Page updated on 26 January 2022
- The latest information and instructions on the coronavirus situation at the University of Helsinki.
- Updated 22 April: University entrance exams.
- The effect of coronavirus on teaching.
- The effect of coronavirus on your studies - Q&A
- Guidance compass – where do students go to for help
Please note that, as of 16 March 2020, all information on the coronavirus outbreak can be found on the University of Helsinki’s external website via the links above. Flamma and email lists will no longer be used for this purpose.
Below are further details from the Faculty of Theology.
Further instructions for the Faculty of Theology
Increasing contact teaching
Updated 26 January, 2022
The recommendation for remote teaching by the Ministry of Education and Culture ends 31 January. Due to this, the amount of contact teaching will be increased during February. In addition to necessary contact teaching, other contact teaching may be offered according to the degree programme's consideration in order to support students' wellbeing and learning.
We ask teachers to email metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi as soon as possible if you wish to move your course to be taught entirely or partly as contact teaching in February. Degree programmes decide on increasing contact teaching; discuss the matter in the programme. The maximum group size for contact teaching is 50 people.
The goal is to move to organising teaching without restrictions in March (4th period). Please contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi if you are teaching your course of over 50 students remotely also in the 4th period.
Faculty and retake exams will be organised as classroom exams.
Teaching in the 3rd period
Updated 13 January, 2022
The University's crisis management team has decided that teaching in the 3rd period will be organised primarily remotely. Teaching that is absolutely necessary to be organised in person can be taught as contact teaching in groups of max. 25 students with the permission of the Faculty's Situation Center.
Instructions:
- As a general rule, all teaching in the 3rd period is remote teaching.
- Teaching can be organised as contact teaching only when absolutely necessary. Announce necessary contact teaching by email to metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
- Faculty and re-take exams will be organised as classroom exams as planned. Sufficient space will be guaranteed in the classrooms and the number of students will be restricted if necessary (max. 50 people in one room).
- Booked rooms are still visible in Sisu and on the course pages. Forest House student services will inform the porters separately about teaching that has been granted permission to be organised as contact teaching.
- If the situation with the pandemic gets better, more contact teaching can possibly be organised in February. If this happens, information on how to apply for contact teaching will be sent separately.
Inform the students on your courses on how the course will be organised!
If you add updates on the course pages, it's advised to add the date together with the changes you have made.
Please note:
- Protective face masks are to be worn on all premises when not alone. Face masks must be worn in teaching and learning situations.
- Send questions on contact teaching to metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi. Send a message also if you need a room for streaming lectures.
Teaching in spring 2022
Updated 23 December, 2021
Most of spring 2022's teaching will be contact teaching. Teaching is considered to be a necessary activity, and contact teaching is recommended on account of the students' wellbeing. However, the Faculty is prepared for the possibility that large teaching groups (over 50 students) will have to be moved to remote teaching.
You do not need to stay up to date with your emails during your vacation. Check the situation with remote teaching before the teaching period begins. Follow updates after Epiphany (loppiainen, 6 January).
- If you want to move your teaching to remote teaching, discuss it with the degree programme's director.
- Changing individual courses into remote teaching makes it harder for the students to take part in contact and remote teaching courses that are scheduled back-to-back.
- Lectures will not be moved to bigger rooms.
- For the time being, attendance in contact teaching is not mandatory, but in practice, completing a course may require that the student attends (for the student to be able to complete all assignments, for example). Attendance in remote teaching sessions may be required as specified in the curriculum. (Rector’s Decision 15 March 2021)
- You don't have to organise an alternative hybrid or remote attendance method for courses taught as contact teaching.
- You can put on your course pages information on possible alternative completion methods for those students who cannot attend contact teaching.
- Students have been instructed to check the situation with contact and remote teaching on course pages before teaching begins.
- Faculty and retake exams will be organised as classroom exams.
- Protective face masks are to be worn on all premises when not alone. Face masks must be worn in teaching and learning situations.
- The University has opened some teaching facilities for the students to use to make it easier to attend remote and contact courses. More information in Instructions for students.
- Link to the recording of the University's corona information session on 20 December 2021 is at the end of this news.
Changes to contact teaching
Updated 21 September, 2021.
The University has updated the Covid-19 related guidelines for teaching.
Teaching and examinations in the first teaching period (until 31st October) will be implemented as planned.
When restrictions are lifted on the national level, the amount of contact instruction will be increased in the second teaching period (1.11.-31.12.2021), whenever possible.
If you want to switch to contact teaching either partly or completely, send a request for booking to metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi by 26 September.
Please note:
- The current schedules will not be changed, and lectures for large student groups will be held online as planned.
