Autumn 2020: campus where necessary, online when possible!
20 Nov 2020: Vice-chancellor´s decision on measures in response to the spread of COVID-19.
To further reduce the risk of infection, online forms of teaching and examination must be used wherever possible.
However, the national rules and recommendations for reducing the risk of infection continue to apply, which means consistent social distancing in all situations and a ban on activities gathering more than 50 people. The Vice-Chancellor’s decision also indicates certain categories of students and types of activities that should have priority when planning on-campus teaching. These pages provide advice and recommendations on teaching for departments and teachers.
Main recommendation: keep your courses predominantly online!
While it is easy to understand the desire to allow courses to return to campus as far as possible, it is advisable to bear the following three fundamental points in mind when planning and teaching:
- The crisis is not over! There must be preparedness to move all teaching back online if the coronavirus situation deteriorates. This is an argument for keeping a considerable amount of the teaching online and underlines the importance of making sensible and tactical choices when you decide which teaching primarily will be delivered on campus. That will make any return to an online situation less problematic.
- It will not be business as usual on campus! The remaining restrictions combined with the prioritisation of certain categories of students and types of activities will demand a great deal of coordination when it comes to timetabling and booking premises. This applies in particular to courses with large student groups, but the changes these groups need in terms of premises and, potentially, types of instruction will also have consequences for the premises available for smaller courses. The more instruction remains online, the easier it will be to cope with these challenges and to give prioritised groups what they need.
- You may need to plan for alternative types of instruction for at-risk groups. You should be prepared for possible demands for alternatives to planned on-campus activities from students – and perhaps colleagues! – who belong to an at-risk group. This may have major consequences for the division of teachers’ working hours between different courses, and between activities on campus and online. No special measures are needed for components that are planned to take place online, on the other hand.
What will you find on these pages?
- Lessons from spring 2020
– focuses on students’ and teachers’ experiences, based on responses to the questionnaire sent out in May. - Balance between on campus and online
– will discuss some important general principles for planning hybrid courses in the autumn, i.e. courses delivered by a blend of on-campus and online teaching. There is also a suggested planning process. - On campus where necessary
– will give advice on how to reason your way to which types of on-campus activities should have priority over others. - Online when possible
– builds on experiences from spring 2020, and here you will already find most of the previous support materials for online teaching, e.g. on assessment and take-home exams and on recorded material. - Students who belong to at-risk groups
– gives general advice and guidelines on necessary adaptations of teaching. - Voices on online teaching
– contains interviews with a number of teachers who share their experience and ideas. - Help and support
– is a collection of contact information and links to central and local support services at the University – for departments and programme directors, and for individual teachers or teams of teachers. Training courses, seminars, workshops, advice, support, etc. are close at hand for all teaching staff.