"There were no technical problems and the lecturers were well prepared", Anna Kastner sums up. The student of the BA in Business Informatics at the Ferdinand Porsche FernFH was present at a premiere last week: Due to the coronavirus situation, the on-campus sessions and examinations, which normally take place at the FernFH campus in Wiener Neustadt, were held online. Even though everything worked perfectly, it was a new challenge for about 300 students and lecturers. Especially the exams represented a previously unknown situation for all participants, with which they first had to become familiar, says Kastner. And: "I missed the personal contact with my fellow students and lecturers", the student adds.
The examinations were designed as open book tests, i.e. the students were allowed to use aids. "Students should be aware in advance that it is not a matter of learning something by heart. They should, for example, already be able to imagine what it is like to learn when they apply the content in practice“, says Martin Staudinger, programme director of BA in Business Informatics. The questions are then designed accordingly, so that the examiners can see from the answers whether the students have understood the material, Peter Völkl emphasizes that examiners are aware that aids are being used, but: "If the exam is well designed, it's not likely that you'll do a lot of research or reading up on the subject on the side", says the programme director of MA in Business Informatics.
The students took their exams via the learning management system "Moodle", where there were two options: One was an online test, the other a paper pencil test. In the latter case, students write their answers either on the printed examination questionnaire or on a separate sheet of paper and then hand in everything scanned or photographed.
More about in the actual press release... (only available in German)