To: Academic and Administrative Staff of Faculty of Social Sciences
Dear colleagues —
An email is coming out today announcing that we will be continuing online teaching for four weeks in March, that is, 2-27 March. The University hopes that we will be able to return to face-to-face teaching from Monday 30 March; of course, it is too early to really know if this is realistic, and so it is possible that online teaching may continue even longer. We do expect that we’ll be able to return to face-to-face teaching before the end of the semester, and that exams will be done in person. It is possible that semester dates and exams could be extended slightly if necessary.
Although the resumption of online teaching is unfortunate, it is to be expected, given the trajectory of the coronavirus outbreak. It is hoped that this announcement will allow students not currently resident in Hong Kong to remain where they are for longer, rather than needing to return to Hong Kong prematurely.
We will still have the two-week recess from 17-29 February. This gives all us an opportunity to do all that we can to enhance our online materials for these coming four weeks, in order to give students the best experience that we can under the circumstances. This is not to say that we are going to instantly convert ourselves into an online college — but hopefully you’ll be able to deliver lectures in some form (live or previously recorded) with some mechanism for online interaction with students. Since we’re unable to do face-to-face teaching at present, but hope to later, you might want to reorganise your materials to cover topics in the coming four weeks that lend themselves better to online presentation. I know within Departments there is a lot of discussion and mutual support so please make use of colleagues and their experience.
If you want to change aspects of your assessment, the University says that you can do so until the end of the add/drop period (21 Feb), as long as you communicate any changes to all students. After that date, you would need the consent of all students in a class.
For now, we’ll need to be flexible with what happens after 30 March. We certainly hope to be back face-to-face teaching. But it would be wise to have contingencies in case online teaching continues after this date.
On behalf of the Faculty, I am grateful for all the hard work you have been putting in over the last few weeks in the face of another disruption to our normal operations. I know that this is not easy. Please let me or your Head of Department know if you need any support for your online teaching.
Best wishes
Will