EWS Labs, EWS Policies

Account Policy

EWS Accounts allow the use of EWS Labs, FastX, and Citrix.

Engineering at Illinois Students

Students in a degree program in Engineering at Illinois, or a program that has a partnership with Engineering at Illinois, will automatically be given an EWS account as long as they are enrolled in at least one course for the current term. Those degree programs include:

  • Engineering at Illinois degree programs (Aerospace Engineering; Bioengineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Computer Science; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering; Materials Science Engineering; Mechanical Science and Engineering; Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering; and Engineering Physics. 
  • Masters in Financial Engineering (MSFE)
  • Computer Science + X degrees
  • Chemical Engineering (CHBE in the College of LAS)
  • Agricultural Engineering (ABE in the College of ACES)
  • LAS Physics
Students enrolled in one of the above degree programs will automatically be provisioned an EWS account and home directory as long as they are registered for classes during the current term. The EWS account allows students to access their home directory and to use EWS Labs, FastX, and Citrix.

When students in these programs leave the university, either through graduation or by other means, their EWS account will be deactivated and home directory removed from the EWS storage system. Files in the home directory cannot be restored once they have been removed. The removal will take place in between semester transitions based on the schedule below:

  • Fall to Spring: January 1
  • Spring to Summer: June 1
  • Summer to Fall: August 11
Before leaving the university, students should copy all the files that they need from their home directory before the above dates. 

Students enrolled in other colleges

Students enrolled in degree programs outside of Engineering (those not listed above) will be automatically provisioned an EWS account with a home directory while they are registered for at least one Engineering course. When the course ends, this course-based EWS account will be deactivated and access to the home directory will be terminated. Students should copy all files they need from their home directory before the last day of teh semester. 

Faculty/Staff

Faculty/Staff who have a current appointment with an Engineering at Illinois unit will automatically be provisioned an EWS account. This account is intended to support the instructional mission of the College of Engineering; please note that the terms of our software licenses prohibit the use of EWS labs for research purposes. 

Lab Reservation Policy

While lab reservation requests are generally approved on a first come first served basis, the primary function of the labs is to support instruction for Engineering at Illinois.  Therefore, reservation use-cases determine the priority of the request, which may result in existing reservations having to be changed.  The use-case priority list is as follows:

  1. Lab Maintenance
  2. Recurring formal course lecture and discussion sections.
  3. One-time reservation requests on a first come, first served basis.
  4. Requests from outside Engineering at Illinois will be reviewed on a case by case basis.

Because shared EWS labs are for general college use and already have a high reservation volume, we are unable to take reservations for office hours. Instructors are welcome to hold office hours in departmental labs (subject to availability, contact your department) or in EWS labs during open hours when the lab is not otherwise reserved while sharing with students using the lab for other coursework. We apologize for any inconvenience, but we must make sure our labs are available to the largest number of students possible. Thank you for your understanding.

In the event that an existing reservation will need to be changed to accommodate a request with higher priority to the instructional mission of Engineering at Illinois, EWS will work with all parties involved to see if alternate arrangements are feasible.

Lab Policy

  1. No food is permitted. Drinks are permitted in all locations except Siebel Center.
  2. No disruptive behavior. Headphones shouldn't be heard by others. Cell phone usage should be kept to a minimum.
  3. No sleeping is permitted.
  4. Your EWS account is not to be shared.
  5. All students are required to vacate the EWS labs at the designated lab closing times.
  6. Educational use of workstations takes priority.
  7. Machines left unattended for more than 10 minutes will be logged out.
  8. Do not reboot or unplug lab equipment.
  9. EWS is not responsible for lost, stolen, or unattended items.
  10. All computing activities must comply with University Policies.

Violation of any EWS policy can result in account suspension and/or loss of access to EWS resources.

Printing

For more details about printing and "best practices," please see our printing guide.

Background Policy

Policies for advertising on EWS computers:

1) Events advertised must be sponsored by the College of Engineering, or by a Society Affiliated with Engineering Council .
2) Images must be submitted in a graphics format (jpg, png) and be exactly 800x600 pixels in resolution. The image must be submitted to ews@illinois.edu along with the requested display dates.
3) Text in images must be properly formatted with no spelling or grammatical errors.
4) Images are displayed for 1-week (Monday- Sunday) on a first come, first served basis. EWS staff reserve the right to modify requested display dates to fit with preexisting requests.
5) EWS staff has final say as to whether or not an image is acceptable, and will only post images as workload permits. Display dates are therefore not guaranteed.

Research Computing Policy

The EWS Labs are not intended for research computing. EWS computers are intended only to support instruction. Installing or running any software not authorized by EWS or directly related to College of Engineering coursework is considered Research Computing. Please contact your department or advisor to find out what computing facilities are available to you.

Maintenance Window

EWS staff may reboot workstations and servers daily between the hours of 5am and 7am to perform preventative maintenance, software upgrades, and operating system patches. Whenever possible, advance warning will be given.

Additionally, every Monday morning between midnight and 5am EWS labs will receive the latest patches from Microsoft and other vendors such as Java, Adobe, etc. These patches will necessitate a system restart. This is a scheduled weekly event, unlike the 5am to 7am window which is for additional maintenance.



Keywords:Lab Account Policies Reservation Printing   Doc ID:84207
Owner:Gina D.Group:University of Illinois Engineering IT
Created:2018-07-23 10:12 CDTUpdated:2018-09-12 11:46 CDT
Sites:University of Illinois Engineering IT
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