| Purpose of protocol |
| To ease the task of making
files (documents, images, links, etc.) accessible on the School
of Medicine undergraduate teaching intranet server or on courses in Blackboard.
If the ‘jargon’ appears daunting, or if you require any advice,
do not hesitate to email: webmaster.feo |
| The
support team assisting you |
| A small team set up within
the FEO will process your request and locate your information in the appropriate
section(s) of the intranet site/Blackboard. We can also advise you to a limited
extent with regard to formatting your documents e.g. use of
fonts and styles. However, we do suggest that first you look at various
other examples on the intranet to see if you could improve your own version. |
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| Sending
materials |
| We require all material to
be submitted ideally by email
to: webmaster.feo with items as attachments within the message. See below (information
required) for other details that we need you to provide as part of
your email message. |
| Email submission
size limitation and alternative methods |
| email: webmaster.feo email is received on the College Exchange
Mail server. These servers currently limit receipt of files to 10 Mb or
less from within the Exchange server system of College. Files received
from outside of Imperial's Exchange system are normally restricted by
the sender's email provider, sometimes to a low limit of 4Mb. |
| File Exchange: ICT provide a secure portal through which very large, or
unemailable files, may be shared. https://fileexchange.imperial.ac.uk allows files up to 2Gb to be shared. It provides a filestore
location which should be sent to webmaster.feo together with instructions as to the course, date, title of lecture, etc.
Please note that files are automatically deleted 2-weeks following placement
in the secure store. |
Drop your files
into a share "Via the network": A network location
is available as a desktop icon on all teaching room PCs, but is also available
across the networks at
\\icfs1\group\fom\UG-Lects. |
| This location can also be accessed remotely via a VPN connection. Please
copy your file into the appropriate campus/room location. Please title
your file sensibly and meaningfully, and include the course, lecture title,
your name and date of lecture on the title slide of a presentation/document.
Please email webmaster.feo to remind us to retrieve the file. |
"Posting
a file to webmaster.feo": If you create a "post"
via a MAPI client, such as Outlook, on a College desktop machine or via
that client using a VPN
connection, the attachment is transmitted without size limitation.
You can submit files direct to the webmaster.feo public folder (All Public Folders/Faculty of Medicine Intranet/Undergraduate/webmaster.feo)
and create a "post" as a new message with your file(s) as attachment(s). Note: this will not be copied to your email Sent items directory.
This method of posting messages into a Public Folder also works via web
access to the Exchange email system (https://icex.imperial.ac.uk)
except that there is a 50Mb quota limit on attachments
sent as "posts". |
| If your files cannot be sent
by these methods, please consider use of alternative methods using removable
media. Please advise webmaster.feo by email if you have any problems and we will arrange a suitable means
of transferring your files. All submissions through this route must be
accompanied by an email to webmaster.feo with course details, etc., as above. |
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| Submission
timing |
| Please allow a reasonable
time for your request to be dealt with. Course material submitted
to webmaster.feo is normally published on the intranet or Blackboard within two working days of receipt. A same-day response cannot be guaranteed as it depends on
the volume of submissions. |
| Information
required with submission |
| Each email message should
contain only those items relevant to a single location on the intranet
and must include a brief description e.g. Year/Course name/Session
title/Date required by or after/etc. as part of the message body.
If we have to open each of your documents to find this information, this
will result in further delay in uploading documents to the server. If
you send material in advance and don't want it to be available immediately,
please specify the exact date/time when you would like it to be published,
eg "Please publish the answer file after the quiz on Tuesday 4 November
at 4 pm." |
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| Class
handouts |
| The
Learning Resources team is also responsible for producing copies of class
handouts and lecture notes for students for some courses. All requests
for materials to be copied should be sent to |
| Acceptable
formats for submission of intranet material |
Documents
are normally in one of the following formats:
- Word format (most submissions are likely to be in this format)
- PowerPoint presentation format
- Excel format
- Please note that all teaching rooms
and student cluster machines have the means to open Office 97 format
documents.
- image
files, e.g. for inclusion in web pages—preferably
in jpg or gif format (seek advice as to the resolution
and colour depth of images: generally jpg gives better
colour balance on screen as millions of colours are allowed,
whereas gif files only allow 256 colours. Animated sequences can
be stored as gif formats but not as jpg formats.
- pdf - you MUST also provide
the native file format so that we can be compliant with Disability
Legislation
- Quicktime video (please ensure Macintosh Quicktime files are saved in
the correct format for viewing with Quicktime-for-Windows)
- For sound and other video formats,
please enquire.
|
If files of other formats
are submitted, there may be further delay in
processing
them
whilst
they
are transferred into a format that can be viewed on the computer cluster
machines.
