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FMs Handbook - Technology Sub-Group

This section contains material published by or relevant to the Technology sub-group.

The FMs Team Drive is a Google Drive Shared Drive and is the network storage location for shared material. The FM Workspace drives are created for each college/V-P and are used to store centrally produced files for that college/V-P and also the FM's own work files. Changes to access etc. of the FMs Team Drive and FM Workspaces are handled by the central FPMA team. 

FM Drives

General information about Shared Drives and using File Stream, enabling direct editing of Office and other documents, is available on the IT Services website. 

FMs Team Drive   A common drive, documents that are not unique to a particular college are stored here.
  FMs Meetings

Folders containing any files uploaded for team meetings. Folders are organised by Year and Month. From 20/21 onwards, the (opens in a new window)Rolling Agenda lists topics and links. Please note that the Rolling Agenda itself is not stored in the Team Drive, so that it may be kept Read Only.

Pre 20/21 folders were created for each individual meeting.
  PBCS

Material which relates to all will be placed in the PBCS University File Exchange folder. E.g. the file containing a listing of all Majors is placed here as a reference point for any FM, to check Major Codes, whether a Major exists etc.
FM Workspace Drive   A workspace drive is set up for each college or V-P. The name includes the college code eg FM Workspace-CD is the drive for Social Sciences & Law, which has a code of CD. You will only see the drive(s) to which you have access.
  _Central FPMA

The folder within which files created by the central team are placed. This includes report packs and also other files which the FM may be asked to update.

The names and folder structures should not be changed, so that operations such as providing report packs to all FMs can be carried out easily.
  _Local Workspace

This is a workspace for the FM and the FM decides what to store in it, how to organise it etc. As a Google Shared Drive it is secure, backed up and provides access to historical versions of files if needed. Access is limited to the FM and to central FPMA staff but can be extended easily where needed, e.g. to colleagues covering leave etc.

  • If you are going to be participating regularly in virtual meetings, take the time to get your setup right. Are you using a built-in microphone and/or speakers, external microphone/speakers or a headset ? Is the front- or rear-facing camera selected? Find out how to adjust the volume for the microphone and for the speakers and trial them with the meeting technology (Google Hangouts Meet or Zoom) that you will be using frequently.
  • Have a test virtual meeting with a colleague to allow yourself become familiar with the interface for Google Hangouts Meet and Zoom.
  • Mute your microphone if you are not directly engaged in the discussion, eg while someone else is making a presentation, especially if you are connecting in from home and there are background noises.
  • Unless you have connection problems, keep your camera on. This helps maintain a level of body language – critical for effective communication.
  • Close down as many windows as possible if you will be presenting so that it will be easy to navigate on screen, and make sure that no confidential information is on display.
  • If sharing video, don't sit with a bright light or window behind you.
  • Make extra effort to join meetings on time.
  • Where relevant, distribute documents in advance and allow sufficient time for them to be reviewed in advance of the meeting.
  • Agree on whether to use the Chat function to ask questions or 'raise your hand' or what other technique will be used to prevent multiple people speaking at once. If microphones are muted, un-muting is a good signal to the chair that you wisk to speak.

Hangouts Meet is an easy to use video conferenceing tool available to all UCD staff. You can easily set up or participate in virtual meetings and can choose whether or not to use video. You can share documents that are to be viewed via the Present option, and any participant can be made the presenter.

Resources to help in using Hangouts Meet are available (opens in a new window)here, including how to integrate the tool into Outlook.

This page on the IT Services Website shows how to set up a virtual meeting from Google Calendar.

Zoom is videoconferencing software and it is expected that UCD will put in place an institution-wide licence.

The IT Services webpage about Zoom is available here. It contains links to help and to videos.

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