The 2020 summer semester at Karlsruhe Institute of Technolo-gy (KIT) will begin punctually on April 20 with the planned start of the lecturing period – with exclusively digital courses and without students on the campus for the time being. On-campus teaching will start step by step when the legal restrictions will be lifted. Due to the Corona crisis, the state government has suspended academic education operations in the state of Baden-Württemberg until April 19.
“At the moment, we do not know when on-campus teaching will be possible again. However, we at KIT started very early to prepare for the start of the semester with entirely digital courses. This will ena-ble our students to proceed well with their studies in spite of all re-strictions,” says Professor Alexander Wanner, KIT Vice-President for Higher Education and Academic Affairs. “Of course, mitigation of the pandemic also is of priority at KIT. As the further development of the epidemic is not known, academic education operations at KIT will be adapted flexibly to the valid infection protection provisions in the next weeks and months.” At the moment, KIT departments and lecturers are re-editing the contents for online lectures or seminars. In the summer semester, we want to carry out online, in parts or completely, as many courses as possible. For this purpose, the online services of KIT were and still are complemented by cloud-based services of private providers, such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom, to open up additional communication channels in the short term.
In compliance with the infection protection requirements made by the responsible authorities, it will be possible to organize one-to-one supervision with distances being kept. Oral examinations will take place in the presence of not more than five persons observing dis-tancing regulations, while the public will be excluded.
Stepwise Return to On-campus Teaching
For the stepwise return to standard academic operations, KIT has developed a phased plan that will be implemented in line with the infection protection requirements imposed and recommendations given by the federation, state, and municipality. “As everywhere, we will need much patience,” Wanner says. It is impossible at the mo-ment to foresee when students will be able to use study places at the KIT Library or attend courses at lecture halls and laboratories on the campus again.
“We wish to offer our students good academic education also under these special circumstances,” Wanner points out. “I am convinced that we will manage these challenges together at KIT in mutual re-spect, cooperation, and trust.”
More information on online teaching options is given by the ZML – Center for Technology-Enhanced Learning of KIT:
http://www.zml.kit.edu/english/4531.php
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.