Information for new academic staff, research staff and research postgraduates

Welcome to the School of Informatics!

Most computing services here are provided either by our own computing team or by Information Services (IS) which serves the whole University.

How to get help

To get help with Informatics computing services, use our computing support form. To get help with IS services, use the IS Helpline.

• ⇒ The computing support form (for Informatics).
• ⇒ IS Helpline.
• ⇒ List of computing services.

Wifi and network

To get access to the University's wifi network eduroam, visit ⇒ ed.ac.uk/wifi to set it up automatically, or follow the instructions on ⇒ How to set up wifi on your device.

Most desks have network ports for connecting personal laptops.

Your two accounts

• Your University Login is used for IS (university-wide) services like WiFi and mail.
• In addition, a DICE account will be needed if you want to use Informatics computing services.

A member of the admin team will give you the details for these accounts when you arrive. Please choose different passwords for your University Login and DICE accounts!

You can set the password for your DICE account using the ⇒ password portal. This will ask for your ⇒ Your University Login account details.

Learn about Linux and DICE

To find out more about Linux and DICE, see our ⇒ Linux page.

Your computer

• Academic staff will be provided with a computer funded by the School.
• Research-funded staff have their equipment funded by their research grant, if the grant provides for it.
• Research postgraduates: see the ⇒ Equipment allocation page.

The ⇒ Equipment allocation page has more details.

You can choose to have a desktop computer installed and managed by the School computing staff (either DICE Linux or Windows) or to manage it yourself.

Research

⇒ Computing Facilities for Research has more detailed information on a number of topics including group space, software, procurement, remote working and virtualisation.

Backups

If you keep University files on your computer, you should make backup copies of them.

• ⇒ Personal backups.
  
• ⇒ Backups and mirrors.

Legal

The use of all University computing and network facilities is governed by the University Computing Acceptable Use Policy and other relevant policies.

Security

The School also has a Good Practice Guide.

Getting started, and further reading

• Mail.
• Printing.
• Computing equipment allocation.
• DICE desktop (managed Linux PC).
• What is DICE?
• What is Kerberos?
• AFS, the Informatics filesystem.
• Various options for creating a web presence.
• Services provided by the School of Informatics.
• Services provided by the University's Information Services.
• Choosing a strong password.
• Encryption of devices.
• Computing Systems blog.