A prospective user of the facility should read the statement and policies for the facility found on the web site (http://www.umn.edu/nmr) and fill out the training request form. This form requires Acrobat Reader 7.0 or higher. New users are expected to understand basic NMR concepts before beginning training, have a defined research project, and should recognize that training may involve a substantial investment of time depending on the user's previous experience.

New users are required to enroll the NMR Workshop held several times throughout the year. After completing the workshop, trainees should plan to spend time practicing during regular hours when facility staff can be present to assist. New users may also be required to pass a check-out test, that involves demonstrating proficiency with the execution of simple 1-D NMR experiments. New users are also strongly encouraged to take a course in NMR on campus. Basic instrument charges will be applied for any training hours outside the workshop.

If an individual has not been successfully checked out after completing the workshop and a maximum of five additional hours training, that person's suitability as a user or need for additional background training outside the facility will be evaluated before further training is undertaken. New users are expected to work during regular business hours when assistance is available or work with an experienced member of their research group.

Additional training for advanced experiments should be discussed with and can be arranged through the facility personnel. Requests from all those who expect to use the instrumentation sporadically may need additional review if the gaps between use are likely to raise the need for re-training in order to insure safe and efficient operation of the instruments. The decision to train users from outside the University will be handled on a case-by-case basis taking into account such factors as: an individual's previous NMR experience, available instrument and facility personnel time, and available resources to support this activity.

b. Loss of access and privileges

The facility reserves the right to deny facility user privileges to anyone if the individual has insufficient knowledge and engages in unsafe practices or other unacceptable behavior. Users may not allow any other users or unauthorized users to use their accounts or have access to their accounts on the online machines. Providing unauthorized users access to accounts and to the instruments will result in loss of facility access and user privileges.

To re-gain user privileges, the user may be required to do one or more of the following: re-take the practical NMR workshop, pass a check-out test, and/or participate in one-on-one training with facility personnel. Upon completion of re-training, the user will be granted access to the 500 MHz instrument during regular hours, 9 AM to 5 PM, Monday-Friday. The user must request NMR time at least 24 hrs. in advance so that NMR facility personnel may confirm that a staff person will be present. After a probationary period, the facility personnel will re-evaluate the user's status and privileges based on the user's research requirements and skills as an independent, effective user of the NMR instruments.

c. Other operating policies

• The NMR facility is located in a card-access only area of Hasselmo Hall. New users are granted card access upon successful completion of their training.
• When new users finish training, accounts will be created for them on the necessary instruments. Appropriate disk storage space will be assigned for their NMR usage as determined by the manager. Users are responsible for saving, archiving, and moving their data off the on-line disks before exceeding their allotted disk space. All users are responsible for backing up their own data. The facility is not responsible for user data and does not archive user data.
• Facility time is reserved on Wednesdays from 8 am to 12 noon. Experiments that need to infringe on this time require prior approval from the facility personnel. Notices of repairs, down time due to building air shutoffs and any other interruption in service will be sent via e-mail and posted on the web site.
• While this is a user facility, under special circumstances and special arrangement, data collection by facility staff can be arranged at assisted rates.
• Probe changes will be done by facility personnel only, unless special permission is given.
  
• Remote operation of the instruments is not allowed without approval.
  
• The facility reserves the right to deny facility user privileges to anyone if the individual has insufficient knowledge and engages in unsafe practices or other unacceptable behavior.
  
• Users may not allow any other users or unauthorized users to use their accounts or have access to their accounts on the online machines.
  
• Users are asked to report problems as soon as possible so that the facility personnel may address them.
  

Users should submit requests for NMR time using the web site (http://www.umn.edu/nmr) under the "Schedule" section. This section is password protected. New users will receive access to this area during their training. Requests for NMR time will be filled based on the order received and every effort will be made to ensure equity in the distribution of scheduled time. The schedule is posted on the web site as well as on hard copy in the NMR lab. The facility staff has the discretion to make schedule adjustments on short notice, if necessary, to balance specific requirements, and in an effort to optimize instrument use. Internal rates apply to academic researchers within the University of Minnesota system and members of MNSCU.

Instrument time is a scarce and valuable commodity. Charges will be levied for all time that is scheduled whether the user utilizes the time or not. Time requests can be cancelled up to 48 hrs. in advance of the start of the time block without penalty. After that point, unused time will be charged to the scheduled user for the block unless another user assumes the time. To help avoid unused blocks of time, users should plan their experiments carefully. Facility personnel may make exceptions to this policy on a case-by-case basis.

Users must sign in upon arrival using the instrument log books, filling in data on starting time, and when finished, ending time, total time used, and account number to be charged. Time charges will be made based on established rates. Charges will be levied for time that is reserved, but not used, unless the cancellation procedures above are followed. Regardless of whether an experiment is successful or not, there will be a charge for the time used except if an instrument hardware or software problem, as verified by facility personnel, is the source of an experiment failure. Though time is typically billed in 15 minute increments, a monthly minimum charge $25 does apply.

Further regulations apply for charges on the 800. Please see the 800 guidelines for a full description of procedures for 800 users.

e. Facility Personnel Activities

Facility personnel provide a resource for enhancing the effectiveness of the NMR Facility through teaching, training and interacting with users which can augment expertise in the individual research groups. While major instructional priority of the facility personnel is to provide operational training to users, it is anticipated that their knowledge and expertise will be called upon to varying degrees by users in the pursuit of the research projects for such things as developing new applications, implementing new pulse sequences, optimizing experiments for particular systems, and processing and analysis of multidimensional NMR data. Not only do such efforts involve the investment of time on the part of the personnel, but also may constitute significant intellectual and scientific contributions to the research project. Depending on the magnitude of these contributions, appropriate support for, and recognition of, these efforts needs to be made. Situations involving significant time commitments on the part of the facility personnel should be arranged in advance through personnel and the director. Users are also expected to invest time in enhancing and expanding their knowledge and proficiency in NMR and to utilize the expertise available within their research group in order to become more independent.

f. NMR User Committee

The NMR User Committee currently includes all principal investigators who aid in establishing broad policy related to the academic and research usage of the instruments in the facility including special allocations of instrument time, rates, upgrades, and grants submitted on behalf of the facility. Meetings of the user committee are to be held approximately once every two months. All members of user groups are invited to attend.

g. NMR Steering Committee This is a smaller committee consisting of the principal investigators of the main user groups within BMBB. This committee meets every two months to discuss more detailed technical and strategic issues, then their results and recommendations are reported to the users, by email and/or at the Users Committee meeting. The five year strategic plan is also generated by the NMR Steering Committee.

h. Authorship

A facility staff person should be included as a co-author in any publication that received a significant intellectual contribution from that person. Significant intellectual input may include experimental design and optimization, interpretation and analysis of results, or writing (editing) significant portions of a manuscript. Research advisors should contact the facility director with questions about this policy or about a facility person's contribution to a project. If a publication contains routine data that was obtained with minimal assistance from a staff person, co-authorship is not required, but recognition of that staff person in Acknowledgements is recommended. Such acknowledgements help document the value of the facility personnel to the research community. Service fees charged for experimental data collection do not serve as a substitute for proper acknowledgement or co-authorship of facility personnel.