Keeping in touch

Once registered with DCU you will be provided with an account allowing access to your DCU email, portal page, Loop and more.

Staff use email for most messages to students and to each other. Class and college-related information will be forwarded to your student email address so, even if you use other e-mail accounts or prefer other forms of electronic communication, it is important that you check your DCU email account frequently.

Students are expected to use email in a professional and courteous manner and refrain from any comments which could be regarded as disrespectful or offensive. Think of your correspondence over email as practice for the work environment after university. As such we expect you to use well-written English in your emails.

General tips for writing effective emails:

• Begin the email by addressing the person you are writing to (e.g.Dear Susan/Hello Tom). It is impolite to begin an email without a greeting.
• In the body of the email, state who you are (e.g. student in the EM108 module), the purpose of your email, make a polite request, thank the receiver and sign off properly (e.g. kind regards, best wishes).
• Adopt a friendly and personable tone.
• Do not write anything that you would not be happy for everyone to see.
• Proof-read your email before you send it. Do not give the impression that you do not wish to take the time to write properly.
• Be careful with your username or tagline on your email
• Avoid text abbreviations such as ‘b4’, ‘gr8’ etc. in an email.
• When you receive a response to a query it is polite to send a return email to thank the receiver for responding.
• Before sending an email, consider whether you could find out the answer to the query yourself (e.g. from the Registry website).
• Remember to include an informative “Subject Title” in the subject line box.
• It is not appropriate to send the SAME general query to a number of different people at the same time. This leads to duplication of work.

Loop is DCU’s online learning environment that allows DCU staff to provide students with access to electronic teaching and learning materials (such as lecture notes and links to useful websites) and activities (such as discussion for a group assignment, reflective journals and quizzes).

The use of Loop in DCU varies from module to module. In some cases, Loop resources and activities may be additional supplements to your lectures and tutorials; in others, Loop activities may be fully integrated into your coursework. Individual lecturers will speak to you about the Loop requirements for their module. It is essential to become comfortable with this environment as soon as possible, as it will be used throughout your studies at the University. You may log onto Loop at loop.dcu.ie and once registered, you will see links to your modules under ‘MyCourses’.

Once you register on any of the Year 1 programmes, you will automatically gain access to an entry in Loop called ‘Computing First Year’. This entry appears in the list of ‘My courses’. All information that is not module-related but rather of interest to all Year 1 students will appear in this entry. For example, you can download the electronic version of this booklet from Loop.

In general you should feel free to ask relevant questions during a lecture. If you want to talk to a lecturer about something specific to yourself, you can talk to them after lecture or in their office. While lecturers will not have any problem with you dropping in if you have an issue to discuss, you may not always find them in their offices or they may not be able to give you their full attention at that particular time. The best way to ensure you find them and have their full attention is to make an appointment. In order to make the meeting more productive, you should try to provide some indication of what you need to discuss. If you have a personal issue to discuss, you do not need to provide details, simply state that the issue is personal.

If you know the name of the person, you can search the University Telephone Directory.

Research shows that most students struggling with their programme (for whatever reason) can be identified very early on. Students do best if challenges are discussed at an early stage. We will be actively monitoring student engagement in the initial weeks of semester and, through the first year Chairs, staff will be asked to follow up with individual students if we notice an issue. If you get an invitation to meet and talk about how things are going, please prioritise it. You belong in the Faculty, we want you to settle in, and we can help.