- Teaching times will not be changed. The availability of lecture rooms may have an effect on switching to contact teaching.
- If you switch lectures from remote to contact teaching, take into account as much as possible the students' schedules.
- If the course changes from remote to contact teaching, students must be offered an alternative completion method for courses in the second period.
- Changes can be planned with the assumption that the group sizes of teaching facilities are back to a normal level. Follow updates on the mask recommendations on this page. If the national restrictions are still valid after October, teaching will remain as planned before.
- Changing remote instruction to contact instruction may affect plans (such as living arrangements) that the students have already made significantly.
Teaching in the spring will be planned according to normal conditions and published in November.
Guidelines on remote teaching apply also in autumn
Updated 24 August, 2021.
- Guidelines on remote teaching made in spring still apply. No changes have been made for rooms booked in the spring. If necessary, contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
- Rooms for streaming: contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
- If your course has contact teaching but you would like for students to be able to follow the lecture also remotely, check if the room is suitable. Check facilities for hybrid and remote teaching or contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
- Students can see whether the course has remote or contact teaching on the course page and Sisu. If there is no room assigned to a lecture, it means that teaching happens remotely. You can also specify on the course page whether the course is remote, contact, or hybrid teaching.
- Timetables for spring's courses will be published in November. The preliminary teaching programme has been published in Instructions for Students, but it will not be updated anymore.
Restrictions on contact teaching for the spring will be extended until 31 July 2021
Updated 4 May, 2021.
See Contact teaching and exams, spring 2021 on this page.
Contact teaching and exams, autumn 2021
Updated March 5, 2021
The teaching in the fall term at the Faculty of Theology will be organized mainly as remote teaching. Permission for contact teaching will be applied for in the same way as was done for the spring term. Contact teaching can be granted for groups of max. 50 students.
As there may not be enough facilities to accommodate all requests, facilities for contact teaching will be reserved according to the following order of priority:
- PSP: 1–3 meetings / possibility to hold group or individual meetings
- Equipment (software, rooms with special equipment etc.): rooms are booked only for the meetings when use of the equipment is required (1–100 % contact teaching)
- First-year students (BA/MA): max. 2 courses during the fall term
- Exams
- Seminars/ proseminars / doctoral research seminars 1–3 meetings
- Intermediate studies: max. 1 course as a whole or 2 courses 50 % as contact teaching per selection group
- Other reasons: 1–3 meetings
Small group teaching will be prioritized in the contact teaching. Mass lectures (over 50 students) will be delivered remotely. The aim of the priority order is to offer some possibility for contact teaching for all students and this should be considered, when possible, in the planning in the department and degree programme as well.
Evaluating the need for contact teaching and submitting the applications
- The responsible teacher of each study unit evaluates if the study unit or some parts of it are necessary to organize as face-to-face teaching. If necessary, the priorities should be discussed in the department or degree programme.
- The responsible teacher will notify the faculty of the need for face-to-face teaching and the reasoning behind the request with an e-form by March 21, 2021.
- In case all contact teaching applied for cannot be organized, for example due to a shortage of suitable rooms, the directors of the programs will prioritize the applications.
- Streaming lectures: If you want to open your contact teaching also for remote attendance, please mention it in your application. This way we can book you a room suitable for streaming the session. If you want the teaching to be attended remotely only, but need a room for yourself to arrange the streaming, please mention also this in your application.
- The reservations will be made in the usual way through the automatic scheduling in Optime. If existing reservations need to be changed, always contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
- Please note that the recommendation for remote teaching applies to all teaching, regardless of where it takes place. This means that contact teaching outside the university premises is also not allowed.
- The teaching arrangements must always adhere to the general safety instructions of the Finnish authorities and the university. Safety distances have to be maintained at all times, and everyone is expected to wear a protective mask during all contact teaching. The instructions are subject to change if the situation with coronavirus changes. Up-to-date general guidelines related to the situation can be found on the University’s webpages:
- The list of students enrolled on a course has to be kept up to date for the purpose of tracing possible covid exposure situations.
- Compulsory class attendance does not apply to contact teaching. It is not therefore possible to require a student to attend contact teaching. If teaching is organized as contact teaching, the teacher is not required to organize remote teaching along with it. In these cases, a student will study independently according to the teacher’s instructions, if independent studying is possible. Students must notify the teacher that they belong to an at-risk group and cannot attend contact teaching.
Contact teaching and exams, spring 2021
Updated March 5, 2021
All teaching in the spring semester will be, until 28 March, organised remotely, except for faculty exams and certain courses requiring special facilities. We have been in contact with teachers whose courses had reservations during this time period.
