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Student Facilities in University House

Originally published 26 April 2004


After three weeks of constant activity University House, the old National Grid Building between main campus and Westwood, is almost fully occupied.

You may have noticed the display board working it's way around campus - it's been residing in Cholo this week and will shortly be moving to other locations on campus - keep your eyes peeled. In case you've missed it though read this updated information to find out what's going on at University House...

Student Development and Support Centre

The University has opened a new Student Development and Support Centre housing in one place student services that were previously spread around campus. You can now go to one place for support and assistance regarding your finances, your future whether that be further study or a career and any problems that you may have personally. You can also come along to get help with personal development from the Careers Service and the Warwick Skills team.

The idea is to put as many of the people responsible for supporting you and helping you to develop into one place - that way you don't need to know who you want to speak to or which particular part of campus to go to, you can just come along to the Student Development and Support Centre reception and ask.

Academic Office and International Office Reception

Similarly, the Undergraduate Office, Graduate Office and International Office now share a reception on the first floor of the Building. Again, just come along and you will be directed to someone who can help you. The plan is that a variety of staff from each of the three offices will cover the reception, the make-up of the reception team will vary according to where we are in the academic year and what your issues and questions are likely to be at that time.

Learning Grid

The second phase of student facilities in University is the Learning Grid. The University wants to supporting students in acquiring the necessary research and information skills for independent self-directed learning. This facility has been planned with this objective in mind.

Owing to delays in making the necessary structural modifications the Learning Grid is not likely to be fully operational until the start of the next academic year despite University hopes that it would be up and running during this term. However we will keep you updated as the new equipment and services become available.

The Learning Grid will be open 24 hours a day seven days a week with a few exceptions such as Christmas Day. The learning space has capacity for approximately 300 students at any one time. The vision is to provide an integrated, informal and flexible space that will support students by facilitating individual and group-based independent learning. It is anticipated that the use of the space will bring together different services, resources and support.

The way the space is used will develop to reflect changing teaching and learning needs for example the increasing emphasis on facilitating the development and delivery of presentations and the growing use of digital multimedia in student assignments. These facilities are in addition to current computer lab provision and are focussed on helping you to learn collaboratively.

The University wants to provide facilities and services to suit the way that you actually study. This is an opportunity for us to find out how staff can best support students in using the facilities and equipment available, for example, by providing information skills support both through personal help and web tools.

New Equipment and Services

  • The Learning Grid will have the following equipment:
  • Technology for students with special needs
  • Up to 10,000 key student texts available for reference use within the facility
  • Kiosk PCs for key email and internet access
  • Informal, flexible seating to provide discussion and work space for group projects
  • Formal group study space (both with and without PCs and other equipment)
  • CD/DVD and VHS equipment
  • OHPs, electronic whiteboards and plasma projection screens
  • Facilities to prepare and practice delivering presentations
  • Audio and recording facilities (including video editing)
  • Careers resources
  • A wireless network to enable students to use their own notebooks, laptops, PDAs and other handheld devices
  • Document visualisers, scanners, printing and photocopying facilities