Work on parking places janskerkhof

In order to make our life a bit nicer… the municipality has decided to start working on the car parking at janskerkhof starting December 2nd for three weeks. They are adding extra places to store your bike, and they are removing parking spots at janskerkhof. So be prepared to extra noisy days at the lab.

Work on the floor tiles near k02/elevator

The floor tiles near the elevator are currently not very flat. To avoid accidents, the floor will be leveled at December 9th. This means that there is some construction work and the labs are closed. You are still welcome to work e.g. in k.06 have a meeting in k05 etc, however, running experiments is not recommended. Also the hallway near the toilets will not be as accessible as you are used to.

Labs closed for Christmas 2024-2025

The labs will be closed for Christmas (no access at all) from Saturday December 21 until Monday January 6.

Starting Monday January 6, regular opening hours will apply.

Enjoy your holiday!

Limited lab support on Thursday November 14th

The Dutch government has announced far-reaching cuts to higher education funding. These cuts will not only affect education, but will impact all activities of Utrecht University including the research that we support here at the labs.

To protest these cuts, there will be a national gathering and a march right here in Utrecht. You can read more about it if you like. The team here at the labs will be attending, and we encourage you to attend as well!

As a result there will be no lab support on Thursday the 14th from 12pm onwards. Support will resume at some point later on in the day. During this time the labs will remain open and planned research can continue, though we won’t be available to help if something goes wrong.

We hope to see you at the Moreelsepark!

– The ILS labs staff

Maintainance Fire Installation

The fire detection installation of janskerkhof13(a) is working, but in a very bad state. Hence, there is maintenance planned. The work is scheduled from November 18th, until November 29th. However, the work is not so loud and should not place a burden on the labs. Except for two days, then the laborers are in lab and might affect your study, these days are: the 19th and the 25th, for these days the labs are blocked in fris for that reason.
Your free to work in k06 and k04, but the people are replacing smoke alerts etc, so perhaps bring some masking music.

Issues with SURFDrive – check your access

SURFDrive is a file storage and sharing service provided by SURF, which we list among others as an option for storing your (research) data. After a certain amount of time spent inactive, SURFDrive accounts become disabled and eventually the files are removed.

This is not a problem in itself, and in fact benefits data security. However it has come to our attention that emails notifying inactive accounts are not being sent consistently, possibly resulting in unintentional data loss.

Relevant parties have been informed of the issue. For now all we can do is recommend the following to anyone who has used SURFDrive: Log in to your account here and make sure that you still have access to your files. If any data you find there is of high importance, make sure that you have a copy in a place more suited for long-term storage. The UU Storage Finder can help you choose a storage solution that suits your needs.

If you find that your account has in fact been disabled, you can have it restored by contacting the UU IT servicedesk (servicedesk@nulluu.nl). Please do not contact the ILS Labs about restoring your account, as sadly we can not help on that front.

Noisy renovation canal walls – update September 17

The canal walls at Drift (Nobelstraat side) will be renovated from September-January. Builders will be working between 7 and 16h (occasionally until 19h). The work will consist of several stages:

• early September and throughout the project: materials will be brought in with small motor boats. (update: this is not audible inside the sound attenuated booths)
• mid September – November: poles will be put in the water to fortify the wall’s foundation. This will involve heavy machinery, and will be noisy – quite possibly in a way that will also be audible inside the sound attenuated booths.
• November-January: works that involve less heavy machinery – we have no idea how noisy this will be.

We are in contact with the municipality, and will update this post if we learn more details. Do check out the situation before scheduling participants (ask lab staff and go see for yourself).

Summer time in the lab 2024 – update June 28

Summer is here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

• From Monday July 15 to Friday August 16, the building will have restricted opening hours:
  • • Monday-Thursday 8-18h
    • Friday 8-17.30h
• The labs will be closed August 12-16 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it difficult to get to Janskerkhof 13. (Strictly speaking the UIT-dagen are August 12-15, but our experience is that August 16 is usually still a bit noisy as well). No lab support will be available on these days.
• The rest of the summer, there will be lab support in room 0.09, but we may miss a day here or there due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day, check in advance via ilslabs@nulluu.nl.
• The lab managers will be away for longer stretches of time in summer, so if you need Desiree or Iris, definitely check in advance when they’ll be there.
• Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment is rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please contact Iris Mulders by July 8.

Small disturbances in the lab

July 4th: Some people from FCS will inspect the building with respect to the planned renovation of Janskerkhof 13, hence some slots have been blocked in fris so your experiment will not be disturbed half way through.

July 5th: Same as July 4th.

July 12th: There will be no power in the University library. This is where the people from security live. Hence, the doorbells of our building will not respond, as there is no one listening at the other end. There is a phone number that can be called: 06-34103455. But it might be a good idea to give them details about how to contact you direct so you’ll be able to open the door for your participants.

Spring holidays 2024

Like all faculty buildings, Janskerkhof 13 will be closed on the following spring holidays:

• Ascension Day: Thursday 9 May and Friday 10 May (obligatory leave day)
• Whitsun: Saturday 18 May to Monday 20 May

March 18th Ils labs keys are digital (FTS)

The Ils labs their locks are going to be changed this Monday march 18th. The oldschool cylinders for physical keys are going to be replaced with passes that are digital. People can fetch the digital keys from the same key locker as before, but they resemble campus cards. You should hold the card before the new door knob. A light should flash green and from that moment you can rotate the lock in order to open the door, much like you are used to with your key.

In the picture the knob at the left is located at the outside of the door. On the inside (rigth side of the image) of the door is an regular locking knob. The one on the inside always works. The one on the outside has to be activated with the new keys. Once activated it remains active for +/- 5 seconds.

The labs k.10, k.11, k.12 and k.13 have a door for which don’t have a regular door handle, only a knob. Those doors are “hard” to shut quietly. With the keys you were able to turn the lock and then shut the door and finally release the key in order to shut them gently. The same thing holds for the new locks, you’ll have to activate the lock, and then you should be able to turn it and shut door without having to slam it shut.

Our e-mail address has changed!

You can now reach the lab managers and lab technicians using ilslabs@nulluu.nl.

We’ll still monitor our old address for the time being. However, using the new e-mail will result in a quicker response.

Elevator maintance/check

At Thursday 14-march there will be a small elevator inspection between 8:00 and 12:30. The elevators might not be available for users. The inspection should be silent, so your research can be conducted uninterrupted.

Labs closed for Christmas 2023-2024

The labs will be closed for Christmas (no access at all) at the following times:

• Monday December 25, until Monday January 1.
• From Tuesday January 2 to Friday January 5, the building will be closed during the evening: from 17:30h. In this week, no lab support will be available.

Starting Monday January 8, regular opening hours will apply.

Enjoy your holiday!

Maintenance works in August – update

• On August 22 23 and 24, Hoek will isolate the pipes in K.14 and the technical rooms. They expect to not make much noise, but probably enough to make it a bad idea to run participants in K.13 or K.10. They will do this on Wednesday August 23 before 13h, and may continue the work on Thursday August 24 before 11h.
• On August 31 Wednesday August 30, signage in the whole building will be updated by Fa. De Vries Project Design to reflect the name change from UiL OTS to ILS. Again, not a whole lot of noise probably, but don’t run any participants.

Summer time in the lab 2023

Summer is here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

• From July 10 until August 20 the building will have restricted opening hours, namely Monday-Friday 8:00 – 18:00h.
• The labs will be closed August 14-17 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it difficult to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• The rest of the summer, there will be lab support in room 0.09, but we may miss a day here or there due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.
• Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment is rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please contact Iris Mulders.

Absence on June 29th

On Thursday June 29th, there will be no lab support available in 0.09.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Absence on June 1st

On Thursday June 1st, there will only be lab support in 0.09 in the morning. The lab will remain open, but there won’t be any tech support from 11:30 onwards as a result of a staff outing.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Absence on April 20th

Because of a staff outing, there will be no lab technical support available on the afternoon of Thursday april 20th, from 14:30 onwards. The hotline will also not be answered. Lab support will continue as normal the next day.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Spring holidays

Like all faculty buildings, Janskerkhof 13A will be closed on the following spring holidays:

• Easter – Friday 7 April to Monday 10 April
• King’s Night – Wednesday 26 April from 17:30h
• King’s Day – Thursday 27 April
• Liberation Day – Friday 5 May
• Ascension – Thursday 18 May to Friday 19 May
• Whitsun – Saturday 27 May to Monday 29 May

See https://intranet.uu.nl/en/news/announcements/opening-hours-humanities-april-and-may-2023.

Check emergency lights

Wednesday 1 February, 8-9 am, the emergency lights will be checked in the labs. No noise expected.

Construction work

Some construction work will be carried out to create a bypass for the heating pipes via the hallway (to get rid of the noise in K.13):

• Wednesday 14.12 between 8.00u – 9.00h construction firm W&A will reroute the water pipes.
• Thursday 15.12 between 8-9h or 12-17h WL techniek will reroute the ‘bmi handmelder’.
• Monday 19.12 8-11h VERY NOISY drilling in the wall of K.14.
• Friday 23.12 8-10h somewhat noisy drilling in the wall of K.14.

NEN inspection of most of the electrical equipement in the lab will be carried out on:

• Tuesday 13 december 13:00-17:00
• Tuesday 17 december 10:00-17:00 08:00-09:00 (went faster than expected)

It will not be possible to run experiments during these times.

