Biophysical Spectroscopy Facility

Biophysical Spectroscopy Facility User Policies and Rates

New users must create an account. Accounts will be activated after administrative review.

Every account must have a ChartField String. Users must create and use separate accounts for separate ChartField Strings.

The BSF is located in a card-access only area of BSBE. University of Minnesota users can have their U Cards activated for area access on request.

Users are assigned appropriate hard disk space for data collection and storage as determined by the manager. Users are responsible for saving, archiving, and moving their data off-disk before they exceed their allotted disk space.

Notices of repairs, down time due to building air/water shut-offs and any other interruption in service will be sent via e-mail or posted on the web site.

While this is primarily a user-operated facility, data collection by facility staff can be arranged at assisted rates. Users are expected to report problems promptly to the facility manager.

The facility reserves the right to deny facility user privileges to anyone who has insufficient knowledge or engages in unsafe practices or other unacceptable behavior.

Instrument signup and reservations

Requests for time are filled based on user requests, with an effort made to provide equity in the distribution of scheduled time.

Users can request facility time for both the current week and the following week using the instrument calendars. In case of conflict, users are encouraged to contact each other directly, contacting the BSF manager in case of difficulty.

Requests for instrument time farther in the future may be made via e-mail to the BSF manager. Definite assignments of time will be made only one week in advance, with rare exceptions.

In most cases, no user will receive more than one weekday (M-F) unless all other users have been given a chance to sign up for one. In order to encourage efficient use of the instruments, weekday scheduling ignores any use of evening or weekend time.

The facility is a shared resource, and consideration of the needs of fellow users is expected. Time requested should not exceed time actually used/charged by more than 15%.

Users are encouraged to come to the instrument scheduling meeting at noon on Fridays in NHH 1-136.

Schedule adjustments

The facility staff has the discretion to make schedule adjustments on short notice, if necessary. Highest priority is given to users who have established a record of responsible use of their assigned time.

Cancelling reservations

The facility recognizes that occasionally problems with samples or other unforeseen events disrupt experimental plans. Under these circumstances, users can cancel all of their reserved time, in advance of the starting time, using the instrument calendars.

Instrument logs

Most BSF instruments log usage automatically when the user runs the instrument control program. Users are reminded to log out when they are finished.

For instruments using paper logs, users must fill in the starting time upon arrival at the facility, and the ending time, total time used, and account number to be charged when done using the instrument.

Acknowledgements

The BSF should be acknowledged in any publications arising from the data collected in the BSF with the following text:

The experiments reported in this paper were performed at the Biophysical Spectroscopy Facility in the University of Minnesota Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics.

Instrument Rates

Weekdays 8am to 5pm,
without assistance from facility staff:

Weekdays 8am to 5pm,
with assistance from facility staff:

After hours (weekdays 5pm to 8am and weekends): Half rate.

In special cases, where expert assistance is desired (e.g., staff performing experiments or data analysis), an additional consulting fee may be charged, as negotiated.

Instrument usage is charged by logged time; charges are sent to the department at the end of the month. Fees obtained from hourly rates are only used to pay for the cost of maintaining the facility.

Instrument usage is charged whether or not an experiment is successful, unless the experiment's failure is caused by a hardware or software problem with the instrument, as verified by facility personnel.