Stop at all lectures and exams, EUR prepares online lectures

[Update] All lectures and all exams have been suspended until March 31. The Executive Board took that decision on Thursday evening. In doing so, the board is following the government’s advice to cancel meetings to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

The university will remain open to staff, and the defense of theses and PhD theses will also continue. Scheduled inaugural lectures, usually involving more than 300 people, will be postponed.

Initially, the university announced on Thursday afternoon that only lectures with more than a hundred students would be canceled. Now all educational activities on campus have been canceled until the end of March. However, the university wants to fully focus on online educational activities and, if necessary, allocate extra money for this.

It is not yet quite clear what the consequences will be for the nearly 30.000 students. At several faculties the exam week would start on Friday. All exams are canceled, effective immediately on Thursday afternoon. It is unclear when the tests can be made.

Webcasts against corona

“The Education Lab team is on standby,” said Jeroen Jansz, director of Community for Learning and Innovation (CLI). The lab is part of the CLI and has several recording studios in-house. Lecturers can lecture here in front of the camera. The audience, the students, can watch the uploaded video, the webcast, at home. “If the board needs our help, we are ready.”

Another option is to broadcast lectures live, this is done from the Media Support Center. It is still being investigated whether the technical possibilities are sufficient “All online options for lectures are being researched and considered,” says the university.

RIVM

The university follows the advice of RIVM. Therefore, most meetings are canceled until further notice. What this means for the Master Open Day is still under review. The university is also still discussing the consequences for other meetings, education-related or not.