Holiday break 2022

According to the closure of university buildings around Christmas and the New Year, the labs will be closed as well. Starting on December 24th, the labs will be closed and inaccessible until January 2nd, so make sure to plan your work around this gap.

Additionally, there will be a week of as-need-be lab support starting January 2nd in which there won’t always be a staff presence in 0.09. Send us an email if you need assistance, or call the hotline for urgent matters as always.

The ILS Labs would like to thank everyone involved with the lab for their efforts this past year. Please accept our merriest wishes for the holidays and the new year to come!

Reduced lab support 22 november

Due to staff availability, lab support will only be available through the hotline (06-2273 6073) today.

As it’s manned from a different building on Drift, it’s still possible to get in-person support.

Scaffolding taken down (Drift 17)

On Friday 25 November, the scaffolding at Drift 17 will be removed, which might cause some noise. This will probably happen in the morning (no guarantees though).

Lift out of order plus noise – Monday 31 Oct 2022

Due to some (noisy!) maintenance work, the lift at Janskerkhof 13a will not be available during Monday 31 October 2022.

[Resolved] No heating or warm water at JHK13/13 – 12 Oct 2022

Update 2022-10-13: The problem had been solved; hot water is back.

We were just informed that during maintenance work by Eneco, a problem occurred at Drift. There is now no heating or hot water in any of the Drift buildings and in JKH13/13a. They hope to solve this issue asap.

[Resolved] Technical issues logging in to lab PCs under Linux

• Update 2022-09-30: The issue is mostly resolved, with only some straggler PCs remaining.
• Update 2022-10-07: The issue has been resolved.

Lab users may currently face difficulties while trying to log in to Linux on computers in the lab. Lab support is aware of the issue and we’re working on a solution. It is worth noting that not all PCs appear to be affected, so if you just need any old linux computer feel free to try and log in to multiple different computers.

If you’re having issues logging in to run an experiment or other critical work: there is a manual workaround available. Please call the lab support hotline and we’ll make sure you can log in.

Lift out of order – Tue 11 Oct 2022 – 8.00-12.30 h

Due to regular maintenance work, the lift at Janskerkhof 13a will not be available during the morning of Tuesday 11 October.

Building maintenance September 5 until first week of November – update September 21

Update September 16: building the scaffolding will continue until Friday September 23 (so one week longer than we hoped for).
Update September 21: due to the excessive noise the lab technicians will not be working in 0.09, but elsewhere on Drift, on September 21st. (And maybe the 22nd and 23rd as well) The hotline will, of course, still be answered.

Original message:
There will be a lot of construction work going on in Janskerkhof 13/13A in the period September 5 – November 4. Measuring participants will be difficult to impossible during this time:

• September 5 – 16 23 and October 24 – November 4: scaffolding will be built or taken down around the building, this involves very noisy drilling and hammering that will even be heard in the soundproofed labs. Measuring participants is not possible during this time, except after 16h (when the workmen go home).
• The rest of this time period (so September 19 26 – October 21), there will be painting, roof maintenance, and some plumbing work. Working in a soundproof booth will probably be possible most (but not all) of the time. There is some (limited!) flexibility for experiments in labs that are not soundproofed; we can ask the contractor (at least a week in advance) to plan the works in such a way that experiments in these rooms are possible at specific times. Running participants after 16h is always possible. If you intend to do any experiments during this time, let lab support know so we can flesh things out with the contractor.

Here’s the current planning:

Planning gevelonderhoud Janskerkhof 13 en 13 A

Lab closed on september 2nd

On september 2nd FSC will make noisy repairs on the heating system in the lab. This will making working/testing in the lab impractical to impossible.

If you need other lab support on that day, please mail us in advance.

Summer time in the lab 2022

Summer is here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

Covid measures

Covid is on the rise again. Please do a self test regularly to prevent infecting participants. Self tests are available in all the labs that are currently measuring participants (K.02, K.12 and K.13). If you run out, please ask lab support. Also see the lab Covid protocol.

Lab support availability

Support in July and August may be patchy due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day in July or August, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

No lab support will be available for sure:

• during the UIT-dagen, August 15-18 (see below)

Building/lab closures

• From July 9 until August 31, all faculty buildings will close early: they will be open from 8h until 17h (no access at all after 17h, not even with an XS card).
• The lab will be closed August 15-18 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• There will be renovation/maintenance activities going on in September and October. The precise impact on experiments is not known yet, of course we will try to keep the lab open as much as possible but we’re not sure yet what will be possible.

Adult participant recruitment

Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment is rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please contact Iris Mulders before Tuesday July 12.

Logging into FRIS not possible at the moment

Update: the problems have been resolved and you should be able to log in again.

Due to technical problems, logging into FRIS is not possible at the moment. We are working on a solution and will update this post once we have resolved the issue.

Reduced labsupport

In the afternoon > 14:30 on Wednesday June 29th there will be reduced lab support as they have a social activity with Digital Humanities IT.

Easter holidays and staff outing

Due to the easter holidays the building, and thus the lab, will be closed on Friday the 15th and Monday the 18th.

Additionally, there will be no lab support in the afternoon on Thursday 14th due to a staff outing.

No lab support Thursday morning

Due to unforseen circumstances, there will be no lab support present tomorrow morning (31st March). There should be someone present in 0.09 from 13:00 onwards.

Corona protocol updated (February 2022)

Please note that the lab corona protocol has been updated. Even though masks are not required by the Dutch government any more, we will still use them in the lab whenever 1.5 m distance cannot be kept between you and your participant.

Lab closed this afternoon

Due to the coming storm, the UU is closing the buildings this afternoon (Feb 18th) from 12:45

No lab support today

Due to illness, there will be no lab support available today in 0.09. We’ll do respond to emails/teams.

Labs closed: Wednesday 16 Feb between 11.00 and 14.30 h

The radiator in K.03b will be replaced. There is a chance of noise though the pipes between 11.00 h and 14.30 h.

Monday 14 Feb 2022: some noise in K.03B

The floor covering in k.03b will be replaced. This may cause some noise. The work will start at 8 am and will take about an hour.

Labs closed Thursday 10 February 12.30 – 15.30 h

Final work on heating system (pump). Perhaps there is only little noise, but no guarantees. Contact d.j.h.capel@nulluu.nl if you need to work in any of the labs.

Fire safety inspections – Tuesday morning 15 March 2022

Fire safety inspections – there will be minimal disturbance, and labs in use will not be entered.

Labs closed on Monday 10 January 2022

All labs will be closed on Monday 10 January due to work where the electricity will be cut off.

Christmas Break 2021 and reduced lab support – Update January 6

According to the closure of university buildings around Christmas and the New Year, the labs will be closed as well. From December 24th 15:00 until January 3rd the labs will be closed and inaccessible, so make sure to plan your work around this gap.

Additionally, lab support will be patchy at best starting Wednesday December 22; furthermore, once the building has reopened in January, there will be reduced lab technical support until January 10th due to staff vacations. Also note that the labs will have limited opening hours in the week of January 3: Monday-Friday from 8.30 until 16.30h. From the 10th, access without a campus card will only be possible through the door of 13a.

The ILS Labs would like to thank everyone involved with the lab for their efforts this past year. Please accept our merriest wishes for the holidays and the new year to come.

Labs closed on Tuesday 21 December 2021

All labs will be closed on Tuesday 21 December because of (another attempt to) work on the heating system. It will be noisy and (very) cold.

Labs closed on Thursday 2 December 2021 – work on heating system

All labs will be closed on Thursday 2 December because of work on the heating system. It will be noisy and (very) cold.

Labs NOT closed Thursday 25 November and Monday 29 November

We have just been informed that work on the heating system will not go ahead. The labs will thus be OPEN, also on Thursday, November 25 and Monday, November 29, 2021.

Labs Drift-side closed Tuesday 7 and Wednesday 8 December until 10 am

Due to an inspection of the outside walls of JKH13, the labs on the side of the Drift will be closed until 10 am.

Reduced labsupport

Tomorrow morning (oktober 20th)  there will be reduced lab support. In the morning after roughly 11:00 there will be someone available.

Labs partly closed 23 Aug – 20 Sept 2021 – Update

Because of urgent work on the heating system, the labs will be partly closed in the period of Monday 23 August until Friday 20 September, every day starting from 13h. (So measuring is still possible until 13h).

Labs closed during UIT week (16 – 20 Aug 2021)

During the UIT week (Utrecht Introduction Week) student activities may take place around Janskerkhof 13/13a, causing noise. We therefore close the labs during this week.

Discontinuation of personal labhome folders

Dear lab user,

As a user of the ILS Labs you currently have access to a private folder on the lab network storage. You may know this folder as your private folder on the L-drive; also see ‘Labhome’ on this page: https://ils-labs.wp.hum.uu.nl/how-to/understanding-research-data-storage-in-the-ILS-labs/.

The file server that hosts these private folders is old, and will need to be switched off soon. Your personal folder will be shut down and archived on March 8.

If you want to keep using your personal folder, it can be moved for you to a private project folder on the O-drive, with you as the only project member.

To see what data you have in your personal folder, you can follow the instructions at the bottom of this email.

Please let us know before March 8 if you want your data to be moved for you. If you do not respond to this email, we will assume that you do not use this private folder, and we will archive it.

If you have any questions, please contact ictenmedia@nulluu.nl.

Best,
ICT en Media

How to access your private lab folder:

Option 1:
The easiest way is through https://myworkplace.uu.nl, a virtual environment where you can access your university drives and campus-licensed software from your browser. When you first log in, you will be asked whether you want to install Citrix Receiver – choose yes. Go to APPS and search for “Windows Explorer”; open it, and find your labhome folder listed under the L-drive.

