[04/12/2020 - 09:45h] Notes of the Director. Weekly Report (III). COVID-19

Dear Community,

Today, Sunday, is the fourth week of mass confinement and our society is still in a state of great uncertainty. Without doubt we live in an atypical Easter, a confined way of the cross. I want to give a lot of encouragement to everyone who, directly or indirectly, it is affected by this devastating pandemic and express my deepest condolences to the people who have recently lost their loved ones.

As reflected in the Rector’s statement last Friday, April 3, the remaining teaching of the current course must be in a non-face-to face form. In the same way and following his guidelines, all course assessments should be planned in a non-face-to face form, including final exams, and students must be informed. The guideline from the Rector’s Office is that the tendency is, as far as possible, towards a continuous evaluation, with a distribution of the workload, so that the student can make a good progress and take good advantage of this educational activity. Also recommended, as far as possible, to reduce the weight of the note of the subjects at the final exams. Obviously, all of these changes will need to be documents.

Therefore, everyone must be clear that teaching and evaluation must be done in a non-face-to-face form and that they must be properly reported and documented. Below we discuss each of these 4 cardinal points.

Regarding teaching, from the Direction we insist that for the proper functioning of the entire system, be strict in complying with the following points:

• For evaluations it is imperative that students have their UPC identity with G Suite. If you find that your classmates or students are not using them, please, help them or refer them to their online training.

• You must use ATENEA as a central meeting point for students and teachers.

• The Coordination’s subjects must notify at least one week in advance of any activity that must be performed. We consider this to be fundamental in the context of uncertainty that we are living in, in order to allow each person to organize themselves with their personal circumstances. Therefore, it is necessary to plan well the tasks to be performed and the “synchronous sessions” or “videoconferences” that are needed to attend virtually.

• The new teaching planning must be adapted to the student’s weekly workload capacity. Unfortunately, we continue to detect specific courses with simultaneous oversaturation.

• Teaching schedules must be kept so it can be easier for students to change classes. Respecting that is very important because now the number of synchronous assessments will be increased and students need to be allowed to access them normally.

As for the evaluation, on April 23 (“Saint Jordi quarantine”) begins the period of partial exams foreseen at the Modified Academic Calendar (except for MUEO). More than ever, in today’s conditions it is very important that students have information about the characteristics of the exam in order to be able to prepare adequate. As minimum, the information should be given the week before the tests. That is why we ask all the teachers that will make partial exams in their subjects that, by Thursday, April 16, upload a message at ATENEA with the following information:

• Exact content that goes into the partial exam.

• Percentage of the final note that involves the partial exam, and

• Typology of the test to be performed.

In relation to the information, this has been and will be a critical point in the coming days. An informative meeting was held this week for all ESEIAAT’s students. A total of 334 people attended for about 3 hours. The session provided information and clarified some doubts at firsthand, all that were possible.

Unfortunately, one of the main conclusions was that the information that is being generated and sent by e-mail does not always reach everyone. From the School’s Direction, we try not to constantly bombard the community with emails, but it is clear that the current situation is causing a lot of changes and that every day new information is generated which it has to be communicated.

To try to ensure that the information reaches to the ones who should reach, we will strength the messages on specific topics on online meetings. For example, next week students enrolled in TFGs and TFMs have been called to and explicit meeting on this topic on Wednesday, April 15, at 9:00 a.m. The same was done for students who are doing internships in companies, for the same Wednesday, April 15 at 10:30. Our intention is to carry out specific sessions of this kind for both, students and teachers.

However, keep in mind that when the current situation began, was launched the TAAIESE Project (https://taaiese.upc.edu) to gather and share with the community all information that may be useful to us during this period. I want to highlight the coaching section, and the contact and consultation point if you need help. In addition, the section for students is being expanded to be a unique canalization point of updated information. Now you will find the recording of the informative part of the session with students this week. We are working to introduce shortly the questions you asked us las Wednesday, with the corresponding answers.

Twenty FAQs have been published on the UPC’s website. Although they are focus on students, I think it is highly recommended that everybody reads it: https://www.upc.edu/en/press-room/news/faqs-of-interest-to-upc-students-during-the-health-emergency-state

Finally, regarding to the Documentation or record of changes in the teaching organization and the evaluation system of the subjects for the processes of Follow up and Accreditation, it must always be done as it is stablished in the actual Teaching Guide. To simplify management, it has been approved that all the changes will be detailed per subjects in a single document called “Addenda to the Teaching Guide, AGD”. The subjects’ Coordintions and teachers, this quarter will receive an email detailing the procedure to be followed in order to do the aforementioned AGD.

I want to end this week message with my renewed thanks for your great efforts. We are aware that the situation as a whole is critical, and we know that in some cases it is really dramatic. Personal situations are very varied and now, more than ever, you need to have a lot of empathy and understanding. First of all we are all people, and all together is how we are going to get out.

Thank you for the dedication and the interest of letting everything work out. Please stay safe!

Hugs,

Xavier Roca

ESEIAAT’s Director