At Politecnico online teaching even for 2020/2021

At least until next July all the teaching activities of the Politecnico di Torino – exams and graduations included – will keep being held exclusively online, as experienced in these first months of suspension of in-person activities. The persistent situation of uncertainty due to Covid-19 health emergency, plus the need to plan the Summer exams session (06/15/2020 - 07/25/2020) and graduation period (July 2020) giving to the students a due notice about the exact examination dates, led to today’s decision of the Academic Senate of maintaining the modalities adopted so far. The precise aim is to prevent the transfer of a great number of students who should otherwise be present in the Athenaeum, despite the permanence of the restrictions to the mobility within the national territory and, even more so, from abroad.

Already on February 28th, 2020, the Politecnico, in order to face the health emergency, considered the possibility of implementing video-communication tools for the oral and graduation exams, successively extending the Winter exam session until May 15^th, 2020, in order to permit the recovery of the exams that were not yet held.

The remote exam and graduation sessions have been carried out quite regularly, after an initial adjustment phase. As of today, 4.400 oral and written exams were held with professors’ video surveillance or via computer thanks to Exam, a Politecnico’splatform integrated with remote control instruments. The lessons of the second semester were immediately turned into online sessions, allowing the experimentation of new forms of teaching and ensuring that all students could access the activities, though being in lockdown. The remote courses were more than 800, with the participation of nearly 30 thousand students and the involvement of 2.000 professors and teaching staff – almost the total number of professors involved in teaching courses during the semester.

“The decision of maintaining the remote mode for exams and graduations during the Summer session was essential to ensure that all our students could take part to them, respecting the safety measures imposed by social distancing and avoiding national and international transfers”, comments the Vice Rector for Education Sebastiano Foti.

The Senate even considered how to proceed for the next Academic Year: “On May, the orientation activities about 2020/2021 Bachelor and Master Degrees will be restored”, continued Prof. Foti: “We must deliver clear information about next year’s teaching procedures to the boys and girls who will have to make such a decisive choice for their future, that is selecting their university path”. The Ministry of Education, University and Research (MIUR) did not yet release any official information about the teaching activity starting from September 2020. However, the Minister Gaetano Manfredi suggested in a note regarding the post-lockdown activities “to limit the transfers of long-distance commuters, continuing to facilitate their participation to activities by telepresence” and “to consider the complex attendance of international students by ensuring their telepresence to activities”.

Considering all these elements, the Politecnico has decided, again by resolution of the Academic Senate, to guarantee the online modes for providing the entire first and second-level teaching offer of the Academic Year 2020/2021.

The evaluations and the resulting decisions on the possibility of providing in-person teaching will eventually be subject to future deliberations, taking into account the evolution of the current health emergency and the provisions that will be issued by the Government.