted to assess:

Current travel characteristics of staff and students at QMU

Improvements to public transport at QMU

Improvements to QMU Travel Plan

The survey received 388 responses from staff and students, and the results indicate how the travel options to the campus have improved significantly year by year. The survey indicated that the majority of students and staff use sustainable modes such as the bus or traina as well as cycling and walking to travel to and from the campus, with less than one quarter driving.

The survey also reflects how the majority of staff and students feel the bus services at QMU are average or above; this reflects the ongoing work QMU have undertaken with local bus service providers. QMU continually strives for further bus service improvements.

Next Steps

For future development the main concerns expressed by staff and students will be addressed these are:

Frequency of train services

Cost of parking permits

Frequency and capacity on bus services, and

Cyclist locker and changing facilities

The main action we will undertake to meet these concerns is to advertise what facilities are actually on offer at the university. Participants of the survey expressed the need for more cycle lockers. However not all of the available cycle lockers were used last year, and therefore better promotion of this service will be made. The university does have the facilities to meet the needs of cyclists, and this will also be advertised.

To answer any questions regarding sustainable transport, representatives from bus, train, City Car Club and lift share will be on hand during induction week to provide information regarding the services they can offer. Access to the university by walking is to be improved by trying to improve the solar powered lighting with the possible implementation of hard-wired lighting along the access path to Newcraighall.

It is very important to continue to improve the services to the university and understand the needs of the staff and students at the campus, therefore please find time to complete the annual Travel Survey to have your say.

A1 Development

The development of a full junction on the A1 in the next year will provide new opportunities to develop further transport links to the campus, including possible additional bus services stopping at the university.

Academic Timetable 2011/2012

2011-06-16T12:03:00.003+01:00

The timetable is now available online. More information, instructions for viewing and advice on reporting possible problems can be found on the intranet by clicking here.

eResearch - MePrints

2011-06-16T09:34:00.006+01:00

MePrints is an extension to our institutional research repository, eResearch, that gives our researchers the ability to create a personal web page, dynamically linked to their outputs in the repository.

Upload a photo, add your research interests and biography, choose your content widgets then advertise your MePrints profile at:

eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/profile/[username]

New projectors

2011-06-03T07:41:00.003+01:00

Work to replace all our teaching room projectors commenced this week. This will update all our projectors to newer, more energy efficient and cost effective ones, paying for themselves in electricity and lamp replacement savings.

The new devices use LED technology and are around 20% more energy efficient than those they replace. In addition, they never need a replacement lamp for the life of the projector.
The operation of the projector will not change and it will continue to work through the universal control panel on the desk or the Crestron control unit.

Travel information

2011-05-24T13:17:00.004+01:00

NEW TRAIN TIMETABLE STARTS ON SUNDAY 22 MAY 2011

With the new timetable, changes that are of interest in our area are:

. more ScotRail services to and from Dunbar calling at Musselburgh, a welcome boost for students and staff at Queen Margaret University

. direct trains from Edinburgh Haymarket to North Berwick are being reintroduced at 17:42 and 18:40

. in association with the East Coast timetable, there will be a new 16:33 Edinburgh to Dunbar and 17:02 return service which will also call at Musselburgh.

www.scotrail.co.uk

CYCLING INFORMATION BOARDS

Cycling information boards have been installed at three railway stations in East Lothian: Musselburgh, Wallyford and Prestonpans.

Train operator ScotRail has welcomed their introduction by Sustrans, a UK charity promoting more journeys by public transport, cycling or walking.

The boards come with maps of cycling routes, useful telephone numbers and other information for cyclists.

www.sustrans.org.uk

Web submission to QMU PrintRoom

2011-04-08T07:34:00.003+01:00

Campus Services and our Print Room suppliers, ServicePoint, have developed a web-based print submission system, called Web 2 Print.

This system will allow staff (and students in due course) to submit print requests online, choose different finishing options and see full costs of the request. Staff in the print room will then fulfil the request in the usual way.

