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Teaching staff concerns (FAQs)

1. Access, alternates, deadlines, processes, certification

Student employees (aids or tutors) may not be appointed as alternates on CM.

After signing their contract, newly appointed teaching staff generally receive an email containing a link with instructions for activating their account online. This email is usually sent before the employment contract begins. If you do not receive this email, or if you have further questions, please contact the ZEDAT Support Service.

If you are an instructor without a work contract, the respective key user for your department will activate your Freie Universität account. After logging in with their Freie Universität account for the first time, instructors should also be able to use the same CM features as contracted teaching staff. If you are an instructor having problems with logging in, please first contact the  key user for your department (PDF).

You can find information on the times and locations of your courses in the electronic course catalog for your department/institute. This can be found at: https://www.fu-berlin.de/vv/en/
In cases where the information in Campus Management differs from that in the course catalog, the course catalog is treated as authoritative.

Your username and password (ZEDAT single sign-on) are checked to ensure that only you have access to the courses and examinations for which you are responsible. You are also the only person who can see the grades you have assigned – with the exception of any alternates who have been authorized to do so.

When entering attendance and grades, make sure to click on the “Sichern” (save) button once every 30 minutes to ensure that your entries are saved in the system (at least in the background). This may sometimes take longer than usual. The publication of any grades you have entered will also continue to run in the background in the event that an error occurs. This acts as a failsafe to prevent grades or attendance records from getting lost.

The CM interface for teaching staff contains a filter option (see page 7) on every page concerning grades or attendance records. First select the relevant semester on your overview page, navigate to the appropriate screen, and display the filter tab on the table (by clicking on “Filter”). Now you can enter their student number into the “Matrikelnummer” (student number) column. This will hide all other students – even if the list is very long.

The online interface for teaching staff was developed with the intention of presenting even large amounts of data in a short amount of time. However, depending on their complexity (e.g., the extent to which courses and modules interlink, the number of participants), there may be a lot of data for the program to analyze. This may lead to a delay in displaying pages such as the overview page when accessing the page for the first time. The page should load more quickly each time you revisit the same overview of the semester.

It is quicker to display and edit large courses because only twenty students are displayed per page by default. While this means that you do have to click through several pages, the applications tend to have better reaction times as a result.

You have the option to appoint someone from your department/central institute to input grades and document attendance on your behalf. You can do this via the Campus Management web application (https://www.ecampus.fu-berlin.de/) by clicking on “Vertretung” (Alternate) in the menu.

If you cannot find the person you wish to appoint by using the search feature, this means that their Campus Management account has not yet been authorized. Authorization can be granted by the key user for your department. Please contact the administrative staff in your department for more information.

You must first distinguish between courses with a limited number of participants and courses with an unlimited number of participants. Students can register for the latter directly, meaning that their names are displayed on the attendance list immediately.

In the case of courses with a limited number of participants, you must keep in mind that the registration period includes a period for allocating preferences and a period for booking courses directly. During the period in which students may allocate their preferences, which always ends on the last working day before courses begin, students may submit their preferences for individual courses. However, these preferences are not final, nor are the students booked on the course, until allocations are issued at random on the allocation date. The machine-based allocation of courses is completed once the assigned participants have been registered for the course(s).

For teaching staff, this means that attendance lists for courses with a limited number of participants will only be generated after the allocation date. As such, you will be unable to see if and how many students are planning to take part in your course until then.

Please refer to the Framework Regulations for Degree Programs and Examinations (RSPO, section 10.5) for the deadlines by which module certificates must be generated. These should be used as a guide for when to finish uploading the final grades and participation reports for your students. However, the system is not shut off once the deadlines have been reached. You can continue to use all the available functions of Campus Management even after the deadlines have passed.

Please note: It is no longer possible to retroactively assign students to module examinations that took place more than three semesters ago. Should you wish to do so, please contact the examination office or office of academic affairs for your department, specifying the student number and name of the examination (including the reference number, e.g., 0021aA2.2.1).

Generally, the information required for creating student certificates should already be stored in the system. This means that you are not required to enter any more information beyond the students’ grades and attendance. Teaching staff have the option to enter titles of term papers, examinations, or presentations, but are not obligated to do so.

After you have documented active participation, regular attendance, and grades, selecting the “Endgültige Freigabe” (Publish) button will grant students immediate access to their information, either online or via their own web interface.
Once published, the information can only be changed by the examination office.

SLcM Campus Management means that teaching staff are no longer required to manually issue certificates or other forms of student records. An exception to this is the case of bachelor’s/master’s students whose study programs require them to complete related modules (“affine Module”). Here, students may select modules from a wide range of programs. The results and/or records of students who earn credits in related areas are not always displayed on Campus Management. In these cases, teaching staff must manually provide students with an individual certificate of completion. This is then manually entered into Campus Management by the appropriate examination office at a later date. The form for generating a certificate of completion can be found here (link only accessible via Freie Universität intranet). Instructions (in German) on how to fill out the form can be found here. (Link only accessible via Freie Universität intranet.)