The Myworkplace route should work for all BA and (R)MA students, and for teaching staff. It may not work for PhD students and postdocs. If it does not work for you, you can make a VPN connection and mount your personal lab drive as a folder:

Option 2A: Windows
Follow the steps in https://manuals.uu.nl/en/handleiding/u-and-o-drive-on-windows-10-vpn/, BUT, in step 20, choose L: as the drive letter, and paste in \\dfs.hum.uu.nl\uilots\labhome
NB: on newer Windows installations, you may get an error message telling you that you are not allowed to connect to the network drive because it uses the old, less secure SMB1-protocol. You can fix that (if you have admin rights on your computer) by following the instructions here.

Option 2B: Mac OS
Make a VPN connection: follow the steps in https://manuals.uu.nl/en/handleiding/vpn-on-macos/.
Then follow the steps here https://manuals.uu.nl/en/handleiding/u-en-o-schijf-op-macos-smb/, BUT, in step 2, paste in smb://dfs.hum.uu.nl/uilots/labhome

General user meeting

As research was stopped due to the COVID-19 crisis, some of our regular meetings haven’t been as regular lately. Now that research is slowly resuming both online as well as in the lab, we want to resume our meetings as well in a slightly different format.

This meeting is for anyone working in our lab or using other (online) lab resources, to exchange project ideas, experience with different (new) tools, to discuss the planning of different experiments and to stay in touch. This meeting will be organised alongside existing meetings that have continued through the crisis.

The next meeting is Tuesday April 6th at 10:00am on MS Teams.
(Further meeting dates can be found on the meeting page)

Invites are sent by e-mail. If you didn’t receive an invite but want to attend the meeting you can contact Marijn Struiksma for an invite.

Labs re-opening (cont.)

Due to the Covid-19 situation, lab capacity and lab support is reduced. Dependent on the circumstances, we need to determine how many, and which, experiments can be performed simultaneously. René Kager, director of the ILS, takes the final decision in this.

If you intend to conduct your experiment in one of the ILS Labs or online (i.e. those for which you need technical support), please send an advance notice to René Kager.

Before a final ‘go’ decision can be taken, please make sure:

1. you have obtained formal approval for your study by the Faculty Ethics Assessment Committee;
2. your experiment has been programmed and your stimuli have been created, i.e. your experiment is ready to be conducted*;
3. you have arranged for (or you are in the process of arranging for) someone who can test your participants (if this is not you).

Once all of this has been arranged for, you may contact René Kager. For questions, send an e-mail to labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

*If you need access to the labs in order to prepare your experiment, please check e.g. New here, Lab access request. Note that members of the technical support team should be contacted by e-mail, since we are all requested to work from home whenever possible.

Christmas break 2020-2021

Around Christmas and New Year, the buildings of the Faculty of Humanities, including the ILS Labs, will be closed from 15:00 on 24 December 2020 until Sunday 3 January 2021. The staff of the lab is limited between Monday 21 December and Monday 11 January.

CGN has moved

In an ongoing effort to fase-out our old fileserver, we have moved the CGN (Corpus Gesproken Nederlands) to the O-Drive. You can find it under O:\Research\GW\Projects\CGNv2.

For information on how to access the O-Drive, please see this How-To. In addition, this page has more information on how to use the CGN.

Labs (slowly) re-opening

We are slowly re-opening the ILS Labs at Janskerkhof 13(a). This means that the labs will not be as accessible as you might be used to for the months to come. The building at Janskerkhof 13(a) may only house up to 30% of the normal number of people. Hence, not all labs are available at all times.

Startup protocol

The WOOz (Werkgroep Opstart Onderzoek) has approved of our startup protocol (in Dutch). Please read this document carefully if you consider doing research in the ILS Labs. We will start with one of the experiments that was about to commence in March, a baby experiment. When all goes well, we can gradually increase the number of experiments running simultaneously in the labs. Should you have specific plans for a lab experiment, please contact René Kager, Research Director of the ILS. Since not all planned experiments can run at the same time, prioritization is necessary.

Experimentation (online) tools

Normally the lab supports Zep experiments. We are aware that running Zep inside of the lab, or with an experimental laptop may not always be possible at the moment. Therefore, we are working on setting up possibilities for online experiments; more information will be published on this website in due course.

Labs closed

As of Thursday, March 19, all buildings of the Faculty of Humanities will be closed. This includes the ILS Labs. We realize that this has huge implications for your research, and we are very sorry to bring you this news, but this is what it is. We will all have to be flexible and creative, especially since we do not know yet how long this situation will last.

Today, Wednesday March 18, is the last possibility to enter the building and pick up necessary things you may need.

• Do you need something and cannot make it tomorrow? Contact Marijn
• Do you have equipment at home? Please keep it there, or contact Iris @ 06-236 06 239
• Do you want to borrow equipment? This may be difficult to organize today, and the usefulness is debatable; contact Marijn or Iris to discuss possibilities.

If you have any questions, please contact Iris Mulders I.C.M.C.Mulders@nulluu.nl, 06-236 06 239.

Students and researchers are encouraged to contact their supervisors, so that you can jointly discuss possible solutions.

We wish everyone strength and good health in this difficult situation.

Stay healthy!

Update – No participants in the lab until April 6

There will be no experiments conducted with participants in the ILS Labs until April 6. This applies to all experiments; whether participants are infants, children or adults.

The building Janskerkhof 13 will stay open (at least for now). Students and staff are encouraged to work from home as much as possible; do not come to the lab if you don’t have to. Don’t sit closely together, keep some distance. If you have a cough, shortness of breath or a fever, please do not come to Janskerkhof (or to any other university building) at all.

Lab support will also work from home as much as possible. If you need support, you can ask your question and/or make an appointment via phone 06-2273 6073 or email labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

With these measures we are doing what we can to prevent further spread of the corona virus. UU policy can be found at https://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/practical-matters/information-coronavirus.

If you have any questions, please contact Iris at 06-236 06 239.

Reduced lab support

Starting tomorrow (Thursday, February 27), but probably also next week, there will be limited lab support due to circumstances.

The schedule until further notice:

• Between 9:00 and 11:00, there will be no one around at JK 13 room 009, but the hotline will (usually) be answered.
• From 11:00 until 17:00, there will be lab support, but due to us being understaffed, it may be wise to call or e-mail for anything other than on the fly trouble shooting.

We thank you in advance for understanding.

Building maintenance and construction work – update February 27

There is quite a bit of (deferred) maintenance and construction work going on in Janskerkhof 13. Below is a running list of the planned maintenance/construction work.

The main purpose of this list is to enable lab support to keep track of what is scheduled when. As a general rule, the UU housing department(s) contact lab support to schedule these activities, and if it is expected that the work will be disruptive to experiments, lab support will mark the building as closed in the reservation system and the babylab reservation system for the agreed-upon time. So in principle, as long as you diligently use the reservation systems to reserve lab spaces for your experiment, you should not run into any noisy surprises as a lab user. If you do, though, please let lab support know!

Scheduled small activities:

• Friday February 28, 10 AM: Folks will be entering the technical room opposite K.14 to design something to do with city heating. Shouldn’t be noisy.
• Tuesday March 3, 15-22 h: cleaning of carpets in all rooms/labs and corridors. All labs have been blocked for reservations during this time period.
• Wednesday March 4, 7-10 h: furniture, removed for cleaning carpets, will be moved back into labs/room. All labs have been blocked for reservations during this time period.
• Monday March 16: work on air treatment system, all labs blocked for reservations (but still available for piloting). Also on this day: TLW meeloopdag lab tour from 14.45-15.45h.
• Monday March 30: testing of fire alarm, with sound, between 7-8AM.

Scheduled major activities:

• Replacement of the ‘hoofdverdeler’ for the city heating. Very noisy three-week project. We are trying to get this to be moved to summer break (hopefully Monday 27 July – Friday 14 August). Waiting for advice on ‘duurzaamheidsambities’.
• MAJOR construction work and painting throughout the building. This will be a six-month project where experimenting will probably not be possible at all, probably July 2021-December 2021.

Solis VPN – Update February 24

Dear labusers,

Some of you may work from home. If you want to access the project folders from at home you need to make a connection via a Virtual Private Network (VPN). Fortunately, ITS is making it safer to access the folders. Unfortunately, this changes the way you were used to access the VPN. The university want to do this via 2 Factor Authorization (2FA). The change occurs this Thursday January 30th. Once we know how this is going to work, we’ll try to give you an update.

For now, if you are planning to work at home this Thursday or Friday, expect difficulties and consider working @UU.

UPDATE Thursday January 30: the new VPN seems to work fine, the instructions in the howto have been updated.

UPDATE Monday February 24: the new VPN actually does NOT seem to work for students, we’re trying to get this fixed.

Diminished support on 13 February

Tomorrow, the support group will say goodbye to “our” head of ILS, Prof. Dr. Frank Wijnen. This will imply that there may be no one around at room 009 on this day. Feel free to call the hotline if you need us, but please keep in mind that it may take a little extra time to get over here.

Prof. Dr. Frank Wijnen

We wish Frank all the best and hope he will enjoy his time focussing primarliy on his research plans. Thank you for everything!

Building closed this Wednesday and Thursday until 9.30h

Janskerkhof 13 will be closed this Wednesday and Thursday, January 15 and 16, until 9.30 AM. Nobody will be able to access the building at all, the doors will be locked. This is a security precaution connected to works on the electrical systems in Drift 4-6-8.

