NetNotes


must wear safety glasses, gloves and a clean gown, and they must clean the computer mouse, keyboard, and microscope knobs with 80% (v/v) ethanol wipes before and aſter each use. Training is limited to “essen- tial” projects only. Trouble shooting and training is achieved by attaching a second, remote computer mouse. Te Logitech IR mouse with long battery life is good for this. Instructors can then stand quite a long way behind the trainee. Te instructor can point to any part of the screen by operating the mouse on a bench or even their leg. In addition, knobs on the microscope can be pointed to using a cheap laser pointer. As my eyes aren’t what they use to be, when selecting various options in pull down menus, etc., I will ask the trainee to confirm the option I’m selecting, making jokes that I’m half blind. Te humor, and the process of asking the trainee to confirm the soſtware selections, actually seems to aid train- ing. When things return to normal, I think we’ll continue with the sec- ond mouse training technique. So far comments from our clients have been highly complimentary regarding the new safety protocols. Stephen H. Cody stephenhcody@gmail.com


Core Facility Pricing Confocal Microscopy Listserver I’m wondering if any core facilities employ a sliding charge scale for


instrument time based on cumulative hours, as in the more a lab uses confocal in a month the cheaper it gets per hour, or any other pricing scheme to alleviate cost for high-volume users (I know a lot of cores do a peak vs. non-peak hourly rate but I’m looking for alternatives to that). Any comments/recommendations regarding volume discounts or other ways to mitigate cost for major users are much appreciated. Esteban Fernandez g.esteban.fernandez@gmail.com


Our core is required to charge all users the same price. We do have


one microscope with a lower price for nights, weekends, and holidays (for fully trained users). All of this is easy to do with iLabs. We do informally (since I don’t know of a trivial way to do this in iLabs) al- low some major user labs to schedule further ahead of time than other user labs. In fact, I encourage the major users/labs to reserve time sev- eral weeks in advance, and if they want to routinely book (say) every Wednesday, 10am-5pm, great. Both of our main microscopes—Leica SP8 and Olympus FV3000RS—from mid-January until Coronavirus induced work stoppage—had gotten to the point of being booked al- most full workdays. Tis pretty much meant no new users since we have a policy of training on the confocals generally two 2-hour sessions during the workday. No 2-hour slots available=no new users. I antici- pate that when we do get back to work, the previous regular user base will pretty much book up all available time during workdays, so could be a while before I have to deal with social distancing vis-à-vis training users. George McNamara geomcnamara@earthlink.net


We apply a discount for time-lapse imaging over 4 hours for all


systems, e.g., the first 4 hours are the standard charge and then it’s re- duced to 2/3 charge rate. Te reduced charge for time-lapse studies is to try to make this more affordable as we do want to encourage people to do live cell/tissue imaging. We have also offered one system (a slide- scanner) at a reduced rate for aſter-hours usage to try to spread out the demand. Jacqui Ross jacqui.ross@auckland.ac.nz


Yes, for many years we have been using a “sliding scale” scheme


in the form of volume usage discounts for our LSM510 and LSM780 that uses an hourly, prime time, full day use and yearly volume use. With these schemes in place major users may pay up to 8 times lower average fee per hr than occasional users (though total is fixed per year). Major users also have priority scheduling. Recently the power user


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discount was scaled down to a quarter (our billing cycle) because of charging restrictions imposed by our accounting (no volume prepay is allowed so power users are charged a regular fee until the quarterly limit is reached, aſter that usage is “free” until the end of the quarter). Tis approach allows the PI more uniform distribution of payments throughout whole year. Tis scheme makes life and budgeting easier for major users (currently we have two of them) but may reduce Core revenue. Arvydas Matiukas matiukaa@upstate.edu


Many cores are bound by grants or their institution to charge all


users the same price. However (depending on what sort of agreements you have to work with) you can finesse rates to accommodate differ- ent kinds of use. In my last role I set one rate for assisted use, a lower rate for independent use (aſter passing a certification), and a night and weekend rate. Te night and weekend rate was great for high-volume users and time-lapse studies, and it helped the core by shiſting bigger jobs to a time slot that wouldn’t prevent others users from working. Timothy Feinstein tnf8@pitt.edu


I was told by a consultant that was reviewing our policies in order


to adhere to NIH, NCI as well as other funding bodies, that it is not ap- propriate to have differential pricing structures because it favors larger labs with more funding. A small lab with a small amount of funds will inherently do less imaging and will have to pay a higher price for it. Conversely, the labs with the most people and funding will use the systems more and will receive the biggest discount. Tis seems un- fair. We do not have a decreased rate during off hours. In my opinion this encourages users to use systems late at night or on the weekends. When a user operates the systems late at night without any guidance the chances for misuse of the system increases. Tis relates to care of the system, laser safety and even the fidelity of the imaging parameters (and yes, I think we play some role in ensuring that grad students and post-docs are acquiring data that is ethical and quantifiable). For this same reason we do not charge for assistance. We want the user to ask for help rather than avoid it. We do have discounted rates for long- term imaging (>24 hours) for live cell imaging on the confocal and live cell imaging systems. Brian Armstrong barmstrong@coh.org


We have fee structures whereby work in the evenings or weekends


may be less than peak hours. Tese fees must be applied equally to all users as per government mandates. Keep good records; you may be audited. Tere are discounts for researchers in certain programs, such as the cancer center or liver center users, but I believe the individual users are getting the discounts because the difference is made up by the programs paying. (In a previous position, some years the core collected more from the grants than the discount to users, so this was a good deal for the core.) I don’t know the details of how this works where I am now (very glad there are finance people who handle this), but again, records are being kept (in iLab) to conform to government regulations. Michael Cammer michael.cammer@med.nyu.edu


When people run 24-hour experiments on our confocal instru-


ments, the most that they will get charged in any 24-hour period is for 16 hours. Tis requires a bit of manual tallying when billing time comes, but it has been manageable so far and helps to facilitate around-the-clock use of our instruments. We’ve set up “per hour” and “per day” rates for this. We have been able to justify the discount based on lower cost and wear and tear on the instruments due to fewer sample changes during long imaging runs. Hope this helps. Ben Abrams babrams@ucsc.edu


Tanks for sharing everyone! It’s great to get some perspective from hearing what others do. Tis will help us devise a new pricing


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