by Nigel Williamson, Head of IT Support, and Simon Alexander, Networks and Infrastructure

Students, like all of us, can sometimes be forgetful and USB sticks are very easy to mislay.  Until recently, if a student forgot to remove a memory stick from a University PC, it would end up in lost property and we’d have to rely on the student to track it down.  We’ve now found two ways to help.  Firstly, we’ve created a message which pops up to remind students who try to log off without removing their USB drives.  Secondly, if the memory stick remains in the USB slot despite the alert, a file is written to it, giving the user’s log in details and the location they were working in.  This means we can email students to let them know and tell them where to collect their forgotten drives.  We don’t need to go through their USB sticks – it all happens automatically.

FD has told us that at times they would receive between 30 and 40 USBs from Adsetts Learning Centre in one week alone, plus others from around the rest of the University.  They have already seen a substantial reduction in the numbers. In the first week that this was introduced, they received just 4 USBs from Adsetts. It’s definitely made a difference.