A letter to computing students about Covid-19

Today we updated the School of Computing students with the latest information on how the Covid-19 virus will affect their  studies. The email was sent from the Head of School and School Administration Manager and is repeated here.

Dear Computing Student,

We are writing to provide you with further information and guidance to support you and your studies in light of the University's move to online teaching and assessment as a consequence of the government announcements on Monday regarding coronavirus.

We are committed to doing everything we can to fully support you and ensure that your education will not be disadvantaged. To ensure continuity in your studies, academic staff that have teaching events planned have been asked to upload relevant teaching material (recorded presentations/readings/slides/lecture notes) to Moodle, as appropriate to your discipline. Your module convenors will tell you which learning technologies you will be using for each taught module, and they will provide or point you to the relevant support materials, where necessary. They will also keep you informed regarding any changes to assessment.

To support this, we have provided information to staff about maintaining module delivery and engagement using our core e-learning systems and tools – 'Learning, teaching and assessment business continuity'.  You should now have received an email/Moodle announcement from each convenor regarding the methods to be used for that module.

Our overall aim is to ensure that you have the information and guidance you need available in Moodle to meet the learning outcomes of your module/s. We have also created the following guidance regarding IT requirements for access, plus additional advice for students about using these core technologies in order to support you with your online learning – Online learning and teaching, a guide for students.

As well as looking after your wellbeing and safety during this period, please do continue to engage with your academic work as much as possible. We will keep in contact with you, and will keep you informed of any further alterations to your teaching, assessments and examination/s.

We know that the information is coming in thick and fast so we have created a section on the School Student Information Page (Moodle) where we are putting any communications we have sent to you so you can easily refer back to them.

Please do stay in touch with us and let us know if there are any problems with your studies. You can contact the School directly using computing@kent.ac.uk if you have any further queries or questions and should you need support beyond the School, do contact wellbeing@kent.ac.uk as our support services staff are here for you.

Kind regards

Peter Rodgers and Charlotte Ransom

Professor Peter Rodgers
Interim Head of School of Computing

Charlotte Ransom, School Administration Manager

School of Computing/Cornwallis