Student Service Guidelines

As a student at Aberystwyth University you are entitled to expect a high standard of service from Information Services. In return we hope that you will do everything possible to help us provide such a service.  These guidelines show what services you can expect from us and what we expect from you as students.

Information Services is committed to:

  • providing services which meet the needs of all students based in the University, in accordance with University policy on equality of opportunity and within available resources;
  • working with academic departments to ensure that our services are planned to meet the needs of students;
  • a policy of  confidentiality for personal information;
  • providing high quality services through well trained staff;
  • providing learning materials, electronic sources of information and computing facilities to support the curriculum;
  • securing feedback from students;
  • providing cost effective services to students;

These general commitments have been translated into statements of good practice as they relate to specific aspects of the service.

Access

Information Services  is committed to:

  • offering access to the Library and IT facilities that meet the reasonable needs of both full and part-time students;
  • making appropriate arrangements, including the provision of specialist equipment and services, to support students with specific needs;
  • exploiting new technology to provide remote access, both on and off campus, to sources of information, and for delivery of documents and computing services;
  • providing students with the opportunity to consult their own Information Services record, including loans and reservations;
  • accepting enquiries made in person, in writing, by telephone, by fax or electronic mail;

Accommodation

Information Services is committed to:

  • providing a pleasant and welcoming environment for students to work in;
  • having campus libraries and workstation rooms which are well-arranged and clearly signposted, so as to be easy and quick for students to use;
  • providing library and workstation room accommodation on all sites with sufficient seating for students wishing to work with our resources;
  • providing a variety of study accommodation and computing access to allow students to work either in groups or individually.

Learning Resources

Information Services is committed to:

  • providing a suitable collection of materials to meet the needs of students for course work;
  • supplying key texts and journals to support postgraduate and research studies;
  • providing a database of library stock which allows students to search for material in a variety of ways;
  • providing access to a range of electronic information sources;
  • providing a reservations service for books which are in stock but not currently available;
  • supplying appropriate items not in stock through purchase, interlibrary loan or electronic document delivery;
  • satisfying, or reporting on, interlibrary loan requests as quickly as possible;
  • reshelving all returned material as quickly as possible;
  • providing high specification PCs and graphics machines in public workstation rooms accompanied by high speed local area networking;
  • providing a wide range of software packages both for public workstations and the central Unix system;
  • providing central filestore and printing facilities
  • access to e-mail and Web services for AU students
  • provision, sale and rental of computing hardware, and provision and sale of software and consumables such as floppy disks and paper.

Public Services

Information Services is committed to:

  • providing an information and computer advisory service with adequate staffing throughout normal weekday working hours;
  • responding to quick reference  enquiries immediately, and dealing with specialist enquiries requiring referral within three working days;
  • providing introductory guidance on Information Services to all new students through training sessions, printed material and  electronic publicity;
  • providing guidance in the use of specialist information sources and computing software to support project and assignment work;
  • providing guidance on external sources of information and introductions where necessary.
  • operating a fault reporting and repair system on publicly provided PCs to ensure a high level of availability.

Photocopying and Printing

Information Services is committed to:

  • providing self service photocopiers in all libraries for the production of A4 black and white copies, with the fullest possible operational availability;
  • providing a staffed colour and transparency photocopying service at the Hugh Owen Library;
  • providing black and white laser printing facilities at locations throughout the University with fullest possible operational availability including in some locations during unattended periods;
  • providing scanning facilities as appropriate and colour, transparency and large format printing facilities centrally.

Communicating with Students

Information Services Staff are committed to:

  • maintaining helpful and courteous communications with students;
  • securing feedback from students through paper and electronic 'Suggestion' forms, an annual user survey, teaching assessment exercises and other appropriate means such as the Information Services Users Committee;
  • responding quickly to complaints, which should be made to the appropriate member of staff on duty;
  • giving a contact name, telephone number and e-mail address in all correspondence with students;
  • disseminating information regularly on changes and developments in Information Services.

Student Responsibilities

Students undertake to help by:

  • treating other users and staff with respect and courtesy at all times;
  • observing Information Services rules and regulations, which exist to enable us to best meet the needs of all students, in particular noting the following points:
  • observing noise restrictions in the Library;
  • refraining from eating, drinking, smoking, using personal stereos and personal   phones in the libraries and workstation rooms;
  • returning library books and other materials promptly and by paying outstanding fines;
  • accepting responsibility for all items borrowed against their Information Services card, and not passing the card on to other students;
  • never communicating their computing password to anyone else;
  • only making proper use of computing equipment and resources;
  • ensuring that computer services are not used so as to contravene the Acceptable User regulations of JANET and ensuring that other users do not become exposed to offensive material;
  • not attempting to break the integrity or security of computer systems
  •  in no circumstances attempting to remove material from the Library without it being properly issued;
  • not defacing, damaging or removing any Information Services equipment or other property.
  • familiarising themselves with the contents of user guides and instructions;
  • observing copyright restrictions on print, audio-visual and electronic sources of information;
  • observing licence regulations applying to computer software and other computing resources.