JLB Labs booking details and technical support requirement form

Please complete this form once we have responded to your initial enquiry about using the labs.

Your proposed lab activity

Participants

Our labs have differing capacities so remember to check to see if all your participants and observers can be accommodated.

* (if YES, you will need to apply to SRPP as soon as possible, please see required documents page on the labs website)

When?

Is this a one-off or series of bookings?
Please provide the first date and then details of further bookings if required.

Generally the labs are available 9:00-5:00 Mon-Thu and 9:00-4:30 Friday, but extensions to these times are usually negotiable.

Labs

Select the lab(s) you want to use.

PLEASE NOTE. Will you be accessing a website/file area not publicly available? The lab PCs are on what we call the "autonomous network." This is not only so lab staff can administer the specialised recording software, but also so you can easily install any software you might need for your experiments and testing, and in addition give the user a more "home-PC" experience. The downside of this is that these PCs are isolated from the standard OU network. So if your answer to the above question is positive, then you will need to bring along your VPN card and establish this connection before you start your activities. If you are unsure of whether you'll be able to access a specific resource you are most welcome to arrange to pop along to the labs beforehand and test your access.

In other news, we are excited to be preparing a new lab, the VRoom! where we will have the latest VR headsets available (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PS4-VR.) We hope this new lab will be ready to book towards the end of Q1 2017. This is a re-purposing of the Gaming & Future Technologies Lab, which is not available while this re-fit takes place. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Observers. The smaller labs can cope with a participant, a facilitator and one observer, but if you want more observers (or don't want them disturbing the participant typing notes, or simply by their very presence,) you will benefit from booking the Live Observation Room, where observers can watch the PC screen and hear audio from any of the other labs. The observation room can accommodate 6 observers comfortably, 8-10 at a squeeze.

Recording

We can only record from ceiling cameras in the large Ambient Lab, (and from Q2 2017, the VRoom!) We can capture the screen activity and audio from the integral lab PCs in all of the other labs. The Tobii Eye-Tracker records to it's own internal hard disk, and you can take away these recordings on a USB stick or transfer to your own OU server share.

We usually send you a network link to your recordings which will enable you to copy them to your own server/disk. We cannot guarantee the recordings will be on our server longer than 90 days.

Note. For screen capture recording in all of the smaller labs it is your responsibility to start/stop this recording directly on the PC. Please ask a member of the Lab staff if you need instruction on how to do this. For Ambient Lab ceiling camera recording, please ask Lab staff to operate this for you.

If you want us to record your activities, select the type(s) you'd like.
(if you don't select any we'll presume you either don't want any recording or you're taking care of all your own recording using your own or our equipment.)

Technical Support

Please note general IT Support is not provided by lab staff. They are there to help you set up the existing lab equipment for usability and other experiments, and to record lab activity if this has been requested.

Some examples of technical problems they don't have the power to help with include passwords and user account problems, user access to OU file servers and live or development websites.

If you are using the lab for events, seminars or workshops that require additional IT equipment please contact IT for loan equipment and event IT support.

Additionally, if you need the ambient lab unset from it's default lecture-theatre state, you should book the porters to do this.

Labs terms and conditions of use

** You can find the complete Terms & Conditions at http://jennielee.open.ac.uk/labs/terms-and-conditions.cfm