The winter semester 2020/21 will begin shortly and this semester will again present us with special challenges. We would therefore like to inform you about the most important developments and security measures that have to be taken due to the COVID-19 situation. These will have a strong influence on the way teaching is carried out and the daily study routine will be significantly different from previous years.

Over the summer, the Distance Learning Team and Vice Rector for Academic Affairs Kurt Matyas have been working intensively on a concept that will allow teaching to take place in the winter semester 2020/21 in the best possible way. An orientation guide, opens an external URL in a new window has also been prepared, which summarises the most important aspects and is intended to serve as an orientation guide for the winter semester 2020/21 at TU Wien.

The most important aspects should be emphasised here:

1. Presence in courses - semester lecture halls

For the safety of both students and lecturers, the full teaching room capacities at TU Wien will not be used in the winter semester 2020/21; only a limited number of seats will be allocated for each room for face-to-face teaching.

In order to nevertheless be able to handle the comprehensive teaching offer of the winter semester as completely as possible, it is therefore a basic principle that Distance Learning should be used wherever possible. This also serves to promote study opportunities for at-risk patients and students who, for example, cannot take part in classroom teaching due to limited entry requirements.

Due to the extremely reduced capacities in the lecture halls, "semester lecture halls" are being established in order to enable first-year students in particular to start their studies at TU Wien as well as possible. During their first semester, first-year students of Bachelor's programmes use a fixed lecture hall, the "Semesterhörsaal", for their courses.

Students must wear a mouth-and-nose protection when entering the lecture hall, in the corridors and lifts, in the classrooms and during lectures.

2. Hybrid teaching - cohort regulation

The cohort regulation was introduced at TU Wien: Groups (also for courses without compulsory attendance) are created within the course in TISS, which will alternately be in attendance at TU Wien. It is important that you always register for the corresponding group for all courses (e.g. always even or odd calendar week) to prevent mixing between the groups.

3. Attendance - contact tracing

If a suspicious case occurs, contact tracing must be carried out - for this purpose it is necessary to record the presence of all persons on the TU Wien campus. For this purpose, you must first enter the reason for attendance in TISS in order to be allowed to enter a building. Registrations for group and examination dates of courses in TISS are automatically taken as reason. You can register other reasons for a stay in TISS in a "Visitor Portal". QR codes are clearly displayed at each entrance to a TUW building. By scanning this QR code, a TISS page is called up on the mobile device, for which you must first authenticate yourself in the TU Wien Single-Sign-On. After successful login, access is registered immediately and a check is made to see whether there is a reason and thus permission to enter the building.

4. Reporting a COVID-19 suspected case or illness

If you are experiencing symptoms, or suspect for any other reason that you may have contracted COVID-19, please contact 1450. If you are classified as a suspected case, please stay at home and report your possible illness using the Suspected Case COVID-19 Reporting Form: www.tuwien.at/en/tu-wien/corona/students/report-suspected-case
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Should the security measures be tightened, you will be informed about details and their significance for teaching via a mailing from the Vice Rectorate for Academic Affairs.

We wish you a healthy and successful winter semester 2020!