Working culture at UTU Geospatial Labs

The Department of Geography and Geology hosts three UTU geospatial laboratories, all located at the Geography section in the Natura building. The laboratories are: 

  1. Modelling lab (room 453)
  2. GIS class (Paikkatietoluokka, room 420.1 and 420.2)
  3. Maatila class (room 418).
General instructions that apply to users in all the laboratories:
  • Only the UTU staff and students are allowed to utilise the laboratories.
  • The laboratories are to be used only for research and education purposes. Personal or business oriented tasks should never be done in the laboratories.
  • The laboratories are only available for authorised purposes with copyright and related restrictions appropriately respected.
  • Do not make too much noise and give all the users the opportunity to work in peace.
  • Always remember to maintain a good working order in the laboratory and do not bring liquids or food to the lab (coffee etc).
  • Inform the personnel about your observations regarding problems that need their attention.
  • Users are not allowed to install any software on the computers.
  • Files can be stored in user’s personal network folders or temporarily on the computer’s own hard drive. Users are responsible for taking backups of their data!
  • Please give a chance to transfer data between computers if another person has data stored in the hard drive of the computer that you are using.
Specific instruction regarding the UTU Geospatial Modelling Lab:

The Geospatial Modelling Lab (room 453) should be primarily used for GIS, remote sensing and applied geoinformatics related work and thus other computing (including writing and other research related tasks) should be done elsewhere. 

Work sessions for the Modelling Lab should be reserved in the reservation lists that are located in the corridor outside the laboratory. Please try to avoid unnecessary reservations and restrict your reservations to less than half a day at a time. The lab’s doors are always locked and only staff and other authorised users may attend the premises. Always check that the door is closed when leaving the lab.

Files can be stored in:

  • user’s personal network folders and external media
  • network drives or folders of projects
  • individual researchers can create a folder for their working period on computer’s E-drive.

If you feel any information is lacking or should be modified, do not hesitate and inform the personnel about it.

Frequently asked questions:

Ask for a permission from the personnel.

In case any lockers are available, you can obtain a key from the personnel after paying a deposit of 20€.

The Geoportti website provides an extensive list of most commonly used geospatial software. There are also links to the software producers’ websites which usually represent the best source of up-to-date information about the products. In addition, this site provides further information about the UTU-specific software. In case there are questions or problems related to performing certain analyses or other tasks, it is suggested exploring the online help of the software. The online guides are often very useful and informative.

The users are not allowed to install any software on the computers without permission. In case you need software that is not available, please contact the laboratory personnel. However, note that all computers do not necessarily contain the same software packages. The program you need might already be available on another computer.

Especially when working with big files it is often faster to work from the computer’s hard disk than through the network. Therefore, as long as your work session takes, it is temporarily allowed to store data on the local disks. The E: drive should primarily be used for temporary purposes. If there is no E: drive available, please use the folder ‘Opiskelijat’ or ‘Students’ located either on C: drive or D: drive. Remember to name your files and folders properly.

Since the storage capacity of local disks is limited, long-term data storage is not allowed! You should store data in your network home directory or some external media and erase all of it from the local disks at the end of each working session. Please keep in mind that the laboratory personnel are not taking backups and they have the right to delete data files from local disks if necessary. The local disks should never be used for storing backups of your work. If you want to create backups, please use external devices.