8 Support
🏢 Lab class
Besides the support you get in our lab classes, here are some other ways you can get help:
- Go to a help desk session. Help desks are weekly demonstrator-led support sessions.
- Post academic questions on the student forum on Moodle.
- For questions of a more personal nature: email us, chat with us on Teams, or come to our student office hours.
- Use AI whenever you’re allowed to.
- For IT issues, get IT support.
🏠 Self-study
8.1 Help desk
Help desks will be held on Thursdays from 1–2pm in rooms A20/21 during weeks with lab classes (except on 27/11 when the help desk will be in A5). The aim of the help desks is to support your learning of the content of the labs.
Help desks are run by a demonstrator. You can simply drop in and don’t have to make an appointment in advance.
Please note that they are not a replacement for attending the labs or for reading the HHG. If you come to a help desk, you will be expected to have read the relevant chapters in the HHG.
8.2 Moodle forum
Here is a link to the Moodle page for the labs. You can access the module’s forums under the “Forums” tile. You can post on the General forum at any time. We aim to respond within one working day. Please also use the forum to communicate with each other. If you can answer someone’s question please do so—an answer from a peer can be quicker and more helpful than an answer from a lecturer!
Adding a new topic to a forum is pretty much straightforward: Just click on the forum name and then on “Add discussion topic”. If you would like to reply to a post, click on the post and then on “Reply”.
Forum search
What is less intuitive, however, is how to search forums. The forum search is actually quite powerful, but the very useful advanced features are easy to miss. To see the advanced search, you either have to click on “Search forums” before entering a search term:
Alternatively, you can perform a search and then click on “Advanced search…”:
The advanced search options should be pretty much self-explanatory. Note that Moodle automatically truncates. This means that if you enter the search term psycholog, Moodle will find forum posts with the words psychology, psychologist etc.
8.3 Email, Teams chat and student office hours
Lab classes and the forum are the preferred way to ask questions as all students can benefit from the answers given. However, sometimes you might want to bring personal issues to our attention that are not appropriate for raising in the lab class or posting on the forum. In such cases, please do send us an email, chat with us on Teams or come to our offices.
Jan
Jan’s student office hour: Thursday, 12-1pm in room LG43
Jonathan
Jonathan’s student office hour: Tuesday, 2-3pm in room A14
8.4 AI use
In my view, AI chatbots can supercharge your learning. They’re not perfect, and I wouldn’t rely on their statements without independent verification, but they’re still incredibly useful. Use them to learn. Then stop using them and complete your assessment on your own. Using AI for assessments is academic misconduct—period. (Unless, of course, the assessment instructions explicitly allow the use of AI.)
You can access Microsoft Copilot by logging in with your university account. I also recommend keeping an eye on AI comparisons such as the LMArena leaderboard as models evolve rapidly and their capabilities can change significantly over time.
I would also highly recommend to read the article Next Time You Consult an A.I. Chatbot, Remember One Thing that was published in the New York Times.
8.5 IT support
If you have any IT problems (e.g., difficulties to install a particular piece of software or to access one of the university’s online services), please contact the university’s Digital and Technology Services.
8.6 Confirmation
Please confirm you have worked through this chapter by submitting the corresponding chapter completion form on Moodle.