果冻传媒

Since September 2024, Erik Quaeghebeur has been deputy program director at Data Science. 鈥淭he cyberattack was very annoying for a lot of people. At the same time, I found it interesting and instructive to experience how the crisis was handled within the university and our department in this role.鈥�

鈥淚 was sucked into meetings in which we advised on proposals made by the crisis team to solve the problems. To do this, I also listened to colleagues鈥� thoughts on the proposals. For advice, but also to show understanding.鈥�

No means of communication

He found the loss of all means of communication, such as Teams and e-mail, in the first days inconvenient. 鈥淎s if you feel like you're missing an arm. So I was happy when they were available again.鈥�

Resit

In addition to being deputy program director, Quaeghebeur is a lecturer in the Master's program in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence. In Q2, when the cyberattack hit our university, he had no exams scheduled, except for a resit for the course exam from the first quartile, for which he is the lecturer. 鈥淭welve students had registered for that.鈥�

鈥淔or me, as a teacher, it was perhaps easier to show understanding than fellow teachers who ran large courses with nine hundred students. I heard that some of them received questions from students in large numbers [LINK: also read the interview with Natalia Sidorova, ed.].鈥�

Acute stress

鈥淎t that point in the crisis, the teachers did not know the answers to students鈥� questions. Or to whom they could refer the students for the answer. I can imagine that this causes acute stress. As a teacher of a subject, you also feel responsible. If you can鈥檛 answer students鈥� questions, it starts to gnaw at you.鈥�

If you can鈥檛 answer students鈥� questions, it starts to gnaw at you.

Erik Quaeghebeur

鈥淚 haven't had any questions about my resit myself. Of course, I was curious about the consequences of postponing the exams. Two of the twelve students could not take the resit, so an alternative moment had to be found.鈥�

鈥淭here are now two Saturdays in Q3. Of course, I have to take a new exam for that and be present as a subject matter expert. The timing is not ideal because I have private obligations on those weekends.鈥�

Oral or written

鈥淚 also have the choice to arrange a room myself at another time and sit down with those two students. It could also be an oral exam, but I find it difficult to estimate whether the level of that is comparable to the previous written exams. It must be fair to all students. Anyway, I am still struggling with those questions, but I know it will work out in the end. It just takes a lot of mental space to work on this.鈥�

Impact up to and including Q4

He sees that the consequences of the cyberattack will continue until the end of Q4, not only for students but also for teachers. 鈥淚f you teach in a quartile, you know that you have to arrange exams plus a resit. After that, it鈥檚 done, and you can make work visits or plan a vacation according to your normal schedule. This is also disruptive for teachers. I think it鈥檚 important that the university continues to look closely at this and treats both students and lecturers fairly.鈥