Jan 2010 results

425 students responded to the Survey. Thank You! - and congratulations to the five winners of print credits.

Overall satisfaction is over 90%,  but there are improvements you want to see. 

Your comments ask us to improve some things, but you also point out things everyone can do to help with PC availability:
 

• Please don't monopolise a PC by leaving clothes, bags etc. for more than 15-20 minutes.  

• You are allowed some acceptable personal use of PCs, but please do that at quieter times (early morning, evening or weekend -see the usage pattern chart) If in doubt look around you!

As you can see overall satisfaction is very high, but the areas most needing attention by IT Services are "PC availability" and "Printing".    (We'll forward the "Departmental IT" figure to departmental IT teams, but you should take up the specifics on that within your own departments.)

We analysed your comments on "PC availability" and "Printing" to find specific points, and are planning some actions as follows:

PC AVAILABILITY

Some points you made:

• PCs are sometimes "reserved" by people leaving bags, clothing etc.
• There is no booking system for PCs
• Sometimes people are playing games or using Facebook etc. when others want to use PCs for study

• We are considering ways to discourage monopolising PCs by leaving clothing etc. at a logged-on PC to try to reserve it.  
• We are considering a trial of a PC booking system, perhaps in certain areas.
• We could set up automatic logoff after a set maximum time "logged in but idle", with a warning beforehand.
• We are also considering displays showing where PCS are currently available.

Personal use and busy times

The chart shows that PCs are usually busy from about 10-5 but much less so at other times.  PCs are provided for study purposes, but occasional use for acceptable personal purposes is not prohibited; however we would like to encourage personal use outside the core busy times.

PRINTING

Some points you made:

• it's inconvenient to go to another floor for your printout,
• kiosk payment for printing has disadvantages - kiosks may not be convenient to where you're working;  change machines can be jammed;  kiosk coin and note mechanisms can have problems.

• We will install a printer on each floor where there are PCs.  This is targeted for completion by April.
• We are researching alternative payment methods such as a card payment facility.