Once again, teachers, students and services made tremendous efforts during the last couple of weeks to ensure that all scheduled exams can take place, says rector Frank Baaijens. The exam period runs from Monday 6 to Saturday 18 April, and all 371 exams, including the re-examinations of Q2, will be held.

Baaijens: “After D-Day for our online education we now move on to E-Day for our exams. Alternative forms were found for most of the exams, such as oral exams or a group assignment. We will use the platform Proctorio for the 92 exams for which no alternative forms could be found. This platform allows students to make the exam at home and it allows teachers to supervise this properly. This too required much effort to ensure that everything was ready in time.”

Privacy

Students had questions concerning their privacy during the run up to the implementation of Proctorio, which was tested during interim tests last week. What happens to the data, how and where will the images taken during the exams be stored, for example? Baaijens: “We drew up a privacy regulation for this, which we discussed with all parties involved. Think of the examination committees, the Student Advisory Body, our Chief Information Security Manager, the members of the University Council. We made clear agreements with Proctorio about who has access to the data and how long it will be stored, and the servers it runs on are located in Europe. We will not hesitate to finetune the system should this prove necessary after a first evaluation."

Baaijens would like to expressly point out that students should give Proctorio as test run first. “See how it works and realize that you are being filmed in your home. That means you should remove the items you don’t want on camera, or find a neutral place where you can take the exam. So, don’t wait until the last moment.”

PhD candidates

Besides the upcoming exam period, the Executive Board is also thinking about the position of PhD candidates, many of whom are experiencing a delay now that they no longer have access to labs. Baaijens: “At this moment, we aren’t going to make any concessions on this issue. This includes limited access to our labs for PhD candidates. That’s because we are in Brabant, the region that was hit hardest by the corona crisis. This also means that we have a social responsibility to deal with this as carefully as possible. Even if institutions elsewhere in the Netherlands possibly do allow small-scale use of labs.”

There is however, he says, a group active at TU/e to see how it might be possible to work in labs again, if the recommendations by the RIVM offer scope for this. “But I can’t make any concrete statements about that for now. Of course, the Executive Board fully understands that our international PhD candidates in particular are in a difficult situation. Not just because of the delay of their doctoral period, but also because of the emotional stress as a result of this crisis.”

Cosmos

TU/e vice-president Nicole Ummelen says that many initiatives are currently emerging from within the community to help these groups, “and I would like to urge everyone who has ideas or suggestions to come forward.” For the time being the best decision for internationals is to remain in the Netherlands, Baaijens believes. “Try to get in touch with each other here, that’s much easier than when you’re back in your home country, and join Cosmos for example, our student association for internationals. But of course, I also understand that this can be difficult when you’re being called upon to return home.”

Baaijens can’t make any statements yet about compensation or reimbursement for a delay of the doctoral period. “We are still discussing this among ourselves as universities, but also with subsidy provider NWO and the ministry ofEducation, Culture and Science.”  

Baaijens says that the corona crisis will no doubt have an impact on the international inflow of students for next academic year. “It just isn’t clear at this point how large that impact will be. Foreign Bachelor’s and Master’s student must register before May 1, and up and until now we still see an increase in the number of pre-enrolments. Universities in the United Kingdom however are already seeing the consequences. There the international inflow, which is a business model for many institutions in the UK, will take a serious hit. We need to wait and see what it will mean for us. At this time, there are two thousand international students at TU/e.”

In conclusion, the entire Executive Board and Baptiest Coopmans, chairman of the Supervisory Board, would once again like to emphasize how much they appreciate all the efforts made under much pressure by teachers, students and supporting staff members during the last couple of weeks. Baaijens: “But naturally, I want to wish all the students who have exams in the next two weeks the best of luck. It would be great if everyone gets through that successfully.”