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What’s going on with UK universities?

Brian Leiter

A philosopher in the UK (a country that has done pretty aggressive testing for COVID-19 by the way) writes:

Can you help us figure out what's happening in the UK? Our administration is essentially saying, 'Business as usual and don't forget we expect you to continue with face to face teaching. Please wash your hands' I'm curious to know whether other UK universities are taking this approach and if there is anything that we can read about universities in particular that could make this seem like a sensible action plan.

UK readers, what's going on?  What are UK universities doing?

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24 responses to “What’s going on with UK universities?”

  1. Another philosopher

    My university (Durham) is discontinuing all face-to-face teaching from next week and on. It also recommends cancelling conferences and is restricting international academic travel – essentially, it's banning all non-essential travel.

    This is clearly nothing like what the philosopher in the OP is suggesting is happening at their university, so presumably universities are reacting individually.

    Reply
  2. UK Philosopher

    From what I've been seeing, Kings College London is by far the worst of them all, when it comes to tone-deaf "carry on as normal" messages. The long and embarrassing message they sent to their faculty and students (which has been making the rounds) is ridiculous. They are basically suggesting to focus on normal life in King's Landing, as if hundreds of thousands of White Walkers are not marching towards the wall.

    Reply
  3. PhilosopherUK

    At the University of Manchester we have been advised that "business should continue as usual", although staff should prepare to work from home at short notice. We haven't been included in the reasons for this approach, but apparently a body is meeting 'on a very frequent basis to progress these plans'.

    Personally, I am extremely worried about continuing face-to-face teaching, and would like to be told that I don't have to.

    Reply
  4. Visa Kurki

    My guess is that it relates to this overall strategy: https://giorgio.gilest.ro/2020/03/12/the-uk-strategy-of-fighting-covid-19/

    Reply
  5. DJL

    Is it actually true that the UK is testing aggressively? That doesn’t seem to be the perception here, where the government has received plenty of criticism for not testing more widely, and this graph shows we are far from what could be regarded as aggressive testing: https://mobile.twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1238173878821756928/photo/1

    So far they are only testing people who have symptoms AND have been to one of the affected areas (or have been in contact with someone who had the virus). Given that the virus has probably been circulating for a while here now, that may be leaving loads of people out.

    Reply
  6. Philosopher

    LSE will switch to all teaching online from 23 March. Further – and this is the most surprising, (and what I believe reassuring to students) – *all* exams have been moved online or will be replaced by alternative assessments. July Graduation Ceremonies have also been postponed. This Guardian article should be informative: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/uk-universities-switching-to-online-lectures-and-exams.

    Reply
  7. Robert Northcott

    At Birkbeck, we have been briefed regularly by management. Essentially, their policy is to follow UK government advice, which is currently to take only minimal measures. I imagine that the same is true at most UK universities. The rationale behind the UK government advice is as per the link in Visa Kurki's comment. Here is another summary of that rationale:
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/12/uk-governments-coronavirus-advice-and-why-it-gave-it

    Reply
  8. OxfordPhil

    Oxford is largely in the 'business as usual' category despite having five confirmed cases among students as of yesterday. See: http://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/coronavirus-advice, which includes this strange passage: 'On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organisation declared a public health emergency of international concern, and the risk to the UK public has risen from low to moderate. However, the Government has said that the risk to individuals in the UK has not changed, and is continuing to advise only precautionary measures to prevent the spread of infection.'

    Reply
  9. DJL

    Some people are taking the matter into their own hands. Prof. Baron-Cohen has advised people at his Lab in Cambridge to work from home: https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/1238353990854852609

    He links to a paper on social distancing that seems to have been viewed 12 million times recently and may be of interest to people here: https://twitter.com/sbaroncohen/status/1238353990854852609

    Reply
  10. DJL

    Sorry, the link to the paper is this one: https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

    Reply
  11. Michael Cholbi

    In Edinburgh, the official position right now is that, post-strike, we'll be returning to in-person teaching next week. But we've also been surveyed about our ability or willingness to work from home, and there are apparently admin meetings going on to determine next steps. So no, not as clear as it should be, but it seems like there's at least some deliberation taking place about taking teaching online.

    Reply
  12. Nicholas Denyer

    For the University of Cambridge, see

    https://www.cam.ac.uk/notices/news/coronavirus-latest-guidance

    Reply
  13. Atyab Rashid

    I'm a philosophy student at King's College London, and we've been informed that the college sees the best course of action as 'carry on as usual'. A number of professors in the department have advised us to stay home and seem outraged at the conduct of the college, and including one whom I suspect is the professor who reached out to you. As far as anyone can tell, this inaction by the college ties in to the UK general response, which diverges heavily from other countries' plans to eliminate new cases by isolation, and instead aims to spread out infections over a long period, without totally stopping new infections. I'm not an epidemiologist, so can't comment on whether this strategy is wise. It seems the UK population is now the subject of an experiment in epidemiology.

