In the first instance you are advised to follow the instructions indicated below.

If you are a current student who has already been through the enrolment process then you will have been issued with a unique student ID which can be found on your College ID badge. You will need this to get into Moodle.

Your Moodle ID login will be your student ID ( all lowercase ).

Your password will be the one that you would normally use to access the college network. Your password will have been sent via SMS to the mobile phone number you supplied when you enrolled. If however you did not supply a mobile phone number, your password by default will be set to your date of birth i.e. a six digit number ddmmyy with no dots, dashes or spaces in-between.

If you are not sure what your unique student ID is, then please contact your tutor who will then be able to advise you accordingly.

If these instructions fail, then your password may have expired. Those students who regularly use the college intranet will be aware of these protocols, however those who do not come into College may be unaware of this.

If you are experiencing persistent problems with your account details then please contact the IT Support helpdesk.

Once you login, you will automatically the given access to the elibrary, Learning Objects and Student Resources areas within Moodle.

Other Moodle courses are password protected. If your course tutor has not already enrolled you onto their course you may be asked to enter an enrolment key to gain access. If you do not have an enrolment key simply contact you course tutor and they will supply you with one.

Once you are enrolled, the course will recognise you as an active student and you will not have to enrol again. Every course has its own unique enrolment key.

If you have forgotten your log-in password then it can be reset by either:

• Visiting the IT Support Help Desk in room B101B on the 1st floor of Blossomfield Campus with your ID badge
• Visiting the Open Access centre on the 3rd floor of the Millennium Building at Blossomfield Campus with your ID badge
• Visiting the Library in room W212 at the Woodlands Campus with your ID badge

Please note we will be unable to change your password without seeing your ID badge and please be aware that your tutor is not able to request a password change on your behalf.

If you are unable to attend either campus then you can reset your password by ringing the IT Support helpdesk. However, we will then need to confirm your personal details in order to validate your identity.

The College has a wireless network which will allow you to connect personal as well as College-owned devices for Internet access. The signage shows you where the wireless 'hot spots' are located. In order to use the wireless hotspots you will need a laptop/PDA/phone that supports Wi-Fi networking either via the 802.11b or 802.11g standard (most wireless devices) and either a valid Solihull College network ID or guest access obtainable from the College reception if you are a visitor. Please see our Wireless Network Procedure on the Intranet for further details.

Wireless Network Procedure (PDF)

For your protection the charging of laptops is only permitted in the designated charging areas which are available in the Libraries at the Blossomfield and Woodlands campuses.

Patterned backgrounds and various font colours together with different font styles can render your message very difficult to read, particularly for those with visual impairments. For email messages we should all be using a blank background and the Arial font, size 10 or 12, in black.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and allows users to subscribe to websites that are updated regularly. The user is kept up to date, once subscribed, by having the recent website changes delivered to them instead of having to manually look for the updates themselves. These generally are in the form of brief descriptions of the article/update and a link to the full version or updated page.

The term 'subscribe' in RSS is used to refer to linking to a RSS page. Most modern web browsers can read RSS feeds and also allow you to subscribe to them.

The Solihull College RSS feeds (Intranet & Staff Intranet) like most RSS feeds are offered free of charge and do not require any forms to fill out. You simply point your chosen feed reader to your chosen feed source.

Intranet: http://learn.solihull.ac.uk/rss/intranet/rss.xml
Staff Intranet: http://learn.solihull.ac.uk/rss/staff/rss.xml

The College uses filtering software which helps us to adhere to the terms of our Student and Staff Acceptable Use Policies.

Student Computer Acceptable Use Policy (PDF)

Staff Computer & Telephone Acceptable Use Policy (PDF)

Like all off-the-shelf filtering tools ours sometimes erroneously filters out websites that do not contain prohibited content. Please inform you tutor or IT Support helpdesk and we'll be happy to investigate and reinstate the site you wish to access if appropriate.

ILT Assistants based in the College's Library and Open Access Centres will be able to examine your disk in the first instance. If they are unable to recover your file for you they will refer you to ICT Services. When you drop your disk / USB stick in with us we will need your name and student ID number so that we can restore any data we are able to recover to your own storage area on the network. Please note there is a 24-hour turnaround on the examination of faulty disks. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to recover your files, so please ensure you keep backups of your work. It is also advisable to store floppy disks / USB sticks carefully (i.e. not in the bottom of your bag!) and to avoid using old or battered-looking disks.

The College is legally required to control and monitor the installation of software onto its PCs and has corporate membership of the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST). We have made a deliberate decision to avoid the use of CD drives on the vast majority of College computers to help us control this. Unauthorised installation of free or pirated software can also cause problems on the local PC and is clearly prohibited in the College's Acceptable Use Policy.

When you log in to the College's network you agree to our Acceptable Use Policy by clicking on the 'OK' button to progress to the login screen.

Student Computer Acceptable Use Policy (PDF)

Staff Computer & Telephone Acceptable Use Policy (PDF)

Yes! Cross-College Resources have a variety of portable IT and audio-visual equipment, including laptops, available for short-term loan. If you are a student you will need to obtain authorisation from your tutor to borrow this equipment. Authorisation forms are available from Cross-College Resources. Please note that first year students are not permitted to borrow laptops during their first term at College.

Yes! The ICT Services and ILT Development teams are very keen to make reasonable adjustments to our IT provision in order to support you whilst you are at Solihull College and also to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act. Please inform your tutor or the IT Support helpdesk if you have a specific requirement.

We rely on staff to use their email Inbox space carefully and carry out regular housekeeping to ensure old messages are deleted. Once your Inbox exceeds 60MB of data you will be sent regular messages reminding you that you need to clear some space. At 70MB you will be prevented from sending further emails. You need to delete items from your Inbox, Sent Items and Deleted Items as all three folders contribute to your Inbox size.

Junk mail is only sent to you as a result of someone/another organisation getting hold of your email address. There are two ways this might have happened:

1) you have voluntarily submitted your College email address to another party (e.g. by completing a form on a website) and this has been added to an email distribution list.

2) there are several viruses around at the moment which work on a clever system of forging your email address. You would not have needed to be in direct contact with an infected machine/email to become a victim of this type of virus.

In either case please contact the IT Support helpdesk so we can offer some guidance to help you deal with this problem.

The College's Software Acquisition Procedure advises staff on the processes involved in acquiring and installing new software on individual PCs and on the network. All software purchases must be approved by the Staff Resources Development Unit (x7223) using a Software Evaluation Form. Internal Purchase Orders (IPs) raised by your cost centre then require approval by the ICT Services Manager (x7207) before Finance will raise an official order. All newly purchased software must be delivered to ICT Services where a job will be raised for its installation on the network or locally. Please note that unauthorised software installations are expressly forbidden by the College's Acceptable Use Policy.

We hope that your experience with IT equipment, software and the network at Solihull College is a positive one. However, we do understand that sometimes things can go wrong. If you are not happy with our service we want to know about it so please contact the IT Support helpdesk. Any issues which cannot be resolved by the Help Desk or technical team are escalated to either the ICT Services or Network Managers. Our Services Standards are available so please don't hesitate to request these. We report on our Service Standards on a termly basis.

All members of staff are required to change their login password every 28 days. This is for security purposes & helps to prevent unauthorised access to individual staff accounts. This also helps to protect any data that may be stored on individual H drives or departmental drives.

Rebooting your PC (choosing the 'Restart' option from the 'Shut Down Windows' box) is frequently the quickest and easiest way to resolve a multitude of problems with your PC and users will often be asked to do this before a technician is sent out to look at the fault.