USER RULES

The Electron and Light microscopy service unit is an open access core facility at the Faculty V of the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. All users must first meet with the Facility Staff to discuss research requirements (see the booking page). To schedule a consultation or training session, please contact Vita Solovyeva and Erhard Rhiel.

By using the service unit equipment, you agree with the general rules listed below:

First time users of microscopes

All users, even the experienced ones, must be trained by service unit staff before using any microscope for the first time. Therefore, a new user will always start with full support (together with superuser). The service unit staff reserves the right to exclude users from independent use of the equipment in case they work unconcentrated, light-minded, or sloppy. Additional full support training might be imposed.

Food and cleaning

No kind of food is allowed inside the microscope rooms or labs.

Leave the microscope rooms, laboratories and other spaces in the service unit clean and ready for the next user. Please notify the staff if you find that any of the Facility's areas are in an unacceptable state.

Booking

A user should book for a maximum of 5 h per day. In special cases, longer booking times can be arranged after discussion with the Facility Staff. The minimal booking time slot which will be charged is 1h. After that, booking and charging will be handled with 15 min increments

Log Book

Please remember to use/fill in the paper logbook which are located next to the microscopes. An additional digital log book is maintained at the Jeol S-TEM.

Bookings are personal

Booking is only possible up to 24 h prior to your session (in urgent cases contact the Facility Staff). You are not allowed to book a microscope for someone else.

Timing

Punctuality is a must, even on evenings and weekends. If you need more time than you booked, please check the booking calendar and if free, you may book the required extra time.

If a user does not show up at the booked time within 30 minutes after start, the booking is canceled. At least 50% session will be charged from the missing user.

Cancellation

If you need to cancel your session, please do so in the booking calendar as soon as possible, so that another user can book the microscope.

Cancelling in the booking calendar is only possible up to 24h prior to your session. If you need to cancel with a shorter notice, please send an e-mail to vita.solovyeva(at)uol.de and to the next user. If you are lucky and find somebody who will take over the time you booked, Vita Solovyeva should also be informed about the user shift.

Report problems

If you detect any problems when using a microscope, please report it by sending an e-mail to vita.solovyeva@uol.de and make a note in the log book.

Support

If you have any doubts on how to use the microscope and you cannot find the answer in the microscope instructions of use, please contact Vita Solovyeva vita.solovyeva(at)uol.de.

Storage of data

The EM service unit is not responsible for your data. After using a microscope or a workstation, please transfer your data immediately to your network drive and clean up your local directories on instrument PCs if you are not reusing data in next experiments. Furthermore, all data older than 1 year stored on the EM facility computers will be deleted.

Internet access

If you want to access the internet, please bring your own laptop and use WiFi. For security reasons, surfing the internet, downloading files, checking your e-mail account, etc. are not allowed from the EM computers.

Acknowledgements

If you have used EM microscopes to obtain results which will be published in a paper you write, please make sure to acknowledge the imaging center. In addition, we would be grateful to receive a pdf version of the paper in which the EM facility has been acknowledged. 

Thereby, we will also update our publication list on the website.  uol.de/fk5/elektronenmikroskopie

How to acknowledge the EM facility

For example: "The author(s) acknowledge the Electron and Light Microscopy Service Unit of the School of Mathematics and Science of the Carl von Ossietzky University for the use of the imaging facilities". Assisted image acquisition, beyond initial training, should result in an agreement in co-authorship by persons responsible for the work in addition to an acknowledgement statement (see above).