- Physics-Departmental-Computing

Fwd: ICT Audio Visual Exhibition
by David Colling 23 Jul '12

23 Jul '12

Hi All, This is rather late notice for me and I plan to be at CERN that day (security strike permitting). However, it would be good if some other people could attend. Best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: ICT Audio Visual Exhibition Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:37:00 +0000 From: Maguire, Brendan <b.maguire(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear Colleague, As you may be aware, the ICT Audio Visual team have for the last 7 years been involved in the refurbishment and management of a large number of departmental lecture theatres and teaching spaces. We are now in the process of looking at how we can now move forward over the next few years to see what areas we can improve and also what new technologies can be exploited to assist you with the real day-to-day task of teaching and educating students. We will be planning small workshops and meetings with all the departments over the next few months and as a taster we have arranged for a few AV hardware suppliers to come in for a day and show some of the equipment that is in use at other universities. It will not be a hard sell and we will not have any of our AV integrators there. Caroline, Tom and myself will be around to introduce you to the suppliers, so come along share a coffee and enjoy this opportunity. The event will be held between 10:00- 15:00 on Thursday 26th July in SAF 120-122 with the following companies attending: Revolabs Christie Panasonic NEC Crestron AMX CUK Team Mate Steljes We hope you can make it and look forward to seeing you there. Thanks, The AV Team *Brendan Maguire, Support Manager, IT Services* Imperial College London Information and Communication Technologies West Wing, Level 4 Sherfield Building South Kensington Campus London, SW7 2AZ, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 6969 (extension: 46969) Mobile: +44 (0)7734 162 414 (mobex: 57829) http: //www.imperial.ac.uk/ict email: b.maguire(a)imperial.ac.uk <mailto:b.maguire@imperial.ac.uk>

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Fwd: Microsoft Dreamspark
by David Colling 16 Jul '12

16 Jul '12

Dear All, I am looking for opinions on the email below: I also asked Steve to clarify who pays for this on the teaching machines on level 3 and his answer is in between the hashes ##########################################################################That's all paid for by ICT centrally but it can only be used on College owned machines. The idea of Dreamspark is that you can then say to students "go to this web site and you can have the same setup at home as in College" and all for free. I think it's a nice selling point if we provide this for the students (and it is pretty cheap!) Steve ########################################################################## My opinion is that £242.06/year seems nothing, however, I would like some evidence that other groups would use it before recommending to Kenny that we buy it as wasting even £250/year is bad (could be spent on some sort of party for those on the departmental computing committee instead ;-) for example). As for the UG, we are moving away from Visual Studio when teaching them so they are less likely to be asking for it at home regardless. I have cc'ed Kenny in case he has any strong feeling (such as we are in danger of wasting more than £250 of people's salary discussing and so so should just buy it). Best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Microsoft Dreamspark Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2012 08:42:14 +0000 From: Rochford, Steve <s.rochford(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: Colling, David J <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dreamspark (https://www.dreamspark.com/) is a collection of Microsoft software aimed at Universities. It’s undergone a number of changes recently (there used to be a free product called Dreamspark and a paid for product called Microsoft Developer Network Academic Alliance and these have now merged) The Maths department buys this so that their PhD students can have a free copy of Windows and Visual Studio on their personally owned computers but a side benefit is that all students can be offered the range of software (it doesn’t cover Microsoft Office but it does cover many other packages). Adrian Sutton’s group currently has a license which is about to expire which was only used by his group but it could be renewed and extended to the whole Physics department at a price of £242.06 for the next 3 years. If the department paid for this then all students and staff could have a legal copy of any version of Windows on their personal computer as well as all the developer tools. I think this would be a good thing – we quite often get students whose machine needs to be reinstalled and they’ve got no install discs and we can’t help because we can’t use our license on personal machines. Who could make a decision about spending the money? Steve

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Fwd: Research Data Management (RDM) Policy
by David Colling 12 Jul '12

