MSc Student Handbook 2016/17

Maths office

Your main point of contact for administrative matters is the Maths Office, CB309, located on the third floor of the Queen's Building. There is a student notice board and a box for posting letters and Extenuating Circumstances forms to staff outside the Maths Office. The Maths Office opening hours during term time are 9:00am–5:00pm (last admission 4:45pm) every weekday. More limited opening hours may apply during holidays.

MSc student facilities

The School provides a shared computer lab, room W307 on the third floor of the Queen's Building, for MSc and final year MSci students, with computer facilities for project work, writing dissertations, online research and online access to the library catalogue, e-journals and e-books.

Main notice boards

The main notice boards are immediately outside the  School office [CB309], in the Queen's Building. You should check them frequently. They are for official notices from members of staff and sometimes carry urgent information such as changes to examination rooms.

Electronic displays

There are electronic displays in and around the School offices in the Queen's Building.  They show breaking news, short-term information such as details of forthcoming meetings and examinations, and topical information such as the "Theorem of the Day". There is another electronic display inside the foyer by the computers that shows computer availability on campus.

Exercise collection boxes

There are locked boxes located immediately outside the  School office (CB309), in the Queen's Building. They are used for collecting exercise solutions.

Web sites and QMplus

The School of Mathematical Sciences web site has a few pages relevant to current postgraduate students, but most information for current postgraduates is in QMplus, the Queen Mary online learning environment. Other key web sites are the Queen Mary Student Information System, MySIS, and the Queen Mary student portal, my.qmul. You will need to log into MySIS and (sometimes) QMplus, using your Queen Mary username and password, to access personal or confidential information: MySIS for the name of your academic adviser or your main examination results; QMplus for your personal timetable and other teaching information. Queen Mary uses QMplus to support all taught modules, which should be explained at the start of each module. We also use it to provide a lot of general information (including this handbook). The i² Student Support QMplus page provides information regarding student experience and welfare.

Online media

The School has an official Twitter feed and Facebook page which we use to provide the most up-to-date information regarding the School and mathematics generally.

Timetable

The teaching timetable provides information about the times and locations of lectures, exercise classes and computing labs. Your timetable will include lectures and support classes for all your modules. You have access to your own personal timetable by logging in to QMplus or you can access the complete Queen Mary Central Web Timetables.

Study programme and module details

You can find postgraduate study programme and module details, and past exam papers, on QMplus via links on the landing page. The postgraduate module list includes links to the individual QMplus module pages, which provide teaching

materials such as lecture notes and exercises.

Computer facilities

All the software that you need for your course should be available on the Queen Mary Student Service, which runs Microsoft Windows, and there are two Student Service computers in the School foyer that are available for Maths students to use. Student Service computer availability around the campus is shown on the electronic display screen in the School foyer by the computers.

If you prefer to use your own computer then, as a Queen Mary student, you can obtain a free copy of Maple, a mathematical computing package, to run on your own Microsoft Windows or Apple Macintosh computer. We also run a computing application server that should provide access to all the mathematical software you will need and is available both on and off campus for undergraduates and postgraduates. The software runs on the server and your computer acts as a "remote desktop".