Principles for the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring Semester

The principles for "Course Delivery", "Student Assessment Activities and Grades" and "Leave of Absence (for associate, undergraduate and graduate students)" for the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring semester will be implemented as specified below:

COURSE DELIVERY

Courses of the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring semester that do not require face-to-face instruction will be delivered online with synchronous and asynchronous content, and all synchronous content will be recorded so that it can be followed and evaluated later. Courses that could not be held in the week of 16-22 March will be held online at the end of the semester, in the week of 01-07 June. Courses requiring face-to-face instruction, as well as internships and project courses etc. that cannot be carried out remotely, will be held in an intensive format during the summer months, on a date to be determined and announced according to the course of the pandemic. Final and resit exams for all courses will be held on our University campuses after this period, according to the final and resit exam schedules to be announced. Whether a summer school can be offered and, if so, its implementation principles will be evaluated later, depending on the pandemic timeline and the decisions to be taken by the Council of Higher Education (YÖK).

STUDENT ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES AND GRADES

Student assessment activities for all our courses will be conducted in accordance with the principles of fairness, transparency and accountability, and, where possible, by monitoring the process as well as the outcome. The faculty member/lecturer of each course is responsible for using the most appropriate assessment activity according to the nature of the course, while heads of departments and deans' offices/directorates will ensure that the process runs as a whole and in a consistent manner.

All grading procedures will continue as they always have until after the resit exams, and the faculty member/lecturer teaching the course will determine the letter grades for the course and enter them into the system. However, considering the extraordinary circumstances caused by the pandemic, and so that our students can continue their education with confidence and without anxiety, valid only for the 2019-2020 Academic Year Spring semester, after letter grades have been entered into the system (after the resit exams), students may request, on a one-time basis and within the announced application dates, whichever of the following two types of change is appropriate for each course for which they have received a grade:

i) A student who has received a letter grade of D or above in any course may request that this grade be changed to "S (Successful)". In this case, the student is requesting that the course count toward the number of courses, local credits and ECTS credit requirements in the

category of the course concerned, but that its grade not be included in the average (the student's GPA and CGPA are calculated without taking this course into account at all). The student has the right to repeat this course in future semesters; however, if a letter grade is used in the semester the course is taken, the student no longer has the right to convert the letter grade to "S (Successful)". In other words, whatever letter grade is received in the future remains recorded in the system.

ii) Following the announcement of resit grades, a student may convert courses in which they received F or NA to R (Revoke) by submitting a request through the application to be activated on st.bau.edu.tr on dates to be determined. The R grade will be introduced into our grading system for the current special circumstances and is similar in use to the existing W (Withdraw) grade. A course with an R grade does not affect the student's grade point average in any way. However, it shows that the course was actually taken, and therefore the student cannot request any refund of tuition fees. Any number of courses may be converted to R regardless of course load and regulatory restrictions. This includes first-year courses.

LEAVE OF ABSENCE:

All associate, undergraduate and graduate students registered for the 2019-2020 Academic Year spring semester with payment approval (including those in foreign language preparatory classes and scientific preparation) may take a leave of absence, which will not count toward the maximum period of study, if they request it by 15 April 2020. Students who have used up their maximum leave of absence rights may also take a leave of absence specific to and limited to the 2019-2020 Academic Year spring semester.

For students in the thesis stage of graduate (master's or PhD) programs, this procedure is carried out by decision of the relevant executive board, taking the opinion of the thesis advisor, if they are unable to continue their thesis work through distance education.

Graduate students in the thesis period whose maximum period of study has expired have been granted additional time equal to the interruption in education (3 weeks), and the dates for thesis submission and defense have been announced.

For this leave of absence procedure, an application submitted through the system by students registered for the semester with payment approval is sufficient, and no additional documents are required.