12 Jul '12

Dear All, Firstly, I would like to thank everybody for the good wishes when I was away. Secondly, I was sent this by Arthur Spirling yesterday. I am due to meet with Arthur at 3pm and so I don't really expect any feedback on these forms by then but if you do send me some I will report it to Arthur and if you send me some more afterwards I will forward it on to him. Best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Research Data Management (RDM) Policy Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2012 09:35:19 +0000 From: Spirling, Arthur G <a.spirling(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: Colling, David J <d.colling(a)imperial.ac.uk> CC: Allatt, Paul <p.allatt(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear Dave, Thanks for agreeing to meet. As you may know, the EPSRCrequires all Institutions that it funds to have a ResearchData ManagementPolicy that indicates how data producedfrom their researchgrants will be properly managed during the project then be preserved, discoverable and shared via a College, or discipline specific, repository once the project has completed. They accept that some data might need to be embargoed or, for personal data, be anonymisedbefore it can be shared but they still want the presumption to be that data is shared. They also expect all grant requeststo have an associated Research Data Management Plan. The policy was supposedto be in place by May 1st 2012, but at a meeting between College and EPSRCwe were given a littleleeway. In consultationwith the College Research Committee (CRC), Faculty ResearchCommittees, the Libraryand the ResearchOffice (RO), ICThas generated a Policy for College ResearchData Management. I attach a copy of the current draft that is with Prof. DonalBradley, chair of CRC, for final editing and approval prior to be adopted by the CRC as College policy. Please note that this really is a draft and I would be grateful if you would not circulateit further at this stage, however we can hardly consult if we can't show you it. ICT has also generated a draft Research Data ManagementPlan (RDMP) template, based on work by the Digital CurationCentre. We would like to discuss the policy and the template with you, the possible impact on the way you work and how ICTand the Library might be able to help. We have made both documentsrelatively generic because it is the case that many of the other Research Councils require similar treatment of the data that theirfunds have helped produce. It may be, however, that more specific versions of the RDMPtemplate might be better to meet both the, slightly, differingrequirements of the funders and more particularly the differing nature of the data being gathered. We appreciatethat this requirementof the funding councils will result in an increased workload for PIs so your input will be really helpful as this activity develops and we look to provide as much help/automation as possible. Regards Arthur

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Fwd: ICT Computer Room switch maintenance
by David Colling 20 Jun '12

20 Jun '12

Hi, I haven't read this closely enough to see if it effects any of us but thought that I would propagate to the list in case it does. best, david -------- Original Message -------- Subject: ICT Computer Room switch maintenance Date: Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:05:10 +0000 From: Metcalfe, Christopher J <c.metcalfe(a)imperial.ac.uk> To: ICTAP Members <ccs-dept(a)imperial.ac.uk> Dear Colleagues In order to maintain the support levels on the Computer Room switches we need to update the firmware to a currently supported version. ICT are planning to upgrade the Computer Room switches which will be done in three stages over a 2 week period by pre-staging the firmware the day before the scheduled outage, and then reboot the switches as shown below: 1.Update a lightly loaded switch (dc-41a1, SAF)first, this is planned for Network at Risk on Tuesday June 26^th between 07:00 and 07:05 2.Update the first half of the remaining switches (dc-17a1, dc-17b1, dc-277a1 in Mech Eng and dc-214a1, dc-214b1, dc-214e1in Huxley), this is planned for Network at Risk on Tuesday July 3^rd between 07:00 and 07:30 3.Update the second half of the remaining switches (dc-rt1/2), this is planned for Network at Risk on Tuesday July 10^th between 07:00 and 09:00 To complete the work each switch will need to be rebooted taking it offline for about 5 minutes *causing the network link to go down for ALL connections to that switch which all connected hosts WILL notice*. Please could you make the relevant people within your depart / faculty aware of this work and the short outage it will cause as the switches are reboot. If you have any questions or queries about any of the above please contact me. Regards. Chris *Chris Metcalfe* *Technical Manager - Architecture** *Information and Communication Technologies Level 4, Sherfield Building Imperial College London South Kensington Campus London SW7 2AZ Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 7286 Fax: +44 (0)20 7594 6919 E-mail: c.metcalfe(a)imperial.ac.uk <mailto:c.metcalfe@imperial.ac.uk>

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Network outage - Tuesday 12 June - Blackett levels 3, 4, 5
by Rochford, Steve 06 Jun '12

06 Jun '12

2 of the switch fans have failed in CWC 200 which serves much of levels 3, 4, 5 (basically any network socket which starts "200") so they will need to be replaced next Tuesday during Network At Risk - it will be at about 8am and shouldn't take more than about 15 minutes. Steve

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Re: [Physics-Departmental-Computing] Mathematica - toy pricing model
by David Colling 04 May '12