Labs closed for Christmas break

Like all buildings of the Humanities faculty, the labs will be closed for Christmas break (no access at all) from Tuesday December 24, 17:00h, up until Thursday January 2, 2018.

Enjoy your holiday!

Reduced lab support 13 – 20 November

From Wednesday 13th of November until Wednesday 20th there will be fewer lab support available. So If you need advise or require a meeting, we advise to get in touch with us in time.

No lab support until 11:00 this Wednesday

In the morning of November 6, there will be no one at JK13 room 009 until approximately 11 o’ clock. The hotline will be answered in case of emergency. Of course, we we hope all will just be fine.

Patchy lab support on Monday

Today, there will be no one around at 009.

The hotline will be answered.

Access to the lab for students and participants: videophone only

Starting this Monday (October 14), BA/(R)MA students and participants in experiments will always need to use the videophone at the entrance to get into the lab on Monday-Friday 8-17h.

Simply press the button and someone at a reception somewhere at Drift will answer your call. Explain why you need to get into the building and they’ll buzz you in.

If you or your participants run into any problems whatsoever, please let Iris know.

Background: As you will know, since the end of August there has been a student assistant available to open the door, in addition to the videophone option. We have decided to now use the videophone only, because there aren’t many experiments running at the moment so only few participants will need to get in, and we figure our regular students will for sure be able to get in using the videophone. Staff access using an XS card is unchanged; see the post about opening hours.

We are still awaiting a new videophone that will have a screen, enabling the person at the door to see the person picking up the phone, which will make for an easier conversation, which is especially important for participants who don’t know the ropes. We hope the new videophone will be installed in November.

Tap water system under construction

This week (september 18 until ± September 25) the tap water system is under revision. This does not imply there will be no water at all, but there will be some moments during the week where the taps will not behave as you expect them to. Please be aware of this and maybe be prepared and bring a bottle of water, just to be on the safe side.

This friday no labsupport

Dear labuser,

This friday the lab is short on support, hence if you need something please visit us in advance. You can also contact us via e-mail and we’ll get in touch later.

Kind regards,

The labstaff.

Summer time in the lab 2019 – updated again August 23

Summer is here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, there is a lot to take into account. Here’s a schematic overview per day (click to enlarge); see below for more detail and explanations.

Lab support availability

Support in July and August may be patchy due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day in July or August, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

Building/lab closures

• Starting July 22, the doors will be closed, and access will be possible through video phone and XS card only on weekdays. The video phone will be replaced by a better model after the summer, which will have a screen so that the person waiting at the door can see who is picking up the phone.
• Starting August 26, there will be someone available to open the door for visitors and participants in person (weekdays only) while we wait for the new, better video phone to be installed.
• Noisy building activities: there is some construction work going on, check this post for details.

Adult participant recruitment

Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment can be rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please consult with Iris Mulders.

Summer job: doorman/woman

UPDATE: this vacancy has been filled.

We are looking for a student assistant who can let visitors in at Janskerkhof 13 when they ring the doorbell (if they need to be let in).

This job will be for two or three weeks (this is not exactly sure yet), starting August 26. Working hours will be Monday-Friday from 9.00 till 17.00h. It is also possible to do this job between 2 persons.

For more information, please contact Marijke Bakker at m.e.bakker@nulluu.nl.

Lost USB

Dear lab users/visitors,

Last week a few laptops have been stolen from the lab. On top of this one of the owners lost his/her USB stick. Since a USB stick has not much economical value, we ask everyone to keep an eye out for the stick because perhaps it has been throw away and it still is of great value for the owner. It concerns a SanDisk Fit Ultra with a capacity of 32Gb (see the attached image). If anyone finds such USB stick please let us know.

Kind regards,

The labsupport

Facility reservation system FRIS Maintenance

Update: You should be able to log in again!

This Wednesday ITS will be updating some of its login systems. As we need to update FRIS to work with the new update, logging into FRIS will not be possible in the morning of Wednesday July 10th.

We will update this post when we’ve finished updating FRIS.

Reduced lab support

On Friday 5th (in particular the afternoon) and Monday 8th of July, there will be fewer lab staff available in 0.09 on the ground floor. So if you require assistance, please contact lab management in advance.

Errors in facility reservation system FRIS

Due to a bug in FRIS you may experience a ‘Internal Server Error’ when trying to open FRIS. We are currently investigating the cause of the bug.

Update: This issue had been solved, but now it seems to be back. Deleting your browser cookies or restarting your browser is the workaround for now.

Our apologies for the inconvenience!

No lab support Friday June 7

There will be no lab support available in room 0.09 on the ground floor this Friday, June 7.

Spring holidays

Like all faculty buildings, Janskerkhof 13 will be closed on the following spring holidays:

• Ascension Day: Thursday 30 May and Friday 31 May (obligatory leave day)
• Whitsun: Sunday 9 June and Monday 10 June

See https://intranet.uu.nl/en/current-affairs/announcements/opening-hours-spring-and-summer-2019

Access to Janskerkhof 13 between 8 and 9 in the morning

Starting this Friday, April 5, there will be a new regime for access to Janskerkhof 13/13A on weekdays, Monday-Friday between 8 and 9AM:

• if you have an XS-card, you will be able to gain entrance with your XS-card (both at entrance 13 and entrance 13A)
• students, participants and visitors will need to ask to enter the building using the videophone next to the entrance 13 (right-side entrance when you’re facing the building). Someone at a reception somewhere will answer; you will need to explain why you need to be in the building, and then they will buzz you in.
• if you are running participants before 9AM, the safest way to ensure that they will be able to get in, is to pick them up at the door yourself. For full instructions and a full overview of the opening hour situation, see https://ils-labs.wp.hum.uu.nl/facs/opening-hours/.

If you run into problems, please let Iris know.

Has someone lost a red bicycle shed pass

The city of Utrecht has bicycle parking lots. To store/retrieve your bike you need a small red card with a barcode on the back. One with number 1000 0040 8712 has been found in the pantry of the ground floor. If its yours you can collect it by the secretary of philosophy and religious studies janskerkhof 13 Room 0.03 (the door on the left hand side when you’ve just entered the main entrance).

Building closed this weekend

Janskerkhof 13 will be closed this weekend, March 23-24 – no access with an XS-card either. Apologies for any inconvenience!

USB stick

This bracelet shaped USB stick was found in the bag of experimental laptop (#2). Hopefully the right full owner will come to collect it quickly.

Reduced lab support

Due to illness and leave, lab support in room 009 will be under staffed in the coming period.

• Tuesday February 19- Tuesday March 5: support will be extremely patchy and limited. Delays in experiment programming are to be expected.

If you need anything, don’t hesitate to drop by, but it might be wise to check our availability in advance.

Labs closed for Christmas break

Like all buildings of the Humanities faculty, the labs will be closed for Christmas break (no access at all) from Friday December 21, 19:00h, until Wednesday January 2, 2018. Starting January 2, regular opening hours will apply.

Enjoy your holiday!

Rings found in kitchenette JK 13a

People found an amount of rings in the Kitchen. Drop by secretary (F&R, JK13) is you think they might be yours and want to collect them. You will have to guess how many were found and then try them all on in order to prove you’re “the real Cinderella”  😉

Reduced labsupport

In the period November 30th until December 11th the lab support in room 009 is a little under staffed. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to drop by, but it might be wise to check our availability in advance.

Brrr!

There’s a leak in a heating pipe under the Drift that affects the heating in Janskerkhof 13. It’s being repaired, nobody knows how long that will take. Until then, it’ll gradually get colder in the lab.

Revision in phonetics lab

We’re updating the hardware of the phonetics cabins and their outside control panels over the winter. One by one. This week, we started on Cabin 1. You can still run your experiments in all the other booths, although some stuff might stand in the way a tiny bit. Get in touch with us is this is a problem, we’ll get it out of the way asap.

Mild disruptive activities Thursday 18th

This Thursday 18th a window will be removed and replaced around 11:00. This is on the ground floor near the office of the labtechnicians, so in the lab you won’t notice it, probably. If probably isn’t good enough, you might want to plan you activities on a different moment.

Noisy drilling early morning this Wednesday

There will be some noisy drilling done this Wednesday, September 26. FSC will try to be done with the drilling by 9am (but of course there’s always a possibility it will take a bit longer).

Friday 21th reduced labsupport

Dear lab users,

This Friday there is fewer lab support available. Hence, if you need any help, try to contact us in advance.

Two mildly disruptive activities in Janskerkhof 13

• Tomorrow, Saturday September 8, Janskerkhof 13 will be partially open to the public for Open Monumentendag, between 10-17h. People will be able to view (with a guide) the hallway, the staircases, and the secretaries’ rooms at the entrance.
• On Thursday 13, Friday 14, and maybe Monday 17 September, maintenance will be performed on the lighting in the lab, between 8:00 en 9:00 in the morning. Disruption should be minimal (no drilling).

Summer time in the lab – Updated again

Summer is here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

Lab support availability

We try to always have lab support in room 0.09, but support in July and August may be patchy due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day in July or August, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

No lab support will be available for sure:

• on Friday July 6 and Monday July 9
• on Friday August 10
• during the UIT-dagen, August 13-17 (see below)

Building/lab closures

• On weekdays from Monday July 16 until Friday August 17, all faculty buildings will close at 19h (no access with XS card either).
• During the weekends, regular weekend opening hours will apply.
• Update: between July 23 and August 17, the doors will be closed, but someone will be available from 9-17h to open the door if you ring the door bell.
• Noisy building activities:
  • on July 13 there will be maintenance work done on the elevator between 8-9 in the morning.
  • on July 24 and 26 potentially noisy construction work will be done in the attic.
• The lab will be closed August 13-17 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.