If you are required to provide certificates of completion for students who are not enrolled on the Campus Management system (exchange students, students from other universities), please do so using the corresponding form (link only accessible via Freie Universität intranet). Instructions (in German) on how to fill out the form can be found here. (Link only accessible via Freie Universität intranet.)

2. Attendance, grades, examinations

The Framework Regulations for Degree Programs and Examinations at Freie Universität Berlin (RSPO section 9) stipulate that students must regularly attend and actively participate in their courses. The specifics of active participation and regular attendance for each course are set down in the respective degree program and examination regulations.

Teaching staff use the Campus Management web interface to confirm that students have regularly attended and actively participated in courses. This is not necessary for courses where attendance is voluntary. As such, the web interface for these courses does not include the option to record attendance.

If students wish to receive credit points for a module, they must not only pass the module examination or individual cumulative exams within a module, they must also be able to demonstrate active participation and regular attendance.

Regular attendance and active participation only need to be documented in Campus Management once – at the end of the lecture period. At present, there are no plans to introduce a compulsory record of attendance for each individual lecture or class. However, it is recommended that you record student attendance regularly for your own records, e.g., by means of the attendance list provided in CM for each course.

Students whose active participation or regular attendance cannot be confirmed due to a failure to attain the level of active participation or regular attendance stipulated in the Framework Regulations for Degree Programs and Examinations (RSPO) are unable to complete the module in question until their active participation or regular attendance has been confirmed. However, according to Section 9.4 RSPO, teaching staff and students may come to an agreement on an appropriate alternate assignment to make up for missed work, enabling active participation and regular attendance to be certified regardless.

According to Section 9 RSPO, there is no general attendance requirement for courses at Freie Universität Berlin:
If there is a requirement for regular attendance in one or more courses of a module, this must be regulated in the respective examination regulations.
Thus, the degree program and examination regulations of the corresponding degree program stipulate whether regular attendance is mandatory.

On the overview page, you can see how many students are enrolled in your courses at a glance by looking in the “Stand” (Status) column. You will not be able to see any information on courses with a limited number of participants here during the period in which students allocate their preferences (before courses begin), because registration for these courses first takes place on the cut-off date. Students who are not managed via the Campus Management system do not appear on these lists.

Separate attendance lists can be generated for each course and semester via the overview page. These are created in PDF format and can be edited, saved, and printed as required. Additionally, you can download an attendance list for each course in PDF format.

If you have students in your course who were unable to register normally via Campus Management or who have yet to be registered retroactively on CM by the appropriate academic affairs and examination office, they will not appear on the electronic attendance list.

This commonly affects students from other degree programs and guest auditors from other universities. However, it may also be the case that some exchange students (Erasmus, direct exchange) have not (yet) registered via CM. These students should be reminded of the fact that almost all exchange students have the ability to access their assigned core subjects and modules using CM.

Another exception are bachelor’s/master’s students whose degree programs require that they complete related modules (“affine Module”). Here, students may select modules from a wide range of programs. Teaching staff are required to manually provide students of related modules with an individual certificate of completion. This is then manually entered into Campus Management by the appropriate examination office at a later date.
The form for generating a certificate of completion (Word template) can only be accessed via Freie Universität intranet.

There may be several reasons for this:

1. If students are not allocated to one of your examinations in the semester in question and/or the type of examination (term paper, presentation, written examination...) is not specified, they will not appear on your grade entry list.

2. It may be the case that students have already completed the examination with another member of teaching staff.

3. Missing students may be on leave during the semester in question or are no longer enrolled at the university.

When entering student grades, we recommend that you access the option for allocating examinations through the attendance list for your course. If students are not listed here either, please contact the relevant examination office or office of academic affairs for your department, specifying the student number and name of the examination (including the reference number, e.g., 0021aA2.2.1).

There may be more than one examiner per module examination. This means that all students enrolled in the module are displayed in the list, even when they are not in your specific class. However, you can ensure that you act as an examiner for your specific students by assigning said students the type of examination as stipulated or agreed upon in advance. You will then be displayed as the examiner assigned to these students and will be able to enter grades accordingly.

If there are students on your grade entry list from a specific semester who definitely did not attend an examination with you, you should delete these students from your grade list using the “Prüfungszuordnung” (examination allocation) function (by deleting their allocation to the exam and pressing save; this does not apply for obligatory examination dates).