.exe formats generally will NOT be permitted - please enquire first if
your upload requires use of this file format. |
| Submission of data files or
executable files for other applications may also be made although it may
be necessary to locate executable files on network drives rather than
on the intranet server. Please enquire first if you wish executable files
to be available to the students. Please also note that we have found
that some executable files are impossible to mount so as to be accessed
from a network server. For this reason, last minute requests for such
a service are likely to be declined. |
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Fonts
- Whatever the content or document format
you use, you should consider the use of fonts. Within Imperial, students
will view your work using Windows workstations equipped with the standard
series of Windows fonts. Please ensure that your files use these standard
fonts. If not, check whether your application programme allows you
to ‘embed’ fonts with a document. We do not recommend this
as it can result in a very large file size. There are also copyright
issues relating to distributing licenced fonts. Our preference is
that you use a standard font e.g. Arial. Tables with numbers
may benefit from the use of a non-proportionally-spaced font such
as "Arial Uni-Code
MS" or "Courier
New"
|
File
names
- File names containing spaces can cause
problems with downloading for some users' systems, so please ensure
that there are no spaces in the file names you use. If you need to
separate the words in the file name then hyphens can be used, or simply
start each new word with a capital letter (e.g. MCD-session-6-handout.doc
or MCDSession6Handout.doc would both be acceptable). If you expect
to have many files submitted into the same section (directory) of
the intranet, it is also helpful to include a date or session number
as the first part of the filename, e.g. MCD-Micro1.ppt, MCD-Micro2.ppt,
etc.
- Please ensure that the filename bears
some resemblance to the title page within the document.
- Course convenors are also asked to
ensure that a copy of their course guide is made available electronically
to the intranet in advance of the start of the course: if not the
complete guide, the lecture timetable should be provided. This is
so that the session layout for subsequently-submitted course material
may be prepared.
|
| Content
submitted |
- The content must be relevant to the
course and we will assume that any submission has the approval of
the course leader or Head of Year, as appropriate.
- Copyright - see Library
information
For each piece submitted, you must check that either no copyright
exists, or that the you (or College) hold the copyright for all complete
components of the piece. Please email webmaster.feo and we will check with the library for advice on whether copies of electronic
journal articles are permitted to be stored on the intranet server.
- Electronic copies of copyrighted material
for which no electronic licence exists may be placed on the intranet
if the material was published in the UK. Guidelines for digitising such
content for re-publishing on the intranet are in preparation.
- Patients
Where patients are identifiable in the material
used, it is essential that their permission to be used in this way
as part of teaching/training has been explicitly obtained. If this
has not been obtained then patient data may be used but only after
it has been anonymised. Teachers are advised of Imperial's Code
of Practice on Handling of Patient Data on Imperial information
systems and Imperial's Information
Systems Security Policy
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Further
technical points -
especially for PowerPoint files
- Colour can enhance the on-screen appearance
of documents but students may still prefer to print in mono to avoid
the extra costs of colour printing. You should therefore use colour
with this in mind. If colour is used in a document, please ensure
that your document has an acceptable level of clarity when printed
in black & white/greyscale. Colour printers are not generally
available on Tier 2 clinical sites.
- Backgrounds with
graded shading should be avoided as these cause problems when printed
on some printers. the most common problem is the very large printer
file that is generated often causes extended delays in the printjob.
- PowerPoint - Use Imperial templates
wherever possible. These are designed to assist clarity. Further details
are available for Windows and for Macintosh users. The PowerPoint template pages shown on these 2 sites provide
much additional useful information to assist you in creating presentations
that have high clarity.
- Light colour backgrounds should be
used for PowerPoint presentations, for web page backgrounds or for
large areas of shading in other documents. Light backgrounds are also
easier for those with visual-impairment since there are more colour
possibilities for the overlaying text to provide the necessary contrast
than is possible if dark backgrounds are used.
- Red-on-blue, or vice versa,
for text or diagrams, MUST NOT be used
- When creating diagrams, use wide pen-widths
to provide clarity.
- Where practicable, reduce the colour
depth and resolution of all images embedded within documents. You
can do this within Word and PowerPoint documents by right-clicking
on an embedded image and changing the image property by compressing
the image. Please ask us for advice as to how to do this if you can't
see what to do.
- Scanned artwork/diagrams will inevitably
appear degraded from the original so always scan from the highest
quality original version of the image. Please check on your local
system(s) that the quality of scanned work is adequate when viewed
on-screen and after it is printed. When scanning printed
material, place a black card behind the page being scanned - this
will reduce the "bleed through" from the reverse side
of the viewed page. Please enquire if there is a problem.
- Try projecting your PowerPoint file
in a lecture theatre and view it from the back row. Can you read
it
clearly? Students in the Communications Programme are advised to
prepare slides with no more than 5 or 6 lines of text. How many
lines per page do your talks have?
- Consider the size of each image when
it is printed. A very large image may just fill the computer screen
but
will flow over several sheets of printout.
- If you wish to distribute software
to run on student clusters PCs, you MUST first seek advice.
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Problems
associated with web page systems
- The use of Frames in Web pages can
look fussy on screen but the real problem is that it may not be possible
to print the complete content of a scrollable frame.
- Javascript may be included as it works
with most web browsers.
- Java is now enabled on PC
clusters.
|
| Further information |
| Imperial's Information & Communication
Technologies Division (ICT) also provides help on a number of topics http://www.imperial.ac.uk/ict |
| Staff from ICT have also
assisted with the content of these notes having identified some of
the problems. |