PC Classrooms

Installation

IT Services is responsible for the installation of all PC classroom software. The software falls roughly into two categories:

• Common Applications- provided by IT Services
• Departmental Software - provided by departments

Software is not usually installed for individual use, nor at the request of undergraduate or taught postgraduate students.

It is the responsibility of staff submitting software to us for installation in the classrooms to ensure that it is appropriately licensed for its intended use. Within this environment, software should be licensed for concurrent use, either as a site license or as a limited number of (concurrent) licenses.

For queries and advice about software licensing, please contact the Service Desk:
servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk.

Applications

Current software

The software available on classroom machines is presented on the Desktop in a College folder format with School sub-folders for ease of use. The Common Applications folder is a group of software provided and supported by IT Services.

For a listing of the software currently available for your College, click on the appropriate link below.

• Common Applications
• Arts and Social Sciences
• Life Sciences and Medicine
• Physical Sciences

Proposed software

The local files on all the classroom systems are usually reloaded during the summer vacation to accommodate software upgrades and any new items of software required for the following academic year. This is a major undertaking and we ask staff to ensure that any changes they wish to make to their software portfolios are submitted to us before the end of June. Failing that, there can be no guarantee that the software will be available as required. Furthermore, it is essential that staff confirm that their applications are running to their satisfaction well in advance of their requirement for them.

See details of proposed upgrades to IT classroom software for academic year 2023-24.

For further information regarding the installation of classroom software please contact the Service Desk, servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk.

Our PC classrooms provide access to a wide portfolio of software across campus for all staff and students.

The Classroom Environment

The classroom environment is based on Quad Core I5 specification PCs with 8Gb of RAM as standard, running Windows 10 LTSB. Much of our estate also has fast Solid State drives (SSDs), significantly improving login times and performance. This is a secure environment so many of the standard, configurable system options have been disabled, e.g. display resolution, control panel access, etc.

In general, staff and students cannot install software that attempts to modify the local files on the system. For temporary files, a scratch drive (drive S:\) is available and in some cases software can be installed there. The contents of S: are deleted when you log off or reboot. In addition, you can access your personal, home file space (drive H:\) and, where appropriate, access any team drives as configured in the login scripts.

All classroom PCs are powered off automatically in the evenings and powered back on at 08:00. This automatic power down can be delayed by the user if the PC is in use. Some rooms are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with out-of-hours access controlled by an entry system based on staff or student ID Cards.

Printing facilities are available in or near to all PC classrooms.

Disabled Provision

For full details of disabled provision in PC classrooms and Library study places, please see fact sheets

• Computing Services for Disabled Students and Students with Specific Learning Disabilities
• Library Facilities and Services for Disabled Students

Classroom Code of Conduct

In brief

• While full-class teaching is taking place (eg a lecture or demonstration), it is permissible for staff to exclude other students from the classroom, and to require that students do not use the classroom printer(s). Staff should indicate that access is not permitted to non class members by posting a notice on the door(s) to the room.
• If full-class teaching is not taking place, then, once staff have ensured that all members of the class have the use of a computer, other students may be permitted to use any spare computers at the lecturer's discretion.
• When a computer classroom is not booked, the computers in the room are available for ad hoc use by registered users of University of Aberdeen computing facilities.
• Displays located around the campus indicate when rooms are booked for teaching and when they are free.

See full Code of Conduct for the use of Computer Classrooms. Posters displaying the full Code of Conduct are posted in all computer classrooms.

Help

Needing help? First see our lecture-theatre-PCs-FAQ. If you don't find the answer in our FAQ, please contact the Service Desk - servicedesk@abdn.ac.uk - for help.

For a full list of bookable teaching classrooms, see below .

The Registry is responsible for booking all centrally timetabled rooms on the Old Aberdeen and Foresterhill campuses.

• See Room Booking - under the Teaching Rooms tab.

Bookable Computer Classrooms

The Library: Bookable PC Classrooms are also available on Floor 2 of the University Library - classrooms 1, 2 and 3. When not being used for teaching purposes, the computers in these classrooms are open access and may be used for individual working. See the Library web pages for details.