More details and training videos can be found at:
http://intranet.qmu.ac.uk/sites/is2/print/W2P.

Training sessions on the system will also be available – details will be posted on the intranet site or can be arranged by contacting the print room directly. You will receive your Web2Print password direct to your inbox next week. In due course, this will become the default mechanism for submission of work to the print room.

Campus Services helpdesks

2011-04-06T14:11:00.003+01:00

Campus Services provides a number of help points for users of the campus and the facilities we run.

Sometimes we know it can be a challenge to find out who to contact when and by what method, so we have brought together all this information into one portal on the Intranet.

We’re working on developing similar paths on our phone system. In the meantime, we’ve detailed how to alert us by phone on the portal.

Art

2011-03-24T11:20:00.003Z

You’ll probably have noticed artwork beginning to be hung around campus. This work is part of a larger project to revamp our public, staff and student displays around the campus following the development of our notices and displays policy. This policy sets out the locations, audience and media available around the campus.

The initial work, in the LRC and level 0 of the main academic building will be supplemented by further artworks over the coming months which are currently being held in storage. We’re very pleased to have these on general view again!

QMU wins eGov award

2011-03-11T07:56:00.006Z

You will know that we recently won a very prestigious eGovernment award, but do you know why? Here we set out what makes the green or sustainable ICT infrastructure here at QMU worthy of recognition at a national level.

Queen Margaret University has a holistic approach to achieving a lasting legacy of sustainable practice and thinking, not only in managing its immediate environment, but also in its pioneering approach to curriculum development and leadership training aimed at achieving far reaching positive impact for future generations.

A thin-client infrastructure was fundamental in delivering the exemplar energy and environmental performance ratings of the new development. Lower power consumption results in lower heat generation and therefore reduces the need for air-conditioning in areas of high concentrations of desktop computing. As a result, the building design requires minimal air conditioning and mechanical ventilation delivering direct energy savings of approximately £47,000 per annum compared to use of equivalent numbers of PCs - on top of £1 million in savings on the capital cost of the campus.

So integrated are the estate and ICT, that the institution has developed an integrated Estate and Information strategy to ensure both elements are recognised as inseparable.

The thin-client project was successfully shortlisted for the 2009 awards in the same category but we have not rested on our laurels. Instead we have pushed further our use of green IT in the following ways:

• Remote access
An joined up approach to ICT has also greatly improved the flexibility of work practice across the university and supported distance learning. The ability to work on a fully-featured desktop from home or anywhere a broadband connection is available means that staff and students travel to campus only when necessary. It has also facilitated international collaborations.
We regularly accommodate around 100 simultaneous remote desktops from 80 countries around the world.

• Lecture capture
Lecture capture has been implemented at QMU in every room on campus, allowing lecturers to record their lectures, seminars and tutorials and students to review at any point. This provides ultimate flexibility and efficiency in space usage as academic events can be recorded once and delivered many times.

• Timetable software
Extremely efficient centralised scheduling software allows QMU to deliver class-leading room utilisation of over 40%. This in turn allows the building size and accommodation to be minimised.

• Videoconference (VC)
VC is available in all our lecture theatres and board rooms maximising the benefit to staff and students and minimising our travel costs and emissions caused by travel. Recordings of the conference can be taken and delivered to any location.

• Timetable screens
Timetable information screens remove the need to print room bookings or timetable information for staff and students and allows for the greatest flexibility in dynamic updating of room information. Staff and students always know which event is in which location across the academic building.

• Data room infrastructure
The university has been gradually increasing the temperature of its data room from its initial design of 18C to its current 25C and will continue to increase this at least to 27C as older equipment is phased out. With approximately 4% energy savings per degree increase this substantially reduces data room energy consumption. Combined with a conscious procurement decision in 2004 to choose the most energy efficient server equipment this minimises the QMU data room energy footprint.