Adult participant recruitment

Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment can be rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, confer with lab support.

Reduced labsupport

Friday 6th and Monday the 9th of july most of the labsupport will be unavailable due to the holiday season. So if you want to return your equipment or help with your experiment please come in advance or wait until the tenth.

New audio equipment to lend

We’ve got a new Zoom H6 portable recorder.

Also, for those who would rather use the power of their own desktop or laptop when recording sound, we’ve now got a simple, one mic to USB interface.

If you want to use one, please make a reservation through the FRIS system (audio group).The Shure mic to USB device is really easy to use, but an actual manual will pop up over the course of summer.

Summer job: door man/woman – fulfilled

This vacancy has been fulfilled!

Technical problems in the basement – fixed

There are several (maybe unrelated) technical problems in the labs:

• The main lights in the hallways are off (these pillars that are always on)
• You will be able to log in on the lab computers, but the L, U and O drives cannot be used and internet is not working.

Both problems are under investigation and will hopefully be resolved within a couple of hours. We will keep you posted.

Update: both issues have been fixed.

Search function – fixed

The search box at the top of the site is currently non-operational. We are hard at work trying to fix it, but in the meantime you can use the following search pages as a workaround:

Search How-To’s
Search Resources (General Repository)
Search ZEP Experiments

Update June 28: the regular search function is working again.

Phishing email

Yesterday afternoon a number of people at the lab received an email stating that their account was compromised, sent by someone from ‘Utrecht University Services’. This is not a legitimate email and should be ignored.

If you’ve (accidentally) clicked the link that was included in the email, we highly recommend you change your password as soon as possible.

For more information on what phishing is, please read this handy wikipedia article

Network maintenance Tuesday 12th of June

In the evening of June 12th between 22:30 en 23:30, some of the network hardware will be replaced. This means that all kinds of servers, hence our project folders, the calculation server etc. will not be available for couple of minutes. Therefore, it is advised not to run calculation on the Calculation server or use the project/labhome folders next Tuesday evening.

Spring holidays

The labs (and all other faculty buildings) will be closed (no access at all) on the following days:

Whitsun

• Sunday 20 and Monday 21 May

USB stick found

A Kingston USB stick (32GB) was found in a lab PC on Tuesday. Please contact Iris Mulders if it may be yours.

Wednesday 18th reduced lab support

On Wednesday 18th, the lab staff in 0.09 won’t be at full strength. So, if you have any issues it is recommended make your requests on Monday or Tuesday.

Fire alarm test Tuesday April 17

On Tuesday April 17, before 9am, the yearly test on the fire alarm will be performed.

Friday Frebruary 16th 2018 reduced labsupport

Next Friday there will only be lab support available until 15:30. So if you want help, lend equipment, etc. make sure you drop by well before 15:30 hours.

Labs closed for Christmas break

Like all buildings of the Humanities faculty, the labs will be closed for Christmas break (no access at all) from Friday December 22, 18:00h, until Tuesday January 2, 2018. Starting January 2, regular opening hours will apply.

Enjoy your holiday!

Vacature labtechnicus/ wetenschappelijk programmeur

Het ILS Labs heeft een vacature voor labtechnicus/wetenschappelijk programmeur. Voor meer informatie zie de vacature hier. Je kunt tot 27 november solliciteren via de sollicitatie-knop onderaan in de vacature.

Lab closed Saturday November 4

On Saturday, November 4, the labs will be closed because the electrical system will be inspected, and power will be unavailable at some point.

Summer time in the lab – UPDATES

Summer is almost here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

Adult participants

Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment is rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please contact Iris Mulders before Wednesday July 5.

Lab support availability

We try to always have lab support in room 0.09, but support in July may be patchy due to support staff vacations and hard-to-plan-for natural events. If you absolutely need support on a certain day in July or August, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl. In addition, no lab support will be available during the the UIT-dagen, August 14-18 (see below).

Building/lab closures

From July 17 until August 18 the doors will be closed, but someone will be available during office hours (8.30-17h) to open the door if you ring the door bell. Between July 17 and August 13 the building will be closed after 19h on weekdays (no XS card access either). Closing times during weekends will remain the same.

Furthermore there’s quite a bit of construction work and other noisy stuff going on around the lab this summer:

• July 3: Lab closed because of very noisy and urgent construction work.
• June 25-July 7: More construction work. The construction workers have promised to limit noisy activities that may disrupt the experiments, to 7-9.00h in the mornings. If you nevertheless find building noises are bothering your experiment after 9am, please report it immediately to support staff in room 0.09.
• Yet more construction work that will necessitate closure of the lab for two days will happen later in July, we’re not sure when exactly, yet.
• The lab will be closed August 14-18 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• The lab will be closed August 28-30 for the construction of a baby EEG lab in room K.02. More construction work (but less noisy) will continue into the first week of September.

Construction work June 25-July 7 – noise in early mornings

Construction work will be done in the garden of Janskerkhof 13 from June 25-July 7. The work involves removing the small bike shed near the kitchen on the ground floor, and building a ramp for wheelchairs.

The construction workers have promised to limit noisy activities that may disrupt the experiments, to 7-9.00h in the mornings. If you nevertheless find building noises are bothering your experiment after 9am, please report it to support staff in room 0.09.

More Network Maintenance (June 20th 7:00-10:00 am)

Please be aware that in the early morning on Tuesday the 20th of June, between 07:00 and 10:00 (AM) the network of Janskerkhof 13/13a (and hence the lab) will experience downtime. ITS will switch the network connection to a new core. The actual switch should take less than 15 minutes but we have scheduled time to throughly test the systems.

We apologize for any inconvenience all this required maintenance on the network is causing. Sorry!

Update: maintenance is finished and the lab still exists. Yeah!

Network-Share Maintenance (Thursday 15th of June; 06:00-08:00)

Please be aware that in the very early morning on Thursday the 15th of June, between 06:00 and 8:00 (AM) the lab’s network-shares access will be unreliable. ITS will perform maintenance and testing that will cause the ICT&Media servers to be unreachable for ~10 minutes somewhere during this time period.

Update: maintenance has finished without any problems.

Missing Images

Images on this website (and other humanity websites) are currently not shown. The problem seems to have started sometime in the past weekend. We are working on a fix.

[imagine an inserted image of a diligent technician]

Update: the missing-image problem has been resolved. It seems that systems forgot where the images were supposed to be stored.

Summer Job

During the summer from July 17th until August 18th the entrance to Janskerkhof 13(a) will be closed to the general public.  Entrance is only possible for those with an XS-pass. However, the lab will have visitors/participants throughout the summer. So, therefore the university is looking for someone who wants to apply for a position as porter/receptionist.

For additional information you can contact José Hooman at J.J.H.Hooman@nulluu.nl

Network-Share Maintenance June 8th

Please be aware that in the early morning on Thursday the 8th of June, between 08:30 and 9:00 (AM) the lab’s network-shares access will be unreliable. Critical maintenance is required in addition to the previous maintenance (June 2nd). The shares cannot be reliably accessed during this time window.

Side note: the e-mail notification subject reads 2018 where it should read 2017. Sorry!

Update: the maintenance has completed and the shares are available once again.

Network Maintenance May 24th

Please be aware that in the early morning on Wednesday the 24th of May, between 05:00 and 07:00 (AM) the lab’s network will be unstable or down.

Central IT has planned core-network maintenance. It will likely disrupt network communication. Please refrain from using work stations, websites, and/or network shares during this time window.

Update: maintenance is finished and everything is still alive.

Spring holidays

All faculty buildings, including the lab, will be closed on the following days:

Easter

• Friday 14 April (Good Friday) till Monday 17 April (Easter Monday)

King’s Night & King’s Day

• Wednesday 26 April from 18:00 to Thursday 27 April

Liberation Day

• Friday 5 May

Ascension Day

• Thursday 25 May
• Friday 26 May (obligatory leave day)

Whitsun

• Saturday 3 June to Monday 5 June

See this faculty news message.

Reduced lab support 20th to 24th of March

In the week of 20 to 24th of March, unfortunately lab support will be somewhat limited. We have shifted our regular schedules to fill the gaps as well as possible. So, in the entire week support is available in 0.09 except for Friday 24th in the afternoon.

Power Outage: problems resolved

The Dom in the night

We have been experiencing problems with accessing the Lab-Drives and receiving system e-mails (e.g. FRIS). A power outage has struck the data-server rooms past night.

Systems have been unstable in the morning but everything should be up and running. If you still cannot access the lab-drives; please try rebooting your system. If this does not resolve problems please contact us at labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

Button-box cutouts and labeling

Periodically we receive requests for button-box cutouts or labels. The button-box cutouts that were available on the website are outdated and instead of updating them we have decided to remove the cutouts all together.

The reason is that labels or cutouts stimulate bad experiment practice. This bad practice involves making the participant look at the button box before making a choice or at the minimum tempting the participant to do so.

Causing a shift in focus by the button box will result in it no longer being an accurate response-recording device. Good experiment practice is to provide clear and concise instruction or feedback via the computer display about a button press. This allows the participant to focus primarily on the display and will result in more accurate response time data.

