Important message from Professor Ian Holliday, Vice-President and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning)
Dear colleagues and UG students
I’m writing to update you on our teaching arrangements for Semester 1 (S1), 2021-22.
As mentioned in my bulk email of May 5, we will return to face-to-face (f2f) teaching and learning in S1. As confirmed by the Senior Management Team (SMT) in consultation with the Task Force on Infectious Diseases, lectures will be delivered f2f in teaching venues (including central classrooms and department rooms) adopting a room capacity of 75% of the original capacity. The only exceptions will be a very small number of classes which, for pedagogical reasons such as a flipped classroom approach, have the endorsement of the Programme Director to be delivered online.
Under the “75% room capacity” arrangement, most of the lectures of UG courses will be allocated a classroom which can accommodate all course participants. In view of the limited supply of central classrooms, however, around 7% of lecture classes can only be allocated a classroom that can accommodate most but not all course participants. For these classes, the students will be split into two groups. Students whose last digit of their University ID number (UID) is an odd number belong to Group A, and will attend the f2f lectures in the odd teaching weeks and view the recording of the lectures held in the even teaching weeks. Those whose last digit of their UID is an even number belong to Group B, and will attend the f2f lectures in the even teaching weeks and view the recording of the lectures held in the odd teaching weeks.
For colleagues
The Examinations Office will soon release the draft teaching timetables for 2021-22 and room allocation results. For classes which need to adopt the above-mentioned split-class arrangement, departmental colleagues will be asked to indicate this in the Student Information System (SIS) before release of the programme guide on July 26, 2021 for students’ viewing.
Notwithstanding that most lecture classes will be delivered f2f, all lectures have to be recorded and the recordings have to be made available on HKU Moodle. Assistance and advice from ITS and TeLi on lecture recording via Panopto and uploading to Moodle will be provided where necessary.
For students
Starting from July 26, 2021, students will be able to view, in SIS, whether individual courses are going to adopt the split-class arrangements as detailed above. Students enrolling in such courses will be able to view the class arrangement of the lectures for each teaching week (i.e. whether they are able to attend f2f lectures) in their personalized HKU Event Calendar and SIS-My Timetable. Details will be provided in guidelines to be issued before July 26 to help students prepare for course selection.
The online course selection period will start on August 4, 2021 (please refer to the 2021-2022 calendar here). As such, please be reminded to check and settle all of your outstanding payments and login your HKU Portal at least once on or before August 1 to ensure a smooth Portal login for course selection.
As usual, please drop me a line if you have any queries.
Best wishes, Ian
Professor Ian Holliday
Vice-President (Teaching and Learning)
The University of Hong Kong
