Scheduling

Time on all microscopes and workstations must be reserved through the online calendar.

To help ensure availability of the microscopes for all users, the following rules are applied for the 3i Spinning Disk Confocal microscope:

  1. All users are allowed two active (future) reservations on the calendar.  To meet the NIH requirements from the original S10 grant funding this microscope, users from labs of the Major PIs on the grant (currently the Rose and Nunnari labs) will be allowed three active reservations. 
  2. A total of six (6) hours per week in prime time (9am to 5 pm weekdays) are allowed. 
  3. Any one session in prime time cannot exceed 3 hours.  If a user needs more than 3 hours of time, the extra time should be added either before or after the prime time period (for example, an allowed 5 hours reservation in the morning would be 7am to 12 noon and an allowed 5 hour reservation in the evening would be 2pm to 7pm). 
  4. All the time in which a user prevents the use of the microscope by other users must now be entered in the logbook as "use" time excluding microscope heating time.  Time spent heating the microscope to any temperature (e.g., 37 degrees) will not be billed but must be included in the reservation time.  
  5. Microscope cooling time from 37 degrees will not be billed and does not need to be included in the reservation.  However, for this rule to work, the following additional rules must be followed:  
    1. When making a reservation for 37 degrees use which immediately precedes an existing (ambient temperature) reservation, the 37oC reservation must allow for one hour of cool-down time before the ambient temperature reservation begins.
    2. When making an ambient temperature reservation immediately following an existing 37oC reservation, the ambient reservee must either accept that the microscope will be above ambient or else schedule the ambient reservation to allow one hour of cool down.
  6. Users who finish one hour or more before the end of their reserved time MUST call the next person on the reservation schedule.  A single call to the phone number on the reservation schedule is all that is required.  
  7. Users who do not show up for a reservation will be billed for the entirety of their reserved time.  
  8. Users who cancel their reservation more than 1.0 hour into their reservation will be billed for the entirety of their reserved time.  
  9. Users should NEVER pay for time spent debugging a problem on the microscope.  Please clearly indicate this debugging time in the "use" column on the left page or simply start your use time at the time you stopped debugging.  Make the time to be billed very clear on the left hand page of the logbook so that it will not be missed when the page is viewed for billing (which might occur up to one month later).  
  10. It is the job of the facility's staff to ensure that these rules are followed.  However, if any user notices that there is a rule-violating reservation on the calendar, we will welcome the violation being brought to our attention.