In accordance with the NRW Coronaschutzverordnung (Coronavirus Protection Ordinance) published on the weekend, the rules and regulations currently effective will initially be extended until February 21 and then, presumably, continue to be effective in more or less the same form until March 7. For this reason, University Management and the Crisis Management Team have agreed on the following regulations with the examination board chairpersons:
No courses or exams will be held in person until March 7. This applies to both oral and written exams. Exceptions apply in the field of medicine and for lab courses that have already been authorized. Further exceptions can only be made in special cases that are to be approved by Div. 1.1 (see Point 2.).
The following options are available for exams scheduled up to March 7.
- Exams can be offered in alternative assessment formats. Generally approved alternative formats are: oral exams via Zoom from home or remote exams where candidates are not observed. Other alternative formats may be approved by the examination boards, e.g. ungraded module components may be recognized in the form of homework or bonus points.
- According to the currently valid general decision of the examination board chairpersons, exams can be held online as proctored remote exams (take-home exams) via Zoom. Due to the personal rights of the students, this is only possible if they explicitly grant their consent. The CLS handouts must be carefully observed: https://video.cls.rwth-aachen.de/gebrauchsanweisungen. If students do not agree to participate in a proctored remote exam, they should be offered one of the following options:
- An alternative format, such as an oral exam, can be offered.
- The examiner may offer students the opportunity to take the exam on the second exam date if this has been scheduled in the current exam period that runs until the end of April. Please note that no firm statements on whether these in-person exams can actually be held can be made for the time being.
- If there is only one date scheduled for the exam in the current exam period, an exemption may be granted by Division 1.1: pruefungsrecht@zhv.rwth-aachen.de, so that students may take the same exam as the remote exam and at the same time in a lecture hall of RWTH. This means that no further exam date is necessary.
It is up to the instructors to decide which option to offer.
- Exams may be postponed. The new exam dates will be scheduled for the summer semester lecture period and must be agreed upon in close coordination with the faculty’s exam schedulers. Rescheduled in-person exams in ZuseLab may be held in May at the earliest.
The Crisis Management Team strongly urges university members to make use of remote exam formats, as due to the COVID-19 mutations, it is currently impossible to predict whether in-person formats will be possible again in April, for example. They are aware that this announcement has been made at very short notice. Unfortunately, they are also only informed of the official requirements at very short notice. The best way to keep your planning on track is to take the remote exams.