Preliminary status for planning the winter semester 2021/22

Dear staff members,

The start of the winter semester is rapidly approaching. That´s why we would like to let you know about the current regulations and our plans for teaching and studies in the winter semester 2021/22. 

As has already been announced, we are committed to realise as much face-to-face teaching as possible in the coming winter semester. The current Hochschulen-Coronaverordnung (coronavirus regulation for universities) and the Bekämpfungsverordnung (combat regulations), which initially apply until mid-September, give us a guidelines for planning face-to-face teaching. These regulations pave the way for our return to more face-to-face teaching.

Handouts, check lists, the Hygiene Conceptual Framework and so on will be adapted in the near future to suit the currently applicable specifications.

According to the regulations, events which are similar to meetings (which include lectures and seminars, for example) may deviate from the generally applicable 1.5m social distancing rules. In this case, a room may be occupied to a maximum of 50% capacity in a chessboard pattern (seats directly next to, in front of and behind each participant remain empty) and a certified mask (surgical masks, FFP2 masks) must be worn the entire time. In justified cases of exception, individual lectures which take place in externally administrated rooms can also deviate from this regulation (see below).

Facility Management is currently working through the room requirements which have already been centrally requested by the departments. New room requests do not need to be submitted. The basic data entry should have been completed already. If you havn´t done so, please submit your lecture hall registrations for the lectures listed in UnivIS for the winter semester 2021/22 via the web form to Ms Springborn at Event Management by 06.09.2021.

Allocations will be completed by 17.09.2021. UnivIS representatives will be informed via circular e-mail once the room allocations have been completed. There will be no separate notification about this – the information must be retrieved from UnivIS after receipt of the e-mail.

Room bookings for externally administrated rooms will take place as before via the responsible institutes. Regarding access to an external room: please contact the person who is listed as responsible for the respective room in UnivIS in good time before the semester starts (one week before the first date at the latest).

Regardless of what the allocated rooms allow or how many people can be present as per the 50 percent regulation (precise details about possible participant numbers will soon be available in the respective seating plans for the winter semester 2021/22 cloud), the lecturers will agree with the responsible offices internally (degree coordination, directors, etc.) whether the lectures can be held with full attendance, alternating attendance, in a hybrid format or purely online.

Room bookings for purely online lectures should remain as they are if possible; this would allow students to attend these lectures if necessary in the rooms on site, either via a streaming offer, independently in silence, etc. The UnivIS representatives should enter a note in the lecture title in UnivIS stating that the lecture will be conducted online. This way, the reserved room can be used to follow the online lecture on site at the CAU, if needed.

The exception to the 50 percent regulation named above can, in justified individual cases, be used for certain lectures which take place in externally administrated rooms and which would not be possible when adhering to the social distancing rule of 1.5m and the 50 percent regulation. Exceptions are possible for the following examples: practical exercises on particular objects / equipment, lab practicals or similar. A request for justified exception must be submitted for an individual lecture to the responsible Dean's Office and approved there. A suitable request form will be provided in good time.

We are currently working on equipping certain rooms with additional technology to implement hybrid and online teaching concepts. Due to delivery problems this implementation will be done in stages; we hope everything will be completed by end of October. Information about the status of this implementation and current seating plans will soon be available in the cloud.

We would like to remind lecturers planning current lectures that compensation measures must be also provided for members of risk groups, provided this is possible in terms of organisation and that the learning objectives enable such measures. For example, certain risk groups do not have the option to protect themselves by getting vaccinated. These people have the option to present their restrictions in a plausible manner in an application submitted two weeks before the start of lectures at the latest, and provide the corresponding documentation in support of their claim to the lecturers or Examination Office. They should be offered an alternative to face-to-face teaching, wherever possible. Potential alternatives could be participation via video conference, recording the lecture, transmission into a separate room, self-study units, etc.

International students also have the option to submit a request for compensation for disadvantages if they can plausibly describe and prove that they are prevented from attending face-to-face lectures due to circumstances beyond their control (e.g. short notice travel restrictions, quarantine, etc.). In addition, please bear in mind that international students may have been vaccinated in their home countries, but that this must be supplemented with an additional dose of another vaccine in order to count as fully vaccinated in Germany.

For admission to lectures, field trips and examinations which will be held indoors before 18.09. (validity period of the current coronavirus regulation for universities), the coronavirus regulation for universities requires participants to prove that they are fully vaccinated, have a certificate of recovery or a negative COVID test result (3G stands for geimpft/vaccinated, genesen/recovered or getestet/tested). The negative test result may not be more than 3 days old. The supervisor on site (lecturers, student assistants, etc.) will check this. The proof may only be looked at, documenting the respective status (vaccinated, recovered, tested) is currently not allowed. Students who do not have proof of one of these three options may not be admitted to the lecture. 

We assume that the 3G regulation will also apply in the next regulation period. Please prepare yourselves for the fact that the 3G regulation will probably also apply for examinations in BA/MA degree programmes in the second examination period (04.10. – 23.10.) of the current summer semester.

A concept for simple checks of the 3G regulation to relieve the person doing the checks will be prepared and communicated as quickly as possible for lectures and exams in the winter semester 2021/22, depending on the regulations valid at the time. For example, we are currently checking at what extent technical and personnel resources can be provided as support.

Recording participants’ contact details remains mandatory. This will be done via an OLAT tool, as before. You can find more information at: www.uni-kiel.de/en/coronavirus/information/for-students#c43501

For the coming winter semester, as with the previous semesters, three-week examination periods are currently being planned in order to be able to compensate for any pandemic-related larger room requirements. Approval by the MBWK (Ministry of Education, Science and Cultural Affairs) is still pending, this is key for any communication towards the examination periods for the winter semester. Subject to approval by the MBWK, we would like to provide you with the following provisional examination periods to help you with your planning: the first examination week is estimated to be during the calendar weeks 6 to 8, and the second examination week is estimated to be during the calendar weeks 12 to 14.

Best regards,
Prof. Markus Hundt
Vice President