Hi folks!
Long time lurker, first-time poster here. Udhay asked me to give the
silklist a rundown of how Chinese universities are future (and coronavirus)
proofing themselves. For context, I'm a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua
University, Beijing and I've been locked out of the country since January
18th.
1) they gave students time to prepare, a lot of the people i
know (including me) are getting hardship stipends, you can log onto the
Tsinghua network remotely to access library resources and intrauniversity
resources (including an opera livestream for when you want o listen to
Chinese opera...I guess?), and they have a proprietary service called Rain
Classroom that can be accessed on wechat ()
2) they have everything on an independent server to ensure that public
systems aren't overwhelmed, and it is guaranteed free for everyone who
needs it. this wasn't something they came up with yesterday. Rain Classroom
has been in the works for years now because of contingency prep. Rain
Classroom is fully equipped and all professors get annual training.
3) tsinghua has allowed other universities to use their system till they
have their own. that's pretty incredible. it's a short term solution, yes,
but they kept students first.
4) they didn't wait for students to come back from chinese new year break
to tell them 'go back'. my college is a part of tsinghua but a little
different because of my course structure, but everyone was getting weekly,
then daily updates on the situation and instructions on how to manage
travel. students who don't have access to regular updates are called by
their admins to make sure they're updated.
5) the chinese railways have a pretty hefty student discount for students
going back and forth from home on cny, and they allowed them to refund it
all. students who were stranded in universities have been given access to
weekly 'student special' trains that are free for them.
it's pretty incredible and it should be a blueprint for american
universities trying to go remote. feel free to AMA on the china experience!
--
Warm regards
Harnidh Kaur
+91-7718951383