Consult one of the technical staff members if you need any help with programming button instruction or feedback into your experiment script.

Our e-mail address was temporarily unavailable (fixed)

Update: The e-mail address labman.gw@nulluu.nl should now work as expected again. However, we may not have received all e-mails that have been sent to this address in this period of time. If you think your e-mail did not reach us, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Original message: It has come to our attention that our email address, labman.gw@nulluu.nl, is currently unavailable for users who do not use their Utrecht University mail account. This problem has just been discovered but may have started already early last Wednesday. If you have sent us an e-mail from a non-UU mail account (such as gmail, outlook or yahoo), we may not have received your e-mail. We are working to resolve the issue and we will update this post once it has been, but in the mean time, if you want to reach us, either use your UU mail account, send e-mails to our personal adresses, give us a call, or just drop by.

We are sorry for the inconvenience.

Upgraded ILS Labs computers

The computer systems in k04 and k06 have had a major upgrade! The systems in the other (experiment) labs will be upgraded at a later point in time.

The upgraded systems now feature solid-state drives which improves responsiveness and reduces start-up delay significantly. In addition, the systems now have a new installment of the GNU/Linux desktop environment. This new Kubuntu 16.04 version is a hefty upgrade from the previous Ubuntu 12.04 version (anno 2012). This new version includes the latest versions of open-sourced software such as Audacity, LibreOffice and much more.

Kubuntu comes with a new look that should be easy to work with and is similar to a Windows desktop environment. Not a fan of Kubuntu? Fear not! You can easily opt to start Windows 7 instead of Kubuntu. To do so, choose Windows OS in the boot-loader menu that shows up when (re)booting the computer.

Labs closed for Christmas 2016-2017

The labs will be closed for Christmas (no access at all) at the following times:

• Friday December 23, 17:00h until Sunday January 1, 2017.
• From Monday January 2 to Friday January 6, 2017 all buildings will be closed during the evening: from 18:00h.

Starting Saturday January 7, regular opening hours will apply.

Enjoy your holiday!

We moved FRIS

The Facility Reservation and Information System (FRIS) has had an extensive update and has permanently been moved to a new location.

Please use the following URL to access FRIS from now on: https://fris.hum.uu.nl/.
The old URL, http://www.hum.uu.nl/uilots/lab/fris.php, will no longer work.

You will notice FRIS does not look like you’re used to. We’ve updated the website to be more future proof, intuitive to use and work on mobile devices.
We have also added functionality to login with your Solis-id in the future, rather than with your current credentials.

The first time you login on the new FRIS, you will be asked to change your password. Below the box where you can enter a new password, you can click the no longer use your Solis account to login in the future.
If you have a Solis-id with the Utrecht University, we strongly advise you to choose this option because you no longer have to remember separate credentials for this website and this option is safer as well.

For each account, there is only one method for authentication; either your chosen username and password, or your solis-credentials. You can always switch from one method to the other after you have logged in by clicking the “Change registration” button.

If you encounter any issues with the updated FRIS website, please contact Jan de Mooij

FRIS Maintenance

The Facility Reservation and Information System (FRIS) will be temporarily unavailable on Tuesday 4 October due to maintenance.
We will be updating the the site and moving it to a new location. Because of this, the site will not be reachable for a while, starting Tuesday 4 October at 9am and lasting at most until the end of the day.

Check back on this page on Tuesday 4 October for more information.

Bicycle key

In the phonetic booth #1 we found a bicycle key. If this grabs your attention since you lost yours, feel free to obtain it from the technician room. The key has been lying around prior to September 10th.

New button boxes

On Thursday 18 August, the old colorful button boxes have been replaced with the new USB Beexybox type of button box in most of the labs. The use of the new button boxes requires the latest version of Linux we installed for you: in the purple boot menu shown by the computers when starting up, simple select “Linux OS (New BeexyBox) [Ubuntu 12.04]” now instead of “Real-time Linux OS (Old ButtonBox) [Ubuntu 12.04]” (this option should be selected by default on all experiment machines that use the new button boxes)

The Beexyboxes have three buttons, as you can see on the image. If you need a box with four buttons, you can stop by and borrow one from us.

The old button boxes have been removed, because we are in the progress of terminating support for them. If you still have an ongoing experiment which requires the use of the old button boxes for consistent measurements, please stop by and have a talk with us. If your ZEP experiment still uses the old button boxes, we can adapt your experiment for you to use the new Beexy box instead. If the use of the old button boxes is absolutely vital, we will be able to lend you an old button box, but we are terminating support for the old button boxes very soon, so this can only be used to finish currently ongoing experiments.

The new Beexyboxes have several advantages, making us confident the old button boxes are no longer required:

• The button boxes work with USB, meaning they can just as easily be used on the computers in our lab, as on one of our laptops. This increases the consistency of experiments that rely on the button boxes to measure response.
• Computers that have the proper connections for the old button boxes are no longer made, and making the changes necessary becomes increasingly hard, so this way, we’re future proof!
• Due to their new design, the Beexyboxes are more comfortable to use than the old button boxes.

The labs that now have the new Beexyboxes are:

• Baby Eye-tracking lab
• Phonetics lab (all four cabins)
• Eye-tracking lab Cabin 5
• Flex lab

We also prepared the connections for the Beexyboxes in the Baby lab and in the EEG lab, but we did not remove the already present button boxes just yet, so you can keep running your experiments there the way you’re used to. Should you want to use a Beexybox instead of a button box, please stop by, so we can provide you with one and give you some instructions on how to use it.

Summer time in the lab

Summer is almost here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

• Running an experiment involving the adult participant database is not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then, so recruitment is rather difficult. If you want to try anyway, please contact Iris Mulders before Wednesday July 6.
• The lab will be closed August 15-18 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• The rest of the summer, there will be lab support in room 0.09, but we may miss a day here or there due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.
• From July 18 until August 12 the building will be closed, but someone will be available to open the door if you ring the door bell.
• Update: between Monday July 18 until Friday August 19 the building will close at 19h on weekdays, rather than at 22h.

It’s still us!

This morning the ILS Website has had a make over. We installed a new theme to the website, to bring the website back in line with all UU websites. But don’t worry, we changed only the appearance!

All the information should still be available on the website, right where you used to find it. If you notice anything wrong, please contact us at labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

Building closed on Thursday and Friday

Because of Liberation day and a ‘bridge’ day the laboratory will be closed on Thursday the 5^th and Friday the 6^th of May. Our apologies for any inconvenience but we hope you will enjoy your freedom and the projected sunny weather!

Corpus Gesproken Nederlands v2

The CGN contains a large selection of annotated recording of the Dutch language. The CGN has been updated to version two and has been installed in a new location. The previous and incomplete version will be removed shortly. You can read how to access the new version here.

Windows down

Yesterday evening some security issues on Windows have been revealed. This means we have to apply a security patch. All Linux systems are not affected by the patch, so no problems are expected for people working on a Linux system. The consequences are downtime for the following services on Friday 15th between 16:00 and 17:00 hour.

You won’t be able to use the computation server, better know as “rekenserver” and all the disks related to the lab:
– K:
– L:
– M:
– N:
– X:

System Maintenance 22nd of March

IT-system maintenance is planned for Tuesday the 22nd of March. Logging in on Linux OS is not advised whereas Windows OS will work fine. Be advised that accessing the project folders may be difficult during this day. To prevent any experiments being ruined we have preemptively booked all ILS Labs. However, the laboratories will still be physically accessible.

If you have any questions feel free to contact us.

Lendable USB drives

Six USB drives are newly available for lending. They come in 32GB are 64GB variants and can be borrowed from room 0.09. Availability of the drives is shown in the reservation system.

When transporting sensitive data we advise to use an encrypted archive format. This prevents privacy leaks and related corporal punishment. We are joking about the punishments but are quite serious about preventing leaks!

Ubuntu Update

Note: the small update has now been deployed throughout the lab.

A new small update has been applied to the computers in K06 and will carefully be deployed to the other systems in the course of the coming week. Below a small overview of changes:

• Number of boot options are reduced to three:
  1. “Windows OS [MS Windows 7]”
  2. “Real-time Linux OS (Old ButtonBox) [Ubuntu 12.04]”
  3. “Linux OS (New BeexyBox) [Ubuntu 12.04]”
• Note that there are now two Linux versions: one for the old ButtonBox and one for the new BeexyBox; choose wisely
• Default boot option is now Windows OS for those systems that almost never boot into Linux (i.e.K06 and K04)
• Zep version 1.12.1 (with BeexyBox button-box support) has been installed
• Symbolic links on the Desktop of projects, projects-2, and dataexchange received a make-over
• A new “reset-desktop” script has been added to the desktop in order to reset your personal user interface in case of corruption or strange settings
• During Linux boot the update system now prints status updates (press F1 during ‘Ubuntu’ splash)
• The ILS update system now prevents users to login via GUI until the system has finished updating
• Monitors should now stop going into standby (we pray)
• Removed old printers and added a follow-me-COLOUR printer. Grayscale printing is currently not possible under the Linux OS
• General canonical Ubuntu updates have been deployed
• System time is now being synced with a central NTP server (was not being synced)

Construction work January 21 and 22

On Thursday January 21 and Friday January 22, a dormer (dakkapel) rooftop will be replaced on the garden side of Janskerhof 13. Noise associated with this is expected to be limited, and should certainly not be a problem for testing in K.10 and K.12. The expectation is that it should be fine to test in the other labs as well, but it’s hard to tell in advance. If you want to be absolutely sure that you don’t run into problems, don’t schedule participants for these days.

