All staff are invited to complete an online Disability Survey by Friday 8 February, regardless of whether or not they have a disability or line manage someone with a disability. Responses will help shape how the College caters for the needs of staff with disabilities.
The departments with the highest response rates will be entered into a draw to receive a gourmet food hamper to share. The survey takes less than 10 minutes to complete and is anonymous.
ICT will shortly be launching an interactive voice recognition (IVR) system to provide an automated switchboard service. Callers will be prompted to name the person or department they wish to speak to and the IVR system will route the call to the intended recipient. If the name is not recognised by the system or if the caller wishes to speak to someone they can say “switchboard”, “operator” or press 0 to route the call to switchboard operators. Staff can also use the system as an internal directory enquiries service, for example by dialling it and requesting “give me the number for John Smith”.
The system will go live for internal calls on Monday 3 December 2012, and for calls from outside on Monday 17 December. Staff can test the system now by dialling ext. 43434 from a College extension or Mobex and requesting their number.
Where details are not recognised by the system staff should check their College Directory entry is in place by visiting the College Directory.
Staff with queries should contact Stuart Kerr, Telephone Services Manager (s.kerr@imperial.ac.uk).
The upgrade of ICIS, required to ensure that Imperial maintains high levels of support from the software supplier and to facilitate future developments to the system, is currently scheduled from 17.00 on 29 November until 4 December, subject to successful testing. During this period staff will be unable to raise purchase orders, generate any other transactional data items, or access iRecruitment. Other systems which draw data from ICIS may also be affected.
Confirmation of the outage and its duration will be sent to all ICIS users in the week commencing 26 November. Further details of the project can be found in Staff Briefing #83.
For more information on the upgrade and for a full list of systems affected, please refer to the ICIS R12 Upgrade Web Page.
Olympic athletes will be training in the sports centre, Ethos, during the Games. As a result, the following changes to access will come into effect:
All other facilities in Ethos are open as usual.
The latest information on the availability of Ethos facilities can be found here.
The College’s Access Agreement 2013-14 has been approved by the Office for Fair Access (OFFA). English institutions wishing to charge tuition fees of more than £6,000 for 2013-14 were required to submit an Access Agreement setting out their intended fee levels and the measures they would put in place to sustain or improve access and student retention.
Imperial’s Agreement can be read on OFFA’s website
The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has approved the Masterplan proposals for Imperial West, the new campus located on the former BBC site on Wood Lane. The planning permission will allow the College to bring together research and teaching facilities, postgraduate accommodation, commercial and residential space, and new retail and leisure services on the 88,000 sq m site. The application also included plans for a 20,000 sq m business incubator, a publicly accessible square and improved pedestrian and cycle routes.
Proposals for how the College might best take advantage of the opportunities presented by Imperial West will be developed over the coming months.
The International Office has set up an Information Stand in the Main Entrance for prospective students which will be open every weekday between 10.30–16.30 over the summer. Any prospective student, from the UK or overseas, is welcome to visit the stand to pick up information about the College, including prospectuses and self-guided tour leaflets, and to discuss any questions with a member of the student recruitment team.
In addition, student Rector’s Ambassadors will lead three campus tours per day on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, at 11.00, 13.00 and 15.00. Advance tour booking is encouraged but not required. For more information or to book a campus tour, prospective students should refer to the ‘Campus Tour’ section of this webpage: www.imperial.ac.uk/visit
Please encourage prospective students to make use of these services. Any enquiries can be directed to visit@imperial.ac.uk
The College is proposing to create an academic building to house molecular sciences and engineering activities on the site of the Roderic Hill building once the Department of Aeronautics moves into newly refurbished facilities in 2017. The aim would be to establish a new collaborative, sustainable, efficient and flexible environment suited to research and teaching in laboratory and non-laboratory facilities for decades to come. The project would also provide the opportunity to showcase new technology in the operation of the building.
The Project Board are looking for proposals from individuals, groups or spin-out companies at the College that can feed into the development of the new building. Ideas could include suggestions for:
Ideas that fall outside of these categories would also be welcome. Funding of up to £10,000 will be awarded to successful proposals.
The competition is open to the entire Imperial College community and expressions of interest should be sent to Emma Sharp at: e.sharp@imperial.ac.uk by 17.00 on 15 October 2012
Road restrictions in operation throughout the Olympic and Paralympic Games are expected to hinder the ability of suppliers to deliver goods to Imperial’s London campuses. As a result, the Events team are implementing a 72 hour notice period for all catering bookings, amendments and cancellations between 25 July and 7 September 2012, in order to ensure a consistently high level of service.
Questions regarding any catering booking throughout this time should be directed to the Events team by email, or on 020 7594 9220.
Following consultation across the College, the Information Systems Security Group within ICT has recently registered all staff telephone extensions for the Corporate Telephone Preference Service (TPS), the UK’s central opt-out registration service for unsolicited sales and marketing calls.
This service will be fully activated on 9 July, at which point it will be a legal requirement that companies do not make unsolicited sales and marketing calls to College extensions. Members of staff who experience such phone calls can make a complaint to TPS via this website.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Corporate TPS can be found here.
Questions should be directed to Stuart Kerr, Telephone Services Manager, by email.