    Reply
  14. JDF

    With respect to Oxford, it is worth noting that today is the last day of Hilary term. Trinity term starts 26 April. So, there is no teaching for the next month or so, and those not bound to labs will be able to research from home or wherever. Given our large number of international students, some undergraduates will be staying in the colleges over the break because they cannot return home without likely needing to be quarantined when they go and when they return. Still, the colleges will mostly empty out this weekend.

    My sense is that the university is otherwise taking instruction from the government as are the other universities.

    Reply
  15. Clayton

    Update. KCL has turned course abruptly and is sending out some new guidance. A coup de rationalité!

    Online delivery from March 23rd on, lots of events cancelled, foreign travel for work cancelled, etc. and it looks at this point that they're not planning on things returning to normal until Mayish and that we'll move away from exams towards essays as assessment. A little late for my taste. Ihink it's unfortunate that they didn't predict and plan for the inevitable, but this is better than the previous plans. It was less than 24 hours ago that we were told that it was expected that face to face teaching would continue for the rest of the semester.

    Reply
  16. Simon Kirchin

    At Kent it is similar to Birkbeck, Edinburgh and Oxford, above. (Well, it is as I type.) Lots of meetings have been happening to plan as much as we can. However, we have a number of PG students at our European Centres (including Paris, Rome, Athens), so we have had to make speedy arrangements for them, complicated by the fact that some are UK students, some international, and some are there for part of the year, some are there for the whole year.

    Reply
  17. Michael B

    The Open University (UK) just sent an email: face-to-face tutorials cancelled until further notice.

    As an exclusively distance-learning university, face-to-face tutorials are a rarity – maybe one every one or two months. No word on exams (June) yet.

    Reply
  18. Jussi Suikkanen

    Here at Birmingham we have two weeks of term left. We have been just informed that next week will be a transition week and then we will be fully online delivery only from March the 23rd.

    Reply
  19. Neil Sinclair

    Can confirm that Nottingham is taking the same line as Birmingham. All teaching online from 23rd March, with next week being a transition week to accelerate these plans. We have 3 weeks of term left. Details on our website here: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Coronavirus/

    Reply
  20. Robert Northcott

    Ha – earlier, I spoke too soon. Birkbeck has just abruptly changed course. All teaching will now be remote, starting Monday. (Our term has two weeks left.)

    Reply
  21. Phil

    At Manchester Metropolitan, management have encouraged home working and said that face-to-face teaching has to stop by March 27th at the latest. I'm currently taking this at face value – and intending to teach more or less as normal next week and the week after – but I suspect the fact that they've made the announcement now will encourage a lot of students to stop coming in. My department was certainly quiet today.

    Reply
  22. CoronaT

    I was walking through the University of Manchester campus last night at around 2am and two security guards ran towards me to find out who I was. I told them to keep their distance because of the virus, but by then there had been significant face-to-face contact. Later I asked them if any of them had it and they said, "No." I asked them if the panic was unnecessary then and they hesitated.

    I told them a joke, which offended one of them, so I decided against telling them the following joke: "How did corona virus begin? Mistranslation of Nagel."

    Reply
  23. J. McKenzie Alexander

    The LSE is *guaranteeing* that all teaching will be done online by 23 March, but a number of departments are going virtual starting on Monday, 16 March. My department — Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method — will do all undergraduate and postgraduate teaching online using some combination of Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Moodle discussion forums,. Although the campus remains open, I'm encouraging people to hold their office hours using Zoom or Teams. (The LSE had two students diagnosed with coronavirus, and we don't know how much further that has spread.) I'm also planning on holding all departmental meetings via Zoom. And I think that some of the normal departmental research seminars (like the Choice Group) may be held via Zoom, as well.

    In addition, students can request permission for an authorised absence, which allows them to leave the UK right away even though there are still three weeks of Lent term remaining. I have had a number of students approach me with such requests because they want to return home before their country closes its borders.

    The most interesting change — as noted above — is that all exams will be done online. We have been given a surprising amount of freedom in redesigning our means of summative assessment. (For example, a course which normally had a three-hour invigilated exam can now be assessed with a take-home exam written over a week.) Given how slow and bureaucratic most UK universities are, the mere fact that this happened, to say nothing about the speed with which it happened, is surprising. And, I believe, a good thing.

    Reply
  24. Claudio Michelon

    Edinburgh has (since the late afternoon of March 13) suspended most face-to-face teaching, cancelled the exams diet for 1st and 2nd year students (allowing for some exceptions for professional qualifying degrees, such as law) and, where assessment is still happening, it is going to be done remotely.

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