Are your universities preparing for closure?

[historyrocks]

There’s been a flurry of emails this afternoon asking for immediate information on student assessment and what to do if exams are cancelled. A member of teaching staff (in a different department) is currently self-isolating, which I think has added a new level of urgency to plans.

We’ve decided to put on virtual drop in sessions for our students twice a week. So opportunity for them to come with any questions which maybe doesn’t warrant an email.

We had a play with MS teams today and also Collaborate and gave up with both. Think we’re going to use blackboard discussion.

No a word from our vc since last week when he sent one woolly email.

We have as a Dept moved online. I'm really unimpressed with lack of leadership I. Our institution and in government.

We're completely online from tomorrow and all staff ( unless specifically told otherwise) are to WFH. Some services are remaining open atm but we're being told to check for updates daily.
All events cancelled including graduation.
It feels like we're shut down now until September. It feels very strange and it wasn't the update i was expecting from our VC

Well we've had an update. We're told to carry on with face to face teaching. I'm gobsmacked. And disgusted.

I had home working approved by line manager but this is now what has gone out to students from vc. Contradictory info. If I'm told to go back in and I don't, will I be disciplined?

I'm fuming.

I've got students who have been in to class (in a shared environment all day every day not a class for an hour) who should be self isolating and are not with visible symptoms. I've got others who are self isolating. Nobody is cleaning our work area apart from academic staff.

Ours has gone online as of today thankfully.
Now I need to work out the IT! I only do one day and I am a clinical teacher so normally being able to work email and PowerPoint is all that’s necessary.

we are WFH from today. Had awful experiences with zoom and Microsoft Teams today. Gawd knows how we will get through this.

What happened with Zoom? I have not tried it yet and am planning to - no worries if you do not want to share
We will get through it!

I think zoom is rubbish, try Google hangouts. Works well for group discussions.

All face-to-face student contact has been ditched. Teaching this week is all via video-conferencing etc. However, we are a campus uni and we have students living in halls. Some are international students who can't go home. Others are choosing not to because family members are self-isolating. So we can't do a full shut-down...

Mumteedum
Taken from a UCU (local-ish, although publically available) statement:
"The University is not in a position to guarantee the health and safety of students or staff. It is not exercising sufficient social responsibility to do all it can to minimise the spread of the virus. In these circumstances, staff have the legal right not to facilitate situations which perpetuate the risk of cross-infection. Not only do we have the right to remove ourselves from such situations under the Employment Rights Act 1996, we have a duty under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure the safety of others"

@ChotaPeg thanks for that info. Our own branch response has put forward questions from last week 's communication. I don't know what the response will be to this. Where ever you took that info from seems more robust than our place. Crazy that unis are not limiting social mixing as much as possible. We haven't even cancelled open day due in 2 weeks yet.

Zoom was hard to get people logged in, some couldn't get video, some no audio and so had to phone in too. And we just couldn't seem to stop talking over each other.

Thanks WarmCinnamonZoflora for answering, it is good to have a heads-up on potential problems.

The host on the tutorial session I participated in (to learn how to use Zoom) got people to write their questions on the chat but if you were trying to have a discussion, I can see how it would be difficult. There did not seem to be a way to raise hands, he just said to use the chat. As a participant, I found the chat thread moved quite fast and was a bit distracting from what he was saying and the slides on the screen, and he only answered the questions when he was actually focused on the chat, which is fair enough.

Phoning in sounds a complete nightmare.

Is anyone else's university cancelling first year exams? I can see all sorts of problems down the line with this, as weak / disengaged students are allowed to proceed into Year 2, and get no experience of university exams until 2/3 of the way into their course.

We are cancelling first and second year exams (Scotland). Which was easy to say, but the consequences will be complex. We do have semester 1 exams to give some guidance but it isn’t clear what will happen about those who need resits for those (although I hope we will be back in a position to have exams by August). There is talk of still teaching online until Christmas. I am really beginning to wish I hadn’t agreed to another stint as convenor of the board of examiners.