It’s been a bit hectic at the Department of Law’s secretariat lately: the shutdown and the gradual reopening of the university have made planning and conducting exams even more complex than usual.

2020.05.27 | Anders Hylander

At the departmental secretariat at Law, it’s finally starting to look like a return to a more normal working day, now that AU has reached the other side of the shutdown. The department has just gone through an extremely busy period; planning and conducting exams has been an even larger task than usual. For example, the secretariat has been bombarded with questions from students. As Inger Nyholm Krog, senior administrative assistant at Law told us,

“Student were given the opportunity to choose the date of their exams from lists of dates that are usually sent round to the classes. But because of the shutdown, they were given permission to send their preferences to me by mail instead. This meant that I received over 300 mails from students in the course of a few days, with their preferences and different questions about exams.”

The department’s exam planning was basically finalised when the university shut down physically March. And as we all know, the shutdown meant that all exams had to be converted to online formats. And with the most recent announcement that opened up for both on-site and online exams, it was again necessary to revise the department’s plans once more, and to start coordinating with examiners and co-examiners all over again.

The coronavirus has also meant that the department’s administration has needed to coordinate the work of various functions more than usual: for example, the IT team has to provide support for all examination rooms, cleaning needs to be available during the entire day of exams, and the caretakers have to set up exams rooms differently to comply with social distancing requirements.

"It's been a puzzle with a lot of pieces , but so far everything has gone smoothly – not least because of good cooperation with our IT supporter," said Inger Holmen Krog.

Important lessons from the shutdown

In addition to the fact that there’s been a lot extra work in connection with the planning and conducting of exams, the secretariat’s employees also pointed out that there are some important lessons to be learned from the shutdown. As administrative staff member Pia Schytz explained,

“We’ve definitely become more conscious of how efficient we really are when working from home. I think that’s something we can use going forward. Of course, we also need to be aware that something is lost when we can’t just pop in and talk things over – it often gets a bit overcomplicated at a distance.”

One concrete lesson has been the use of different digital platforms to support administrative processes. All of the secretariat’s staff members have gotten familiar with Skype, Teams and Zoom during this period.

“Throughout this period, we’ve used the different platforms for meetings and oral exams,” Pia Schytz explained. She also said that she thinks it will be more effective to continue to hold some kinds of meetings on Zoom in the future, even after the shutdown is over.

Nonetheless, both staff members were looking forward to being back at the secretariat on Bartholins Allé in the University Park.

“The coolest thing about coming back will be having my co-workers close by again – and being able to look at each other properly when we talk to each other,” concluded Pia Schytz.

About the series:

In this series of articles, University Director Arnold Boon highlights important operational tasks being carried out in various corners of the administration. The aim of the series is to give administrative employees insight into what kinds of tasks their co-workers in other units perform, and to highlight some of the tasks that are performed behind the scenes. 

Read previous articles in the series: 

• Even though no one is travelling, AU’s travel group has plenty of work to do.
• Getting your pay check on time – despite corona
• Timetabling exams and courses: a puzzle with a lot of pieces
• Reducing the IT debt