Notice to students regarding Covid19 closure arrangements

Notice to students regarding Covid19 closure arrangements
Wednesday, April 1, 2020 - 13:15

Notice to our students
 
Wednesday 1 April 2020, 10: 01 AM
 
Dear Students,
 
We know these are difficult, challenging and unsettling times. We have moved all of our modules online and continue to work with you to complete this semester through online teaching and learning. Thanks for your patience as we adjust to delivering material online. Many of you have already been in contact with your module lecturers and have being following your English course through Moodle forums and also Microsoft Teams. Your lecturers are providing audio description on PowerPoint presentations and using Moodle forums and chat facilities so if you have not participated in these as yet, we would encourage you to make an effort to do so now and for the remainder of the semester. But we appreciate too that some of you have limited access to the internet or may be experiencing poor connectivity, which affects your ability to complete your work on modules. Do try your best to stay in touch with your module and contact your module lecturer as we can find other, low-tech ways, to ensure that you can complete your modules this semester. Stay well and mind yourselves during this period.
 
 
The following is some guidance on who to contact, how to stay in touch with us, and information on changes to assessment that we have had to make.
 
General Information
 
Announcements for our students are posted on the All-English Moodle page: https://2020.moodle.maynoothuniversity.ie/course/view.php?id=4415#section-0
 
The Department Twitter account also provides updates and information. Follow us here: https://mobile.twitter.com/MaynoothEnglish
 
Who to contact
 
If you have a query about your module or your continuous assessment, you should email the relevant module coordinator. Contact Details are available here: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/english/our-people
 
If you need support during this time, the University’s Student Support services are operating remotely. Further details are available here: https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/campus-life/student-wellbeing-support/counselling
 
 
Extensions for CA
 
We appreciate these are stressful times and that your capacity to complete work can be affected. We are also very keen for students to continue their module work as much as possible rather than defer assignments until a later date. However, if you require an extension for an assignment, you should contact the module coordinator or the Head of Department, and outline the reason for the request and include any supporting documentation. The Department’s Policy on Extensions for CA is available on the All-English Moodle page.
 
International students 
 
You should follow the advice of your home university and return home. The Department will work to facilitate your completion of modules remotely. There will be no scheduled exams in English so you would not be expected to return to Ireland should the University reopen in May/ June to complete your English modules.
 
Peer-Tutoring Service
 
This has been suspended for this semester. Thanks is due to all the tutors involved and to Dr James Fraser for coordinating the service. It is regrettable that we have had to suspend the service, but it seemed the only option in the present situation.
 
 
 
 
Note on English Modules with exams
 
[Posted on Moodle -- Thursday, 19 March 2020, 7:08 PM]
 
Dear Students, 
I hope you are each doing as best you can, keeping well and observing social distancing as per HSE guidance. 
I appreciate you are each having to make adjustments to your life, and that includes your college work. For our part, we are planning to move modules and your learning online so as to ensure that, to the best of our abilities, you can complete your work and modules within the normal timeframe. Your English lecturers have put measures in place for your lectures and tutorials from next week on: it is important that you stay in touch with content online, as and when you can, but you may also need to ensure simple things like having a copy of the primary texts to hand and reading them closely. While the University campus is closed until March 29th, it is very likely that we will not be returning to face to face teaching anytime soon, and possibly not by the exam period. To plan for this possibility, there will be no exams in English. This affects EN102, EN107, EN203, EN303 and EN304. The exam component of these modules will be replaced with continuous assessment,  either in the form of an end of term essay or a take home exam. The relevant module coordinators will post details in the coming days regarding arrangements for the final piece of assessment on these modules. I know this comes on top of other changes to your college schedule but we are keen to work with you to ensure that you complete the module. 
If you have any questions about this, or other issues that may arise with your English modules, please do not hesitate to contact me by email at stephen.oneill@mu.ie 
I wish you all the best and hope that the small adjustments to assessment will help to alleviate your concerns about what is going to happen for the exam period. 

With best wishes, 
Dr Stephen O'Neill, Head of Department 
 
Note on closure of Maynooth University until March 29th 2020
[Posted on Moodle -- Thursday, 12 March 2020, 2:24 PM]
 
Dear students, 
 
You will have seen that the Government has formally announced that universities are to close from 6pm today. 
 
For those of you with late classes this afternoon, if you need to travel home early, please do so. Your tutors and lecturers have also been advised to finish up earlier than normal, say 20 minutes before the hour in the case of a 5pm class, so as to facilitate travel out of the campus. 
 
Your module lecturers will be in contact with you via Moodle with updates and to try and ensure that the progress of a module is not adversely affected. The University will issue further communication on arrangements for teaching via Moodle and we will update you as the situation unfolds. 
 
For any assignments due in the coming weeks, please note that all submissions will be online only. Your module lecturer will also post updates and, should the situation arise, grant an extension to existing deadlines given the disruption this closure is likely to cause. 
 
The Department office will be closed and, as such, department business will be disrupted. We would ask for your patience with queries and emails as staff work from home and, in some cases, without access to University systems. 
 
This is an unprecedented event and the first priority has to be everyone's health, so on that note, do take care and I very much hope we can resume normal business at the end of March. 
 
With best wishes, 
Stephen O'Neill
Head of Department