Lab closed for Christmas break

Construction work is over!

All the construction work on Janskerkhof 13 has been finished. No more building noises. Yay!

Building noise

Expected noise related to the construction works. Remember:

1. testing after 16h on weekdays is always safe;
2. testing on weekends is safe.
3. you can only enter the building after 17h and on weekends if you have an XS card (employees only).

The remainder of this week, week 47 (Nov 18-20), and next week, week 48 (Nov 23-27) :

All this time there will be periodic CLANG CLANG CLANG noises from the remaining scaffolding being taken down, as well as assorted other building noises. This noise will not permeate into the sound-attenuated booths. There should be no drilling after 9 am.

=> Hard to tell if the CLANG CLANG CLANG or other noises will permeate into K.03A. To be on the safe side, probably a better idea to not test in K.03A on weekdays before 16h.

=> Testing in the booths in K.10 or K.12 should be OK during this week, in the sense that participants won’t hear the CLANG CLANG CLANG. For experiment leaders it may be less pleasant, but probably still bearable. There should be no drilling that penetrates into the participant booths, but if you hear some anyway, contact Maarten immediately (room 0.09/phone 030-253 9102).

The current planning is that the construction works will be finished by November 30. Of course we cannot be sure yet that they’ll make that date, but right now it looks like they will. Yay!

Use local account in case of time sensitive test

The past few weeks, some computers (especially the phonetics lab) have been disconnected from the network, to bypass certain problems, which we are working on to solve permanently. This meant that some people were unable to login to the computers.

From now on, the computers have to be connected to the network by default, meaning logging in using your Solis-ID will once again be possible. Users who want to make use of a local account in order to be sure of fully functioning computers now have to disconnect and afterwards reconnect the computers from the internet themselves.

Read why and how to do this in the how to Work on a local account

New location Baby lab team (temporarily)

The Baby lab team temporarily works in another building, until the construction work at Janskerkhof is finished.

You can find us at Kromme Nieuwe Gracht 46, first floor.

Maartje de Klerk and Ao Chen: room 1.10

Şule Kurtcebe and Cora Pots: room 1.08

Baby lab interns Floor Simons and Karlijn Kouwer: room 1.07b.

Reseach-Data Management and You

The university has launched a new website that focuses on good practice in research-data management. While the ILS Labs does provide its own data storage it is good to be familiar with this multidisciplinary initiative that can provide tips, tools, technologies and advice on long term-preservation for your research data, while facilitating its discovery and citation. We think this is a worthwhile read! – Lab Management

Friday October 2 and 9: The Noise

This (2015-10-02) and next Friday (2015-10-09) construction work will focus on removing the brick mortar in the outer walls of the lab building (Janskerkhof 13/13a). We cannot say the mortar removal will sound anywhere as nice as a great rock concert but it’ll likely sound as loud. The expected noise will make it improbible to perform reliable experiments. We recommend to steer clear of the lab this and next Friday. -Lab. Management

SPSS down

Update (4 sept 2015): SPSS version 23 is now available on the computers in K.09

Dear lab-users that are keen on analysing their data. We were just informed that licence for the old versions of SPSS (statistical-analysis software) has ran out. We are making haste with plans to enable the new version(s) SPSS (22 and 23).

Our apologies for any inconveniences!

UIT & Construction work

The ‘Utrechtse IntroductieTijd‘ (UIT)  will be happening this week (10-14 August). This event on the Janskerkhof will generate so much inconvenience for the lab that the lab is closed for most purposes during this period. Technical support can still be contacted but will be off site.

Futhermore, from today onward and lasting for several months there will be building maintenance. This will mainly affect the outside and top of the building and only should be very limited in the basement. We are in close communication with the workers to minimize the inconveniences during the maintenance. However, if you do find your research disrupted or have any complaints please post them to Chris so he can take any action if need be.

The Doorman

Effective immediately and until the 17th of August the entrance to the Janskerkhof 13/13a building is closed and can only be opened from the outside via an authorised access card. If you are not a staff member, then you can enter the building by ringing the doorbell. A freshly appointed doorman will open the door for you. The doorman is present from 9:00 until 17:00. If your experiment requires you to have access before or after this time period please contact the lab. management and we might be able to arrange a temporary access card.

The reason behind this closure are the recent unfortunate incidents with intruders and stolen objects. We kindly but firmly request you to help the cause by NOT allowing shady characters to enter the building alongside with you.

Update 4 – Summer time in the lab – renovation work, events, building closes early in the evenings, and other impediments

Summer is almost here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

• Extensive renovation and construction work is being planned for Janskerkhof 13 for July and August August till September/November. Some of the building activities will necessitate us to close the lab altogether, but we don’t know when exactly, or for how long. We have indicated that closing the lab for more than one week at a time is not possible for us, and we’ve been assured that we will be closely involved in the planning. Planning will happen at the end of July.
• If you want to run an experiment involving the adult participant database (not recommended in summer since a lot of students are simply not in Utrecht then), please contact Iris Mulders before July 8.
• From July 13 until August 22 the building will close at 19h, rather than 22h.
• The lab will be closed August 10-13 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• The rest of the summer, there will be lab support in room 0.09 (in as far as the renovation activities will allow), but we may miss a day here or there due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.

Update: ICT Maintenance planned for 6 July

Update

Friday 10 July at 14:30 another update will take place. Again, this should not be noticable for any users, but to be safe, we have blocked all the labs after 14:30 this friday. People working in K.06 are adviced not to do time sensitive experiments there. You will not lose anything, but timing may be inaccurate during the update process

In the morning of Monday 6 July, some maintenance is planned for the computer systems that we use in the lab.
We expect to get through this without any difficulty, but there is always a small chance something might go wrong. This means that in some cases, it is possible the computers will freeze multiple times for a while, or even that logging in to your account is not possible.

As said, this maintenance is planned for the morning of 6 July, but could be postponed until later that week. Unfortunately, we cannot be more precise at the moment, as we are dependent on information from other devisions within the university.

Should you encounter any of the above described problems, or notice other hiccups in the performance of the computers in the lab, do not hesitate to inform the technical support in room 0.09 immediately. The sooner we know of any trouble, the sooner it can be solved.

EMLAR XI: Registration open!

The registration for the yearly EMLAR (Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research) conference is now open. Visit the conference website for more details.

FEP Support in the lab

Due to FEP not having been updated in nearly 15 years and Zep being an improvement in almost all ways, support for FEP will be deprecated. This means that we will support existing experiments, in particular those that need to collect additional data and thus must use the same framework. New experiment requests which entail the modification of FEP scripts will generally be rebuilt in Zep however.

In the coming weeks the PCs in the labs will be replaced with newer models, these systems will not support running FEP, however old models will be kept available as reserves and can be put in place should such experiments need to be run, however it is very important that you contact the lab staff at least 1 week in advance of running a FEP script so that we can make the necessary preparations.

If you have any questions not answered above feel free to contact us.

Important:ZEP

A new update of the ZEP starting script has been released. ILS Labs users are recommended to use this new linux-terminal-local-UILOTS.sh in order to start a terminal prior to calling Zep (right-click>Save Link As…). Please replace the linux-terminal.sh file with this new version. If you are running an old Zep script (version 0.x) and do not have a linux-terminal.sh you can ignore any this updated version. Downloading the file automatically prevents you from executing it: a safety feature for the big bad internet. To re-enable execution of the file right click it >> properties >> Permissions and tick the box that reads ‘Allow executing file as program’. With this you are ready to go!

New option for printing

For the past month the hardware for the printer in room K06 (the room with a lot of computers) has been failing regularly. To aid users in printing it is now possible to select an alternative printer. Under Windows OS the new printer is named ‘GW_JHK13_Medewerker_006‘ and it is physically located in 0.08; the room is upstairs and is next to the lab. support staff room. Please limit your use of this secondary printer as much as possible.

It is still not possible to print from under the Linux OS. We are actively investigating a solution and are sorry for possible inconveniences.

Website newly structured

The last few days we have done our best to upgrade the site, make it more accessible and above all give it a more intuitive flow.

A few people have come to us to explain the articles new lab users have to read, were somewhat unclear and contained a lot of double information.

We have completely restructured those pages, trying to make them more clear, easier to oversee and less redundant.

If you have some advice about how we could do even better, or remarks about the new structure, please contact Jan de Mooij and let him know. We would very much appreciate it.

Maintenance

Tomorrow, 18 July 2014, this website will be down for (hopefully short) maintenance. We will then upgrade the website to a new template. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Update: Maintenance is still continuing, but all pages should be accessible again. Please let us know if you think something’s missing/not working!

IMPORTANT: Zep

ILS Labs users are recommended to use linux-terminal-local-UILOTS.sh in order to start a terminal prior to calling Zep (right-click>Save Link As…). Please replace the linux-terminal.sh file with this new version. If you are running an old Zep script (version 0.) and do not have a linux-terminal.sh you can ignore any this updated version. Downloading the file automatically prevents you from executing it: a safety feature for the big bad internet. To re-enable execution of the file right click it >> properties >>  Permissions and tick the box that reads ‘Allow executing file as program’. With this you are ready to go!

DETAILS: Because of decreased performance of the file server that holds the project maps (M: drive) running an experiment directly from a project map might lead to timing issues or errors. These errors are visible in the terminal when running an experiment. To ensure that script performance is not affected by the slacking file server the linux-terminal.sh is to be replaced. Note that this is only relevant when Zep experiments are performed in the ILS Labs facilities. For other instances the normal linux-terminal.sh suffices.