04 May '12

In a word "Yes" On 04/05/12 15:15, Julia Sedgbeer wrote: > Hi Dave, > > If we have a department-wide licence, will MSc students be able > to install Mathematica on their own laptops (while they are > registered students)? > > Thanks, > Julia > > On Fri, 4 May 2012, David Colling wrote: > >> Hi All, >> >> Thanks for the input as to who the people are. I have used the info to >> construct a toy pricing model. There are still 4 research students for >> whom I don't have a group and two people who no longer exist (left >> college) so currently these are a tax on the groups which already have >> licenses. >> >> I have taken the DTC and the MSc as separate groups because I guessed >> that they had their own funding somehow. >> >> I have taken the Departmental Contribution to be 20% and the >> contribution from groups that currently don't have any licence to be >> 5% - clearly both of these are arbitrary but not a million miles off I >> would have thought - but finally to be set by Kenny/HoGs. >> >> I have included the deduction that we will get back for the period >> remaining on the current licenses >> >> I have taken the list of groups from our webpages >> >> Anyway, have a look and see if there is anything grossly unfair in it. >> If there isn't I will hand this over Kenny and our job is done (well >> until the first of June when we need to changes license numbers). >> >> >> Best, >> david >>

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Mathematica - toy pricing model
by David Colling 04 May '12

04 May '12

Hi All, Thanks for the input as to who the people are. I have used the info to construct a toy pricing model. There are still 4 research students for whom I don't have a group and two people who no longer exist (left college) so currently these are a tax on the groups which already have licenses. I have taken the DTC and the MSc as separate groups because I guessed that they had their own funding somehow. I have taken the Departmental Contribution to be 20% and the contribution from groups that currently don't have any licence to be 5% - clearly both of these are arbitrary but not a million miles off I would have thought - but finally to be set by Kenny/HoGs. I have included the deduction that we will get back for the period remaining on the current licenses I have taken the list of groups from our webpages Anyway, have a look and see if there is anything grossly unfair in it. If there isn't I will hand this over Kenny and our job is done (well until the first of June when we need to changes license numbers). Best, david

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Mathematica rumbles on
by David Colling 03 May '12

03 May '12

Dear All, I haven't heard from Kenny that the Department is unhappy to bring this forward and so I am continuing in the assumption that they are. I have only had positive responses from the other groups so I suggest that we try to make this work for the 1st of June. I am going to suggest that the cost of the new licence is distributed between the department and the groups according to the following formula: Total Cost= x * departmental contribution + (1-x-y)*Sigma_group(#group/current total)+y*groups with none currently The values of x and y to be decided above my pay grade although obviously y should be close or equal to zero. I don't think that server licenses should be included but that we should count the individual machine and the network increments as the same. Otherwise we look like people who, at the end of the evening, are debating who had a dessert at price a and who had a pudding at price b while ignoring the fact that the whole meal was only £5 4s 6d Attached is the current set of licenses purchased as part of the current agreement. Firstly a big caveat - the ones marked as "Not in college directory anymore" are nearly all PG students. The first time I didn't find a person listed under staff I put this in and then copied it afterwards as most students don't have a group listed. Some do have room numbers but many do not. So PLEASE can you tell me which of these are students in your group. Hopefully we really can get this through by the end of the month. Best, david

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Mathematica - do we want to change the dates?
by David Colling 02 May '12

02 May '12

Dear All, As you know we plan to change over Mathematica licensing when the current license agreement comes to an end. The dat for this is currently 1st of September. However, there have already been people asking for Mathematica on the understanding that it is going get a departmental license - strange how it has now become vital to their research when it wasn't in the past - but I digress. So I have been looking at the option of bringing the date of the switch over forward and have contacted Wolfram and ICT. This is possible and we would get the remaining time on the existing licenses as a discount on the first year's fee. Kenny has agreed that the department will underwrite the new license until the split between the different groups and the department is worked out. So there is no financial reason not to go ahead (assuming that Kenny is happy for us to bring this spend forward). The only down side of this that I can see is that every current user would have to change their license key over in a period of three or four days before the current codes cease to work, but they will have to do this at some point anyway. If people are happy with this then I will see if we can change over on the 1st of June. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON THIS. I have asked ICT for a list of the current licenses bought via ICT as input into the breakdown of the cost splitting betweenthe research groups and the department. Best, david

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Wolfram - may be the saga draws to a close...
by David Colling 23 Apr '12

23 Apr '12

Dear All, I have just had a meeting with Kenny and agreed that we should buy an unlimited departmental license from Wolfram for Mathematica. The Department will underwrite this while it is decided how much each research group should pay and how much will be paid from the Department centrally. We have a fixed price from Wolfram to be paid annually for three years so there no additional uncertainty. Best, david

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