• Power down
The university is automatically powering down its PCs and thin-client terminals when not needed with the resultant saving of nearly 100000kWh per year. As a result, the small number of PCs that remained after deployment of thin-client are only active on average 9% of the time.
QMU worked closely with the terminal manufacturers to write and deploy a power down module for our thin-clients as this was not available at the time.

• Virtualisation
The university has standardised its platform for all new servers on a virtual environment enabling us to minimise the costs and environmental impact on purchasing and running essential server equipment delivering a reduction ratio of 20:1. Since embodied energy constitutes the greatest component of a server energy consumption this has a even greater positive effect on our environmental performance.

Whilst by themselves the above initiatives are being undertaken by others in the sector, the holistic approach to green ICT at QMU ensures it supports and actively contributes to the university commitment to climate change.

Building Explorer available online

2011-03-10T07:25:00.002Z

Staff can now find interactive floor plans for the Main Academic Building and the Sports and Student's Union Building (SSUB) online, in the form of the Building Explorer. The site has been designed for ease of use, and to allow users to find room locations and basic room information with a simple graphical interface that allows full text search. Also included are current workstation numbers, locations and assignments, linked to a database maintained by the Space Management team.

Printable PDFs of the drawings can be found in the Drawings section of the Space Management intranet site.

Request shelf now open

2011-03-03T12:35:00.003Z

You are now able to collect your LRC requests 24/7. On Tuesday 1st March we inaugurated the new self-collection Request Shelf, located in the Academic Reserve room.

When an item you have requested is ready for collection you will receive an email notification saying:

“The following item which you requested is waiting to be picked up at the LRC Request Shelf (Academic Reserve room) within 6 days”

As shown in the picture above, you’ll find the Request Shelf nestling between the Short Loan and DVD collections in Academic Reserve. (The glassed off room just around the corner from the LRC Service Desk).

Items are arranged in alpha-numeric order using the first 4 letters of your family name and the last four digits of your staff ID or student matriculation number. For instance:

Mr A Jones, id no 10001899, would be labelled: “JONE1899”

Just find your request on the shelf and borrow it using the self-issue machine by the window.

Please remember that these requests can only be borrowed by the person who has requested them!

Please ask a member of LRC staff if you need assistance with requests.

2011 Travel Survey

2011-03-01T12:56:00.001Z

2011 Travel Survey goes live on 28th February…….. http://projects.grontmij.co.uk/qmu/.

Return your survey for a chance to win a IPod Nano.

The Survey will only be open until Friday 11th March.

Last day of Better Way to Work

2011-03-01T12:45:00.003Z

We’re doing well with over 6% of QMU staff logging trips on the Better Way to Work website.

Current Standings below. Will our winners be QUE or will we have a last minute turnaround?
Get your colleagues together and register today to have your trips count!

New trains stopping at Musselburgh station soon

2011-03-01T12:41:00.003Z

When First ScotRail introduced new services last May and December between Edinburgh and Dunbar, we were disappointed to find out that it would not increase the number of trains stopping at Musselburgh station.

However, we have now received the good news that all ScotRail trains to and from Dunbar will stop at Musselburgh when the new timetable is implemented on 22 May 2011. This will give staff and students at QMU the option to travel by rail from the east side of the country.

Accommodation Services – ‘Early Bird’ offer for resident Students

2011-02-17T08:33:00.002Z

The Accommodation team are pleased to share that we have advertised a special ‘Early Bird’ offer to entice resident students back into Halls for 2011/12. We have put up posters on the notice boards in the residence blocks, added notes and status updates on our Facebook page and sent repeated Moderator emails.

The offer provides them with £250 cashback/spending money. They will receive a payment of £100 in cash, and the remainder added to their Smart Cards over a period of 8 months.

We hope that this special offer leads to many applications from students who want to share flats with friends.

QMU wins e-Government national award

2011-02-15T09:19:00.004Z

QMU has been announced as the winner of the e-Government National Award 2010 in the category for sustainable, ‘green IT’ or ‘carbon-efficient’ services.