Reservations for contact teaching after 28 March will not be cancelled yet, but the situation will be monitored closely. We will not be making new reservations until we know more about how the situation is developing.
Please note that reservations made only for the teacher to stream lectures are also made through metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi. We will notify the porters of the reservations. The University's buildings are closed until 28 March.
Faculty exams will be organised as classroom exams, but with special arrangements. Exam services will provide more detailed information to students who have registered for the exams. Bear in mind also alternative arrangements for faculty exams. It is hoped that as few students as possible will attend the exam.
Examinarium exams
Updated 30 November 2020
Examinarium exams that are already in WebOodi will be organised, but it is no longer allowed to create new exams. If a student asks for an exam, consider first other completion methods. If the exam is absolutely necessary, the teacher asks for permission for an exam by sending an e-mail to metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
The latest decisions made by the coronavirus management team are valid from 30 November 2020 to 10 January 2021, unless well-grounded reasons for amending them arise earlier.
Specified instructions in the Faculty of Theology for organizing teaching in the spring of 2021
Due to the coronavirus situation, the University of Helsinki has decided that remote teaching is recommended also in the spring of 2021. The spring term’s teaching at the Faculty of Theology will be organized mainly as remote teaching.
Facilities were booked according to applications for contact teaching made by teachers. Up-to-date information on teaching will be has been updated in WebOodi.
Registration for courses starting in the third period begins 2 December. Students will be instructed to check the course pages to see how courses will be organized. For this reason, it is important that teachers add information on distance and contact teaching on the course pages.
We will make all reservations for teaching facilities centrally, based on the applications. Please do not send direct requests for changes to the coordinators of your programs, and do not make reservations independently, e.g. through Optime Portal. If existing reservations need to be changed, always contact metsatalo-timetable@helsinki.fi.
As there may not be enough facilities to accommodate all requests, the Faculty’s response center has decided that facilities for contact teaching will be booked according to the following order of priority:
- PSP (personal study plan) and orientation: 1– 3 meetings per group / meetings in groups or individually are possible
- Equipment needed in teaching (software, rooms with special equipment etc.): rooms can be booked for the occasions when use of the equipment is required (1–100 % of contact teaching)
- First-year students: max. 2 courses during the spring term
- Examinations (e.g. end-of-course exams)
- Proseminars / Master’s seminars / Doctoral research seminars: 1– 3 meetings
- Intermediate studies: max. one course 100 % or two courses 50 % as contact teaching
- Other reasons: 1– 3 meetings
- Please note that the recommendation for remote teaching applies to all teaching, regardless of where it takes place. This means that contact teaching outside the university premises is also not allowed. Please note also that the teaching times already agreed on might have to be changed based on the availability of suitable rooms. The rooms will nevertheless be booked according to the lecture’s original length and original group size It’s therefore not allowed, for example, to combine several planned sessions into a single, long contact teaching session
- The teaching arrangements must always adhere to the general safety instructions of the Finnish authorities and the university. Safety distances have to be maintained at all times, and everyone is expected to wear a protective mask during all contact teaching. The instructions are subject to change if the situation with coronavirus changes. Up-to-date general guidelines related to the situation can be found on this page and the University’s webpage: Corona virus situation at the University of Helsinki.
- The list of students enrolled on a course has to be kept up to date for the purpose of tracing possible covid exposure situations.
- Compulsory class attendance does not apply to contact teaching. It is not therefore possible to require a student to attend contact teaching. If teaching is organized as contact teaching, the teacher is not required to organize remote teaching along with it. In these cases, a student will study independently according to the teacher’s instructions, if independent studying is possible. Students must notify the teacher that they belong to an at-risk group and cannot attend contact teaching.
Use of offices, and meetings
A recommendation to work remotely until 16 January 2022 applies to all positions and duties where work can be performed remotely. Meetings are to be held over remote connections, unless face-to-face contact is required. Further instructions on University of Helsinki coronavirus info page.
For students
Complementary information for students at the Faculty of Theology (in Finnish)
Faculty of Theology response center contact information
Response center lead, dean Antti Räsänen (available outside business hours)
Head of academic affairs Anu Holvikivi (available outside business hours)
Professor Jutta Jokiranta
University lecturer Mikko Ketola
Head of human resources Hanna Lotti
Professor Petri Luomanen
Head of faculty administration Varpu Myllyniemi
Communications specialist Niina Niskanen
Coordinator Sonja Pakarinen
University lecturer Heikki Pesonen
Professor Sami Pihlström
The Faculty Association for Theology Students chairperson Inka Pänkäläinen
Professor Elina Vuola
If teachers encounter problems, they can also contact the degree programme directors.