鈥楢bove all, we wanted to meet the needs of our students鈥�
In the week of the cyberattack, all education at our university was shut down until further notice, because the online systems were unavailable. After consultation that Tuesday, lecturer Floor van Schie decided to allow the submission moment for her project course to take place on a voluntary basis for the 260 students.
鈥楶roject M鈥� is a project course for the 260 bachelor鈥檚 students of Built Environment. In this project, students design a watchtower on a scale of 1:50 with a focus on architecture and construction.
The submission date for the designed watchtowers' models, drawings, and calculations was scheduled for Monday, 12 January. That was the first day after the weekend 果冻传媒 was under digital fire. It was also the first day education was shut down because of the cyberattack.
Impact
鈥淔ifteen teachers are involved in this course. Moving the submission deadline, and thus the grading of the two hundred and sixty projects, would have a significant impact,鈥� says Floor van Schie, the responsible teacher for the course.
鈥淚鈥檓 a full-time teacher, so it wasn't so bad for me - although I did have to postpone my planned vacation. I thought that was a shame, but you can't stay away from the final assessment as a teacher responsible for the subject. There were also PhD students involved in Project M who had to return to work on their research, and international students going home.鈥�
Moving the submission deadline, and thus the grading of the two hundred and sixty projects, would have a significant impact.
Floor van Schie
鈥淢ost of the students were ready on Sunday afternoon to hand in everything for the final exhibition at which they would present their work. Despite the university鈥檚 statements, I noticed a lot of uncertainty among students.鈥�
At that time, it was unclear that all education would be shut down for a week 鈥� and postponed. After consultation within the department, Van Schie decided that students could voluntarily submit their work on Tuesday, 13 January. A day later than planned due to the necessary consultation and approval within the departmental board.
Microsoft Forms
Handing in the models was no problem. The problem was handing in the digital drawings and calculations, which students could not print because the system was down. 鈥淲e did need those digital files for the assessment,鈥� says Van Schie. She decided to use Microsoft Forms to get students to hand in everything.
鈥淭hanks to the help of study association CHEOPS, who forwarded our messages to their Whatsapp groups for first-year students, we could reach them.鈥�
Manual download
Students had until seven o鈥檆lock on Tuesday morning to hand in their files voluntarily. 鈥淚 worked until 1:00 a.m. that Monday night to manually download all the files and got up again at 5:00 a.m. to continue working. At half past nine, I could hand over a USB stick with the necessary documents so the teachers could get started with the assessment. They were happy with that.鈥�
鈥�180 of the 260 students used that voluntary submission moment,鈥� says Van Schie. 鈥淭hose who didn鈥檛 make it could take advantage of a week鈥檚 delay. Moreover, everyone who had already submitted was also allowed to use that week to make additions to the work that had already been submitted so that it remained fair.鈥�
This has saved the students and teachers a lot of time and hassle afterward.
Floor van Schie
Van Schie is proud they pulled it off. 鈥淲e met the needs of our students; that was our starting point in everything we did. But we also looked at the workability for our teachers.鈥�
鈥淚n the end, everyone handed in everything within the normal time slot, thanks to the voluntary hand-in option and the chance to do it a week later. This has saved the students and teachers a lot of time and hassle afterward. I鈥檓 glad we were able to do it this way.鈥