Considered to be one of the most prestigious events in the public sector calendar, The e-Government Awards took place last night (26th January) at London’s Guildhall, and was supported by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, who made a speech via video link.

QMU won the award for going beyond its successful implementation of thin client technology throughout the institution and further reducing energy and carbon consumption from its IT systems.

The e-Government National awards provide a unique benchmark for quality in eleven categories covering current IT innovation and best practice technology implementation at all levels of government.

Fraser Muir, QMU’s Director of Information Services, received the award on behalf of the institution. He said:”We are delighted that our work in delivering ongoing reductions in energy consumption and reducing carbon emissions from our IT processes has been recognised at such a high profile event.”

Prime Minister, David Cameron, said “The e-Government National Awards recognise some of the brilliant work done by digital specialists working across national and local government. One of our big ambitions is to make government more transparent, open and accountable and digital communications will play a massive part in that. I congratulate all the nominees and encourage all digital specialists across the public sector to follow their good example and innovation.”

Got a question?

2010-05-17T10:25:00.006+01:00

The librarians at Subject Enquiries have so far this year answered nearly 1,000 questions.

If you've got an information question -

You need to find good quality references for your essays,

You are not sure how to use one of the LRC's resources (eg iLink, CINAHL, Emerald, Reference Manager etc),

You need help with referencing,

Or you need help accessing an online journal or book,

- then the librarian at the Subject Enquiries point of the LRC Service Desk can help.

UCISA Award for Excellence

2010-05-17T10:11:00.006+01:00

For the second year running, we have been awarded Highly Commended in the UCISA Award for Excellence for our smartcard project. For a university of our size, being Highly Commended twice in a row is a major achievement.

Sponsored by Eduserv, the 2009 award was won by Canterbury Christ Church University.

Searching for journal articles...?

2010-05-17T10:01:00.008+01:00

The 'subject resources' pages on the LRC website are a good starting point for journal article searches. These pages pool together useful and key databases for different subjects.

Start by selecting the subject page that suits the subject you are researching or the course that you are studying on. The databases listed can be searched by keyword or phrase, and are powerful research tools providing references to journal articles based on the search criteria you provide. Use the database descriptions to choose the best database for your search.

If you need help with choosing the best database for your search, or with searching these resources ask at the Subject Enquiries point at the LRC Service Desk. Alternatively sign up for an an LRC workshop.

Systems integration for improved efficiency

2010-05-17T09:20:00.006+01:00

IS are currently working on a number of projects aimed at improving efficiency throughout QMU.

The Accommodation eBusiness project will implement a new online application and contract generation facility for the student accommodation. This will streamline the application process for students, as well as provide savings in staff time, printing and postage costs. Find out more here.

A number of enhancements are also planned for the ISIS student records system:

IPP - Following the successful launch last year of an online application process for taught postgraduate courses, it is hoped to replicate this for online direct entrant undergraduate applications. It is is planned that the new facility will go live later this spring. This will be followed by a staged implementation of online enquiries, enabling QMU to better manage and monitor all contat with prospective students, thus offering an improved experience for all concerned.

Online Module Selection for Postgraduate Students - Online Module Selection is being developed to link ISIS with Timetabling, thereby allowing students to select modules in advance of or as part of online matriculation.

QMU shortlisted for two awards

2010-05-14T14:20:00.007+01:00

We have been shortlisted in two categories in the prestigious Times Higher Education Leadership and Management Awards 2010 which recognise outstanding achievements in higher education.

QMU has been selected as finalists in the Outstanding ICT Team category for its work in using technology to support staff, students and researchers within the university and as a major component of the new campus development.

QMU has also been shortlisted for an award in the ICT Initiative of the Year category for the QMU smartcard project. The smartcard is a multi-purpose card originally developed to provide security and access control, cashless purchasing and visual identification as the student matriculation and staff ID card. Following further development the card can now also be used for library borrowing, print, copy and scanning, parking, gym membership and cashless purchasing across the university, including the Students' Union.

