Welcome to our lab

We use many different and often sophisticated procedures and equipment in the course of our instructional, research, and day-to-day activities. During your stay, you will undoubtedly use one or more of these facilities. This document is an attempt to give you some guidelines for using them, with particular stress on computer hardware and software systems.

We designed the lab to encourage people to collaborate and enjoy working together. That is why we have so much open shared space. One consequence of an open-space design though is that everyone must be especially considerate of others. Be thoughtful about your behavior in the shared spaces and the potential consequences of it for others in the lab. In addition, since we frequently have visitors (representatives from funding agencies, students, subjects in experiments, and other colleagues), everyone should always behave professionally and ensure the tone and conditions of the lab reflect well on all of us.

We assume those problems relating to general facility use -- tools, workstations, video equipment, printers, copier, fax, conference room, lounges, etc. -- and safety are generally resolvable with common sense and common courtesy. For example, don't leave dirty dishes in the lounge sink, spoiling food in the refrigerator or a blowup in the microwave for someone else to clean up. You should try to always leave the space better organized and cleaner than when you started using it. Ensure that shared facilities are made ready for the next person to use them.

Don't use equipment until you understand how to operate it properly. Get instruction on its use before using it. Don't wait to the last minute to do this. When you ask someone to teach you about how to use the equipment, schedule a mutually convenient time. If you discover something is broken (a door lock, a software program, or a problem with a sink in a restroom), let someone know so that it can get fixed.

We envisage each user as a good citizen who is guided by courtesy and common sense. The notion of a good citizen is the core of our expectations for how people use the offices, research lab spaces, and lounge areas, and indeed, the computer systems as well. A good citizen does not knowingly use more than his or her fair share of resources, nor use resources in a way that negatively impacts other lab members. A good citizen always tries to make the lab a better and more productive place to work. If everyone strives to use common courtesy and common sense, then the Distributed Cognition and Human-Computer Interaction Lab will be an enriching, productive, and enjoyable place.

Computer Use Guidelines

Now we'll focus on computer-related issues. This discussion is intentionally vague for two reasons:

1. We do not want to be police; we do not want to create a bunch of strict rules (although several are cited below) and then spend our time monitoring people. This would be destructive to the openness and camaraderie that we feel is essential to research and education.
   
2. It is not always obvious, especially to newcomers, that they are unfairly or wastefully utilizing a resource. However, we anticipate that when such an indiscretion is pointed out, people will take immediate remedial action, if appropriate, and make sure that situation does not reoccur.

Here are some examples of resources and considerations you should keep in mind when using them:

Workstations
We have a number of shared workstations in the open areas of the lab. Please be considerate of others by logging off when you are finished working. Also a couple of the workstations are on a shared switch to make it easy to use them from multiple locations and to project them onto the SmartBoards. Be sure to log the machine out of the switch when you are finished using it.

Computer Cycles
Cycles are to be used but during heavy use times of the day please be considerate about starting compute or network intensive jobs on a shared server such as hci.ucsd.edu.

Disk Space
A good citizen will not fill all the available space on the disk and thereby make it unusable for everyone.

Printing
Be economical and considerate of the environment when printing. Don't print unneeded copies. Preview drafts on screen. Recycle.

General Use Guidelines

No Private or Personal Gain
You may not use any lab facility for commercial gain or profit, or for non-university related activities.

Nothing Leaves the Lab Without Permission
You may not remove tools, furniture, lab or computer equipment -- hardware or software -- from the premises, without specific permission. For tools and computer hardware, the permission must be in writing. The one exception to this is software that is distributed as freeware or open source. If in doubt, please ask.

Restrict Access to the Facilities
It is unfortunate but all of us have to be concerned with lab security. There is a startling amount of thievery at UCSD. You may not let people who are not members of our lab use lab facilities without your specific supervision. You may not give out your access code number for the door. If you think someone should have access, ask for permission. If there is a legitimate need the person will be given access.

Do Not Loan Out Your Account
You must never allow others to use your computer account or provide them with access to lab computers. If you think the person has a legitimate need to use the computer facilities, ask; if there is an appropriate need, they will be given access.

Computer Software
Computer software requires a special discussion. We take software licensing seriously. The analogy that we use for thinking about software is that it is like a book. Books are protected by copyright laws. It takes years of work to produce a book. If a book is so useful that several people want to use it in several different locations at the same time, then it is reasonable to purchase that many copies of the book. The same applies to software.

While we increasingly make use of open source software, we do follow the copyright and licensing rules for all commercial software we use in the lab. We will not tolerate illegitimate copies. If a commercial product is useful, then we should purchase a sufficient number of copies to allow you to do your work or research. Do not make a copy of a commercial package from an office or lab or campus machine and install it on a different machine. If you need to use the package on a machine that does not yet have it, contact the system administrator. Do not copy an office or lab commercial software package for use on your own personal system. Software can be expensive but this fact does not change the rules; we intend to purchase the legal number of copies in all cases or site licenses, where more economical.

A Word About Computer Privacy
There has been considerable difficulty across the Internet with people who use computer accounts in unethical and illegal manners. As a result, states and governments have added provisions to the state and federal penal codes prohibiting and punishing these activities. We will follow the letter and spirit of these codes. We do not allow our facilities to be used to gain unauthorized access to other computer systems or to other accounts or files on this computer system.

In addition, in academic communities, there can be temptations to try to alter or get advanced information about exams and grades, or to examine the files and electronic mail of fellow computer users, whether students, faculty, staff, or visitors. It is not permitted to examine or alter other people's files or mail without explicit permission from them. You are also urged to learn how to set the protection bits (on systems that have them) on your files and directories to make them more secure. Please be warned that although we try to keep all files and electronic mail private and confidential, you cannot be assured of this. Unauthorized users can often find a way to read and access any file, even ones you have set to be unreadable and even though such operations are both illegal and unethical. Moreover, at times, the computer system personnel may find it necessary to examine private file or mail as part of system maintenance.

Although whenever possible, your privacy will be respected, the contents of electronic mail, computer files and accounts may be disclosed to instructors, administrators, and operations personnel if improper use of the account is suspected. Examination of personal mail and files will be done only with compelling reason. Any examination of personal files by the operations staff and any disclosure of materials require prior approval of the system administrator and the laboratory directors. The user will be informed of the examination and disclosure as soon as possible afterwards. In addition, the operations support staff reserves the right to modify account attributes or suspend accounts without notice, although we hope this is rarely, if ever, needed.

Audio, Video, SmartBoards and Projection Equipment
Get instruction in operating the audio, video, SmartBoards, and projection equipment before you use it. Be especially careful to ensure that the projection lamps are properly turned off when you finish with the projector. There is a cool-down sequence that needs to be followed. Don't leave the lamps on unnecessarily. They have a limited life and are very expensive to replace. If you need to have any of the audio or video recabled, ask the system administrator to do this. Don't recable it yourself and don't move it.

We have a variety of audio recording devices as well as digital cameras and camcorders. As with all equipment get instruction before using them and ensure that they are properly checkout if you take them away from the lab.

Conference Rooms and Whiteboards
The conference room is intended for use by lab members for group meetings and informal discussions. While it can be used it for departmental functions, please be sure to schedule it so as not to interfere with lab usage. A short message to the dcog-hci mailing list can allow others to know of your plans and give them an opportunity to coordinate their uses with yours.

If you need to save information on a whiteboard, take a digital image of it. Your colleagues should feel free to erase whatever is on it if they need to use a whiteboard.