果冻传媒

Communication was the biggest challenge at the beginning of the cyberattack, experienced Ruben Trieling, ESA manager at the Department of Applied Physics and Science 果冻传媒. "How do you reach students and teachers if all regular means of communication such as e-mail, MS Teams, and Canvas no longer work or are unreliable? Fortunately, Whatsapp and Signal groups for colleagues were set up in no time, and we could use the existing Whatsapp groups of study associations to reach students."

During the crisis, Trieling worked closely with Steven Fritts, team leader of the study progress chain, and dozens of colleagues, including education lawyers, policy officers, ESA managers, chairs and secretaries of the examination board, and the director of ESA.

Alternative exams

For example, they looked together for solutions to problems that students faced by postponing the exam period. 鈥淪everal students got into trouble because of the rescheduling of the exams. For example, exchange students who had obligations at their own university at the end of the regular exam period. Or students who could not participate in the rescheduled exams because their visas had expired. Or they had planned a study trip or vacation after the original exams.鈥�

An alternative exam time had to be provided for those cases, and Trieling was responsible for setting up the procedure. Some 680 果冻传媒 students claimed to take the rescheduled exams at a different time. They had to submit a separate application for each exam. And those applications also had to be assessed.

Aftermath all year

Trieling expects that we will suffer from the aftermath of the cyberattack for the rest of the academic year. 鈥淭he alternative exams are scheduled during quartiles 3 and 4. Teachers have to take an extra exam for this. In addition, teachers who teach in quartile 3 have had to shorten their education by one week due to the cancellation of week 8. They also had to adjust their learning objectives and test plans.鈥�

Study advice

Trieling was also responsible for investigating the impact of shifting the teaching schedule on the provisional study advice for first-year bachelor's students and pre-master鈥檚 students. 鈥淪ome will only take exams in Q3, so how can you draw up meaningful advice in time? In the end, we postponed the deadline for providing the study advice by a month and included a disclaimer in the advice for students who still have to catch up on exams afterward.鈥�

鈥淭hese were hectic days in which decisions had to be made quickly under great pressure,鈥� says Trieling. 鈥淚t was a kind of pressure cooker in which you had to keep your head cool and communicate well with colleagues to avoid mistakes.鈥�

Trieling was occasionally juggling his attention between his roles as chain manager of study progress and manager ESA at the department. 鈥淥f course, the crisis also impacted the department鈥檚 educational processes. They were long days in which we all worked until late evening.鈥�

I've experienced that we, as a university, can take a hit.

Ruben Trieling

He says the cyberattack has also brought out positive aspects at our university. 鈥淚've experienced that we, as a university, can take a hit. Thanks to the experience we have gained in corona time and the fact that we work in process chains, we can switch quickly with each other and make decisions,鈥� says Trieling.

鈥淏ecause all services were represented in the various crisis meetings, that cooperation went smoothly. I am proud to be part of a team that, when it counts, is ready day and night. And that we have all managed to defuse this crisis together.鈥