Summer time in the lab

Summer is almost here! If you are planning to work in the lab during the summer, please take note of the following:

• If you want to run an experiment involving the adult participant database (not particularly recommended in summer), please contact Iris Mulders before July 10.
• The lab will be closed August 11-14 because the UIT-dagen are unbearably noisy and make it impossible to get to Janskerkhof 13. No lab support will be available on these days.
• The rest of the summer, there will be lab support in room 0.09, but we may miss a day here or there due to support staff vacations. If you absolutely need support on a certain day, check in advance via labman.gw@nulluu.nl.
• Update: On weekdays from July 21-August 17, the building will close at 19h. See faculty newsletter.

New Wallpaper

Some of you might have noticed that we’ve set up a new default wallpaper for the Window 7 desktop!

It lists some of the default house rules and some emergency information. We hope you enjoy the new eye candy!

uhhmm… HvNL TV

Sbs6 TV, Hart van Nederland  did a small item on language research, regarding the uhhmmmm word, done by Hans Rutger Bosker, it can be viewed here.

Sorry, we’re closed!

Just a reminder: because of Whitsun/Pentecost the faculty building (and laboratories/support) will be closed on Sunday the 8th and Monday the 9th of June!

Also, this week Chris will be absent on Thursday but present on Wednesday instead of vice versa.

LimeSurvey how-tos added

We’ve added some new LimeSurvey manuals to our how-to section. There’s four in total now:

• LimeSurvey for linguists, a general introduction
• Audio in LimeSurvey, on having audio as stimuli
• Default answers in LimeSurvey, how to set default answers from the GUI, with JavaScript or with tokens
• Postprocessing LimeSurvey results, on a script to postprocess your survey results.

If you happen to have a request for a manual or a question about LimeSurvey, please do send lab support a mail (after consoling the how-tos of course ;)).

Audio fixed in K.06

The audio systems in K.06 have all been fixed. On all computers audio is working again, which means you should be able to play back audio from your computer and record audio from now on.

If you still encounter a problem, please notify lab support in room 0.09

Ssssst.

A lot of the research done in the ILS Labs. involves the usage of sound stimuli. To control for sound interference some of the labs have been made sound proof. However, to further reduce the noise I’ve added some padding on the hallway doors.

We are also going to hang up signs that signal for silence in the hallway next to the lab. This is to prevent voluminous talking right next to the lab. doors but feel free to have chat in other hallways.

Change of Schedule

Thursday 15 may Jan de Mooij will be absent from the lab. Instead he will be working on Friday the 16th.

Also on Thursday 5 June Jan will be absent and he will be working the 6 June instead

Spring holidays

All faculty buildings, including the lab, will be closed on the following days:

Easter

• Friday 18 April (Good Friday)
• Sunday 20 April
• Monday 21 April

King’s Day

• Saturday 26 April

Liberation Day

• Monday 5 May

Ascension

• Thursday 29 May (Ascension Day)
• Friday 30 May (‘balance day’, i.e. obligatory leave day)

Whitsun/Pentecost

• Sunday 8 June
• Monday 9 June

See this faculty news message.

Absence

• Christian Straman will be not be available for support from April 22nd to 25th. 
• Martijn van der Klis will be off at Wednesday 30 April, but will be available at Monday 28 April instead.
• Alex Manus will be away from Wednesday April 30-Monday May 5.

Lost Keys Found in Women’s Basement Restroom

A set of keys with a nail clipper attached were brought to 0.09, stop by the same to retrieve them.

27/03: Retrieved! 🙂

DO NOT MODIFY WIRING

It is already in the lab rules but apparently bears repeating: Do Not Rewire Anything. Ever.

Several of the wiring configurations in the phonetics lab have been modified in various nonsensical ways, and not even restored to their original configuration plus a few cables were apparently nicked to boot. If you require a different configuration or the setup does not work as you expect please come to room 0.09 and ask one of the lab support staff for assistance. That’s why we are here!

Support staff attends EMLAR April 14-16

The lab staff will be attending EMLAR X from April 14th to 16th. In this period there will be limited to no support for the lab facilities, so make sure you either catch us before or after the conference. If you’re planning to attend EMLAR as well (highly recommended!), we’ll see you there! 

Website maintenance

This Friday (March 7), there is some maintenance scheduled for this website. Expect some downtime between 10.00 and 11.00 AM CEST. 

Update: maintenance has been successfully completed! 🙂 

Samsung phone found in coffee corner, see 0.09 to retrieve.

Stop by during normal business hours to retrieve your phone. 

Update March 5: phone retrieved! 🙂 

Martijn van der Klis absent on 19 Feb, but present on 17 Feb

FYI: Martijn will not be present next Wednesday, but will be on Monday. 

Alex Manus not present on 5/2/14, but present on 7/2/14

Alex Manus will not be present next Wednesday but will be available the following Friday.

BrainVision Analyzer 2.04 installed in K.06

BrainVision Analyzer 2.04 has been installed on all machines in K.06. You can find the relase notes on the BrainProducts website.

Non-availability lab support staff

Alex will be away until January 20.

Printing from local accounts and Linux is currently not possible

It is no longer possible to print from local accounts (such as those used on the lab computers, not K.06) due to ‘improvements’ in the printing infrastructure at the university. There does not seem to be a resolution for this but we will continue to investigate.

It may be possible to resolve the issues under Linux and I am currently trying to find a solution.

Missing project folders

As you may have noticed, on the computers in flexplek in Janskerkhof 13 (and maybe on other computers too), the M drive where your project folders are has been replaced by ‘migratieschijf’, and ‘migratieschijf’ is empty. To get access to your project folders, follow the steps:

1.  Start Windows Explorer or double-click ‘My Computer’,
2. Right click on ‘migratieschijf’,
3. Select ‘disconnect’, and wait until ‘migratieschijf’ disappears.
4. In the menu bar, choose ‘Tools’ -> ‘Map network drive’.
5. In the dialog window that appears, click on the arrow on the right side, and select the letter ‘M’. (Do not choose any other letter).
6. At ‘Folder’, type \\dfs.hum.uu.nl\uilots\projects
7. Click on ‘Finish’. A new Explorer window will appear, showing the contents of the K drive.

EEG-Lab on Dutch Tv

Dutch Vpro-Tv science program ‘Labyrint’ made an episode on Dutch & Flemish language and corpus, and had a short interview with prof. dr. Jos van Berkum, at the ILS EEG lab. It also features prof. dr. Norbert Corver. You can view the episode here, or here , or local mirror.

Babylab on RTV Utrecht

The RTV Utrecht program Westbroek had a small item on the Babylab Utrecht last Tuesday. Henk Westbroek talked with prof. dr. Frank Wijnen about early language development. You can watch the whole episode of Westbroek here (babylab coverage starts at 2:00). 

Microwave removed from basement kitchen

We removed the microwave from the kitchen in the basement, because:

• The smells of hot food during the day gives a very unprofessional impression to the (parents of infant) participants in our experiments
• Mice and cockroaches like crumbs
• Computers don’t like crumbs

There is a microwave in the kitchen on the ground floor that you can use; please do all your eating upstairs, not in the lab.

Printer problems

After scheduled maintenance by ITS on Wednesday, the printer in K.06 was unavailable for most users. Our colleagues at ICT&Media have performed an update to the printer settings on all PC’s, and the printer should now be reachable again. If you still encounter problems, reboot your computer, try again, and if the problem then persists, contact us at room 0.09 in Janskerkhof 13, do not call 5600 (Facilitair Service Centrum).

For the usual printer problems (like toner replacement, paper jam, PC LOAD LETTER etc.) please let us know at room 0.09 in Janskerkhof 13, do not call 5600 (Facilitair Service Centrum). We’ll either forward the problem to them or will ask ICT&Media to come up with a solution.

Labs closed for Christmas

Janskerkhof 13/13A will be closed from Sunday December 22 18:00h until Saturday January 4 10:00h.

Experiment repository created

We’ve now added the experiment repository to our website. We’ve reviewed the old repository, made some changes and added some custom-made experiments. We hope the new structure will help you to easily find a template that is suitable for your experiment (e.g. by using the search page). If you would like your experiment to be added, or have suggestions to improve the repository, please drop us an e-mail! 

Fixation manual transferred

The manual for Fixation has been transferred from the old website to the how-to section. You can find it here. This sort-of marks the end of life of the old website: almost all content has been transferred now and will only be kept up-to-date on this new site. If you still find something’s missing, please drop us a mail (or comment here!). 

Non-availability lab support staff

Alex will be away from 10/20/13 through 10/25/13, but will be present on 10/11/13 and 10/18/13.

Stolen/unplugged mice/keyboards

We’ve noticed that in K.06 some of the mice and keyboards were either stolen or unplugged. Please be kindly reminded that you should never unplug lab equipment, ever, as is clearly stated in the house rules. Also know that the lab staff in 0.09 has equipment for loan if you forgot to bring your own. Follow-up reminders won’t be so friendly.

New website!

As you probably will have noticed, this is the new website for the ILS Labs. With this new site, we’re hoping that we’re able to reach two goals: a better showcase of our facilities and a clearer overview of how-tos and boilerplate experiments for our users.

We’re slowly moving content from the old site to the new site, so keep an eye on us! If you have ideas or content for the new website, don’t hesitate to contact the lab staff!