Dear students of the Computer Science department,
As you might have read, the university is going to be closed, effective tomorrow, Tuesday 17 March, as a response to the pandemic. The official message from the University President is copied below. With this e-mail, we would like to inform you about how the closing affects exams and ongoing courses.
- Classroom teaching and study will not take place until 04 May 2020 in order to counteract the further spread of the coronavirus. If you participate in an ongoing course or seminar, your instructor will inform you whether the course will transition to an online format.
- Examinations that require the student’s attendance at the university will not take place at least until 24 April 2020. This implies that all written exams will be postponed to a later date. In due time, the instructors of courses with postponed exams will contact their students with updates on rescheduling of the exam.
- In urgent individual cases, the examiners may decide in agreement with the students concerned whether an oral examination may be conducted via video conference. Please contact the instructor of a given course if your individual case does not allow you to wait for the results of an exam that is re-scheduled at a date after 24 April.
- The processing times of ongoing qualification papers (such as term papers, Bachelor’s thesis, Master’s thesis, state examination thesis) will be adjusted. I.e., your deadline for submission of your thesis will be postponed according to the closing period. If you want to submit a thesis during the closing, please send an electronic version in PDF format to the examination office and to your reviewers. You will have to hand in the written copies, following the usual procedure, after re opening of the university.
Regarding the upcoming summer semester, we have the following important information for you:
- The start of courses has been postponed to Monday, May 4th.
- We expect that the same set of courses will be offered as during a regular summer semester. Courses might be offered using online formats, rather than in a presence mode, at least during the first weeks of the new semester.
- In response to the delayed start of the course time, instructors might offer online materials before May 4th that you can use for preparation while the university is closed. If so, you can find these materials on the course’s web page that is linked through LSF.
- Like in this semester, you can use the SIC seminar assignment system to register for seminars. The system will be available for students starting from April 7th. The deadline for registration is April 17th.
- As of now, we expect that exams for courses in the summer semester will be scheduled at the usual periods during the summer term break.
- We are aware of the problems that the current situation is generating for incoming international students. We are working on a solution for freshmen enrolment. In case of questions, please directly contact the Studierendensekretariat or Welcome Center: https://www.uni-saarland.de/studium/beratung/studierendensekretariat.html (German only)https://www.uni-saarland.de/en/global/welcome-center.html (in English)
For further updates, please regularly check:
- Corona-related updates of Saarland Informatics Campus: http://bit.ly/enCoronaSIC
- Corona-related updates of Saarland University: https://www.uni-saarland.de/en/page/coronavirus.html
- and information posted on webpages of courses that you took this winter semester or courses you plan to take in the summer semester.
Should you have questions, please always check these resources first, to avoid overburdening our study coordinators! Otherwise please contact the study coordinators via e-mail.
These are our commitments during the Covid 19 pandemic. By joining forces and acting calmly, informed and responsibly, we can contribute our share to slow down the spread of the virus. #FlattenTheCurve!
Keep in mind: The fewer people fall ill at the same time, the better the people affected can be treated in our hospitals. This is why the infection curve must be lowered as much as possible in an effort to reduce the mortality rate by giving our health system enough time to care for and heal the patients. Physical Isolation is the most effective measure to contain the pandemic and the best way to reduce the infection rate. So, if possible, stay at home! Reduce contact with people outside your family or direct household to the absolute minimum and only leave your home if absolutely necessary.
The Department of Computer Science at Saarland University hopes that everyone will remain healthy and safe throughout the corona situation and that we will soon be reunited in our familiar university setting.
Stay safe and healthy everyone!
Prof. Dr Jürgen Steimle (Vice Dean of Study Affairs)
Dr. Tanja Breinig (Study Coordinator)