Growth of the Scottish Higher Education Digital Library (SHEDL)

2010-05-14T12:31:00.007+01:00

The LRC is pleased to report that, following successful negotiations by representatives of SHEDL, three new publishers have joined the Scottish Higher Education Digital Library this year. They are Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press and Berg Publishing, and between them they provide full text access back to 1996 - where available - for 288 titles.

Six publishers now provide material under SHEDL agreements with content from the American Chemical Society, Springer and Cambridge University Press being available since 2009. In total there are now 1,876 titles available through SHEDL.

The SHEDL consortium consists of all 19 HEIs in Scotland and has a business model that all institutions should get the same access and at costs not exceeding their existing spend with the publishers selected. If an institution doesn't have any subscriptions with a selected publisher then their access to content is free of charge; for example, QMU does not pay for access to the material from the American Chemical Society.

First year usage statistics show an increase of 41.3% for 2009 compared to 2008 across the consortium. For QMU our usage in 2009:

Springer - increased by 82.5%

Cambridge University Press - increased by 33%

American Chemical Society - increased by 1005 (as previously we did not have access)

The titles are all listed on our A to Z of electronic journals page.

Did you also know ...?

2010-05-14T12:24:00.002+01:00

....That the LRC staff have over 220 years of QMU service between them!

Our congratulations and thanks for all his hard work go to David Oliver, User Services Manager, who reached 25 years service on 1st April 2010.

Did you know ...?

2010-05-14T12:22:00.004+01:00

.... That you can access:

more than 130 databases
8,000 full text electronic journals
over 5,000 titles of additional full text material such as market research reports, company reports, profiles etc
and over 44,000 electronic books

Are you one of the 5,016?

2010-05-14T11:57:00.004+01:00

So far this year the Liaison Services team have delivered over 480 hours to an audience of over 5,106 staff and students. Our sessions cover all of the electronic resources, journals and books, how to use traditional print resources, and software such as Reference Manager.

Keep an eye open for our workshop timetable on the LRC website or ask your tutor if you have a session scheduled with us. If not then you can always come and see us at the subject enquiries point at the LRC Service Desk.

Replacement of Reference Manager

2010-05-13T15:06:00.008+01:00

The LRC currently provides the Reference Manager application to all staff and students to manage their bibliographic references and to integrate with Microsoft Word for the production of reference lists in documents.

As a result of perceived shortcomings in this product, a project has been undertaken to investigate other available applications to see whether any cost savings and enhanced features can be found. The initial phase of research has now completed and three possible alternatives have been highlighted for further investigation:

Mendeley

RefWorks

Zotero

Get more information on these alternatives here.

YouthWire

2010-05-13T14:44:00.004+01:00

The YouthWire application is a student-based platform for enabling access to educational and social resources, the latest student news, offers and opportunities. Queen Margaret University is trialling the application this semester and if successful, will use it permanently. For this phase, the Learning Resource Centre and the Students' Union will be delivering up-to-date information on the services they offer and news and events.

Business Intelligence Enhancement Project

2010-05-13T14:08:00.004+01:00

Business Intelligence (BI) is the gathering of cross-organisational data in order to acquire the understanding necessary to drive informed strategic and tactical business decision-making. It employs a range of information technologies that enable business users to store, retrieve and analyse data in an accessible way.

QMU's BI Enhancement Project is using the data from QMU's core corporate systems to generate comprehensive integrated management information which is then presented out via the Business Objects reporting tool. More information on this key strategic project can be viewed here. In additional to gathering requirements, report development and the provision of a central repository of corporate management information reports, we are undertaking a training exercise empowering key staff to undertake a significant proportion of routine report-writing themselves.

The project is steered by a cross-institutional BI Project Board, chaired by Rosalyn Marshall, VP (Resources and Development) with project work being managed by IS and undertaken by our BI Coordinator, Ranjit Nagubandi.