When the final leaving documents (degree certificate and transcript) are generated, the date of the last examination is given as the date upon which the degree program is concluded, i.e., the degree certificate and the transcript will bear the date of the examination. The bachelor’s or master’s thesis is often the last proof of academic performance that students are required to provide. However, this is not always the case; sometimes students intentionally or unintentionally (as a result of having to repeat an exam) complete a module examination as their final assignment.

Please note:

The date referred to here is the date of the examination and not the date on which the grade was determined. In the case of term papers, this is the date on which the paper was submitted.

The semester to which the examination is allocated and the examination date must be formatted correctly so that the new function for calculating examination attempts (from WS 2015/2016) can do so accurately. There is a tolerance period for processing examination dates. This usually takes place just before or just after the semester.
For example: For an examination in WS 2021/2022, the examination date may not take place before September 3, 2021 (four weeks before the start of the lecture period), or after May 12, 2022 (six weeks after the end of the lecture period).

When students are enrolled in a module via Campus Management, they are also automatically signed up for the module examination. However, this only occurs once the module registration period is over (usually after six weeks). The examination formats for each module are specified in the corresponding degree program and examination regulations. These are already recorded in the Campus Management system.

The various examination formats for your course (specified in the examination regulations) will be displayed in the web interface. Students have the option to choose from one of these formats. For this reason, it may be the case that different students within the same module take different types of examination. However, all students within an examination cohort (e.g., the group taught that semester) should generally take the same type of examination.

In principle, it should not be possible to select an examination format other than those provided on the web interface. However, in the event that another examination format is chosen, please contact your respective examination office. Where necessary, the issue will be resolved with help from the examination board.

If the proof of academic performance for your course is based on individual cumulative exams (which are gradually being discontinued to reduce the strain on students) rather than one final exam, final module grades are calculated based on the rules set down in the degree program and examination regulations and/or the Framework Regulations for Degree Programs and Examinations once the students have completed the module. These rules have already been recorded in the Campus Management system. If the individual cumulative exams for a module are weighted differently, Campus Management also takes this into consideration.

When an exam is conducted by several examiners, the final grade is calculated as the arithmetic mean of the individual grades given by each examiner. This average is shortened – not rounded – to one decimal point and then displayed in Campus Management as the exam result.

The results of different types of exams (e.g., a presentation with subsequent written report) are calculated separately (e.g., on the basis of points or percentage values). These are then combined according to the examination design and used to calculate the final grade for the module exam.

For example:

 

Max. that can be attained per individual exam

Student A

Student B

Presentation

60

50

40

Written report

40

20

10

Total

100

70

50

The grade is calculated on the basis of the number of points acquired for the module examination as a whole. It must be one of the following: 1.0 / 1.3 / 1.7 / 2.0 / 2.3 / 2.7 / 3.0 / 3.3 / 3.7 / 4.0 / 5.0. The grade is not rounded up or down, even if the individual exams are evaluated by different examiners.

Once data on active participation, regular attendance, and exam results have been published, the students are able to see this information via their web interface. For this reason, these data can only be changed by the examination office where necessary.

Once the examination office has carried out the necessary change(s), the student receives written notification thereof. Students must be informed of any changes, as they may have already viewed their results online before these changes were made. Students are not obligated to repeatedly check for changes online. For this reason, they must be made aware of such changes separately.

Unless the examination regulations for the corresponding degree program specify otherwise, students are allowed four attempts at an exam. The number of attempts that students have already completed is displayed in Campus Management, as is the number of total possible attempts, e.g., “1/4” – the first of four possible attempts. A student is considered to have attempted an examination following their allocation to an examiner – not once a grade has been recorded. If a student withdraws from an obligatory examination date, the number of attempts remains visible. However, the number of attempts will not be increased on the next examination date.

Please note that a student’s final examination attempt must always be evaluated by two members of staff who are qualified to perform assessments.

If the student does not pass the exam on their final attempt, they are not allowed any more attempts, nor will Campus Management permit any more attempts to be registered.

For more information, see: Important Regulations for Module Exams.

Following the amendment made to Section 30.4.1 of the Berlin Higher Education Act (BerlHG), students who receive departmental academic advising receive an additional attempt on top of the number specified in their examination regulations.

As a rule, no examinations are “obligatory” for students, i.e., a failure to attend the exam will not result in any negative consequences and is considered equivalent to a withdrawal.

However, the examination board may decide that some examination dates (e.g., for certain modules, for an entire degree program, or for all modules within a department) are “obligatory.” In this case, students must withdraw from the exam in good time (before the corresponding deadline has passed) if they do not wish to take part. If students are prevented from taking part in an exam due to sickness or other reasonable grounds, corresponding evidence for these circumstances must be provided.

You can tell whether an examination date is obligatory based on how it is displayed on the Campus Management interface.

For more information, click here.

Keywords

  • Access
  • Campus Management
  • deadlines
  • FAQ