Computer Support and Policies

General information

The Computer Support Representative (CSR) for the Physics and Astronomy Department is Mark Erickson. He is responsible for overseeing computer support for the department. The computer support office is located in N362 ESC.

Currently, the assistant CSRs are:

• Nicholas Blatter
• Tom Polley
• Richie Hiatt (Fall/Winter)
• Braun Edwards

The CSR office can be reached in the following ways:

• Trouble Ticket (Recommended Method)
• Office:   N362 ESC
• Phone/voice mail:   (801) 422-6776
• Cell phone:   (801) 592-0597

If there is a computer problem, please contact the CSR office as soon as possible. Assistant CSRs are generally available from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday during the semester and depending upon the schedules of the assistant CSRs. Please remember that all assistant CSRs are students that are taking classes and need their off time to study. Please respect their privacy when they are not working unless you have been otherwise told to contact them for system critical situations.

Help and Tutorials

To the left are links with instructions on how to accomplish common tasks and fix common problems with department computers. Please refer to these when needed. As always, suggestions are welcome.

Policies

Please be familiar with all guidelines as your lab use is contingent upon you following them.

These guidelines may be changed at any time without notice.

Department Computer Committee (DCC)

The Department Computer Committee is currently Dr. Bryan Peterson, Dr. Eric Hirschmann, and Mark Erickson.

General Account Policies

• Login and open-lab computer accounts are available for Physics and Astronomy students. This includes, but may not be limited to, Physics / Astronomy majors and minors, Physics graduate students, and some undergraduates taking Physics courses.
• Linux / UNIX accounts may be made available if the faculty member over those resources allows it.
• Misuse of any computer resource is grounds for losing your account either temporarily or permanently, based on the decision of the computer committee.
• Students should take responsibility to backup important files. Backups may not always be regularly maintained on the fileserver.

Desktop and P-Drive Policies

For all personal accounts on the Windows Active Directory (faculty, staff, students, etc) the contents of the Desktop is NOT saved on the P-Drive. DO NOT save anything to the Desktop which you want to have automatically backed up.

Password Policies

The policy for Windows Active Directory Physics and Astronomy accounts including faculty, staff, and students is as follows:

• Minimum of 8 characters
• Passwords will expire every 365 days
• Passwords must change from their previous password when changing
• Once changing your password, you must wait 7 days before changing it again

The CSR Office knows this may be an inconvenience, but cooperation helps protect all users of the system.

E-mail Account Policies

• Student access to Route-Y email has been terminated by OIT. We recommend students use a freely-available online mail service such as Gmail.
• The Faculty and Staff department standard email system is Microsoft's Exchange Server. Access is provided via Microsoft Outlook, IMAP, and POP3.

Removal of Inactive Accounts

Accounts will be removed and e-mail forwarding stopped in the following circumstances:

• The account's owner graduates and does not request the account remain intact.
• The account's pwner is NOT a Physics / Astronomy major or minor, and the semester ends.

Lab Policies

• Do not save any personal files on the remote server or any public lab machines. Remote server maintenance may result in deleting files saved on the desktop. Public lab machines (N212, N337, N477, 4th floor labs, etc) may be reinstalled at any time without notice.
• Food and drink are currently allowed in the student computer labs; however, students will be held financially accountable for any damage incurred as a result of eating or drinking near computer equipment.
• Students are required to pay for personal print jobs. This includes anything that is done not relating to the Physics and Astronomy department or a Physics or Astronomy class. Since payment for print jobs will be handled by an honor system, you will occasionally be reminded to pay for print jobs.
• Lab computers are NOT meant for game playing or software installation. Both of these activities are inappropriate for Lab computer systems and are grounds for account removal. (If you find that an important application is missing, please contact the CSR Office and we will try to accommodate your request).
• Use of computers for viewing pornography will be reported to the Honor Code office and the offender's computer account will immediately be diabled. Repeated offenses will result in a permanent loss of computer privileges.
• Users are automatically logged off after 30 minutes of inactivity. Please manually log yourself out if you will be away from the computer for an extended period of time. Those who are forcibly logged of on a regular basis may have their accounts disabled.
• Computers that are marked with any "DO NOT USE" sign should NOT be used. They may be infected with viruses, have defective hardware, or undergoing maintenance. Use of these marked systems is grounds for account suspension.
• Computer equipment should only be moved by the CSR Office. If you need help with something, or a computer needs moved, contact the CSR Office. Students that move equipment on their own accord may have their accounts disabled.

Programs for Use on the Lab Machines:

• Despite every effort to make sure that commonly used software packages are on lab computers, we cannot accommodate everyone's request for certain programs.
• In general, software should NOT be installed on your personal user drives. If you have a software package you need for a class, please contact the professor to request that the software be added to the lab standard applications, or for an exception to one or two systems.
• If you have a personal need for specific software, contact the CSR office or create a trouble ticket.