1000th deposit in eResearch

2010-05-13T11:28:00.006+01:00

The repository team is delighted to announce that the 1000th deposit in eResearch was reached in January 2010. The open access article was co-authored by Rebecca Horn, a researcher from QMU's Institute for International Health and Development.

Horn, Rebecca and Charters, Simon and Vahidy, Saleem (2009) The victim-witness experience in the Special Court for Sierra Leone. International Review of Victimology, Vol. 15. pp. 277-298. ISSN 0269-7580

As Rebecca is currently working in Sri Lanka, Barbara McPake (Director of the Institute for International Health and Development) accepted a bottle of champagne on her behalf.

Did you know ...?

2010-05-13T11:26:00.004+01:00

That Information Services offers a dedicated procurement service for all IT-related hardware, software and related items?

For advice and quotes contact: itpurchasing@qmu.ac.uk with your requirements.

Did you know ...?

2010-05-13T11:22:00.005+01:00

That QMU is now part of the government-led Procurement Scotland group (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Government/Procurement/npcoe)? This lets us benefit from centrally negotiated contracts for the supply of IT hardware and other equipment which will make the items we need to buy much cheaper than before.

Voice Activated Directory

2010-05-13T10:33:00.004+01:00

IS are in the process of testing the latest version of the Voice Activated Directory (VAD), and hope to be able to roll this out as a replacement to the existing service in the near future.

The major enhancement of this version is the ability to cancel a transfer if the VAD misinterprets your request - background noise, poor call quality and noise on the line can occasionally result in a transfer to the wrong place or person; this new feature enables you to say "Cancel" if this occurs, at which point you can either repeat the request or transfer to the Operator by dialling "0".

The VAD is an application developed by Nuance, who are a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for business and consumers around the world - they also develop Dragon Naturally Speaking, a well known Speech Recognition application for PCs and mobile devices.

Terminal shutdowns power substantial savings

2010-05-12T14:04:00.005+01:00

QMU has been able to achieve significant savings in energy usage by programming thin client terminals to shutdown automatically at night.

Each terminal uses approximately 15 watts of power every hour that it is powered on. Assuming that it is turned off for around 13 hours overnight, this works out to a saving of 71.175 kilowatt hours each year for each terminal.

For every 100 terminals that are powered off in this way, QMU will be able to reduce annual CO2 emissions by over 2,784kg. This equates to around 1,033kg of carbon or the equivalent of 10,000 miles in the typical family car. (http://www.nef.org.uk/greencompany/co2calculator.htm)

The associated financial savings will vary, depending on the cost of electricity at the time of billing.

LRC goes 24/7/365

2010-05-11T09:32:00.013+01:00

As from 19 April 2010 the LRC will be open 24/7. This will be welcome news for those with looming assignment deadlines or who want some extra study time.

During semester time the LRC will still be staffed from 9am to 9pm Monday to Friday and from 9am to 5pm at the weekend. Outwith these times however you will be able to carry on using the LRC for study and self-service.

For your safety there will be a few restrictions on where you can go during unstaffed hours. You will have full access to the open area and the 80+ terminals in front of the LRC Service Desk. The Academic Reserve room (1-162) will also be open so that you can access the Short Loan collection and the 17 Quiet Study spaces. None of the other rooms will be accessible. And whilst you may visit the east end of the LRC to collect books from the shelves, you must bring them back to the LRC Service Desk area to read them.

Access to the LRC is by smartcard. If you do not have your smartcard you will not be able to access the facilities (as required by Fire Regulations).

Any items that require to be issued by staff will not be able to be borrowed during unstaffed hours - eg DVDs, items on hold or inter-library loans. However, we are in the process of implementing a new Library Management System which should enable us to extend the services available during unstaffed hours. Vending machines will also be appearing soon in the LRC to give you access to cold drinks and snacks.

Please let us know what you think of this innovation. You can send and email to LRCHelp@qmu.ac.uk or complete a "You said, we said" comments slip (available form the Suggestions Box on top of the Service Desk).