Our topics for the upcoming student parliament election 2020/21 on 2020-01-20 to 2020-01-24. Click on a title to get more informations about one of our topics:

Internet surveillance by the Presidium
Rather no than a poor and broken CampusCard!
Language
Studying with children
Gender Equality
Student services
Get rid of the forced annual password change
More rooms for events
No disruption of events due to renovations
Better Wi-Fi availability
Against savings in the supply area!
For an independent university
More staff in department 3 or lower administrative fees
More covered bicycle parking
No events on Sunday
Use of digital event offers and media
More information events for doctoral students!

Internet surveillance by the Presidium

The IT services have installed a monitoring technology between our devices and the way to the Internet. This technology is not yet in use. With it it is possible to decrypt encrypted connections, to log and analyze contents or to block them (BSI-CS 112). According to our records, the installation and brief commissioning of this technology has already severely disrupted Internet traffic. Furthermore, this constitutes a deep encroachment on the personal rights of employees and students and is not compatible with the freedom of research and teaching. In our opinion, the final use of this technology in university operations is not compatible with § 201 and § 202a of the StGB. We know this technology exists, but we can only guess how it is configured. This can range from “only fishes viruses out of e-mails” to “stores and analyzes the entire communication via cloud technology”. The latter can become particularly volatile if company secrets leaked through university companies.

Rather no than a poor and broken CampusCard!

At the University of Oldenburg, the CampusCard has been established. After a short period of time, first problems occurred. Students report, that the validating strip is damaged, in general there are problems with validating the card, especially on semesterticket refund. The library functions are not established yet, which makes it possible to lock two lockers, one with the library card, one with the CampusCard. This is a problem, because we haven’t enough lockers at the moment.

Language

Clichés, prejudice and inappropriate jokes aimed at perceived minorities are present in all kinds of circumstances and social environments. Language is one vehicle of discrimination in our society. Discriminatory language can be found in both everyday conversations and the university context and is adopted, consciously or unconsciously, by (other) students. Language is a powerful instrument of communication. Through language, we articulate emotions, attitudes and opinions. Often, group labels are used in a derogatory way, or turns of phrase are used that demean, insult or hurt groups of people. The origin of every discrimination are dominant societal norms defined by “the majority” in a given society which do not account for or value the variety of human life. We ask and will support all students of our university to pay attention to their and other’s use of language and not ignore or condone any discrimination.

Studying with children

The Carl von Ossietzky University was the first University in Lower Saxony, that has been awarded with the “Audit familiengerechte Hochschule” by the “Beruf und Familie gGmbH”. But there are still a lot of things to do to ensure life quality of studential parents. That’s why we still fight for students with children. We want more play areas, winding spaces and more safe havens for women with sucklings. Our major concern is the compatibility of study and family. That’s why we demand

obligatory events to be within care times of children
no obligatory events on late afternoons, evenings or on weekends
free entrainment of children under 14 years with the Semesterticket.

Gender Equality

Gender equality is one of our main goals. To ensure equal chances for women to participate on all levels and in all areas of (university) life is not only required by law but is also a central requirement for a future-oriented university. If women’s potential remains underutilized or confined to certain areas of study, or women do not have the opportunity to actively participate in the shaping of our university culture in positions of influence, this will be a detriment to the whole scientific community. Also, we believe gender equality is central not only to research and study but must also be implemented in the areas of technical maintenance and administration. This is what we want to promote in the student parliament and the senate during the coming year: Gender equality in all areas of university life and practice.

Student services

The Studentenwerk Oldenburg faces a huge challenge. The costs for personnel and renovations are on the rise and the state Lower Saxony denies any financial aid. We, Liste Informatik, are working hand in hand with the statewide alliance “SOS Studiwerke”, to achieve better financial resources for for the student services in Lower Saxony. The consequence would be a massive increment of the semester fee, which has to be prevented. The renovation of the dining hall in Wechloy finally has to start, the situation for students and employees is intolerable.

Get rid of the forced annual password change

Why do we change our passwords every year? According to IT services, this is needed for a higher grade of security. However, in practice it is only annoying, with no to minimal security improvements. In reality, the biggest security problems are caused by passwords passed on voluntarily by phishing mails. For this reason, we are calling for the annual password change to be replaced by a modern, secure system such as Two Factor Authentication. What’s this? If you want to log in to a new device you have to enter a tan number next to the access data. This tan number could be sent by mail to a private mail or generated by an app. After that, the device can be used normally. It is questionable why the university has not yet introduced this procedure. The effort is comparatively low and the actual benefit is enormous. (cf. ncsc.gov.uk)

More rooms for events

The use of space in this university is more than frightening. Events take place on Saturdays or in the late evening hours until 10 pm. This situation is inacceptable. The university has to rent additional rooms (near the university?) so that events take place at humane times and there is time to prepare them appropriately. Alternatively, a better use of available space (at least in the short to medium term) could lead to an improvement of the spatial situation. This could be done, for example, by imposing penalties for unused room reservations or booking rooms for block seminars instead of weekly bookings for the entire semester.

No disruption of events due to renovations

The renovation of the university buildings is necessary. Water drips through the ceilings and harmful substances have been used. There is a need for renovation work, but it must be carried out during the lecture-free period. The construction noise makes it almost impossible to give courses. We call for an immediate stop of renovation work and a shift of work to lecture-free periods, especially for future renovations.

Better Wi-Fi availability

Access to the campus wireless network is essential for students to work. However, availability cannot be guaranteed everywhere. We call for the campus network to be expanded further so that student work is not prevented by a lack of network coverage. The insufficiently developed network infrastructure of the university and the constantly half-heartedly carried out changes to the network meant that in the first weeks of this semester many students were unable to establish a connection to the university wlan or this connection was interrupted.

Against savings in the supply area!

This programme consists of three “construction sites”. On the one hand the understaffed canteen, on the other hand the ice cream parlour which is to be closed and finally the shortened opening hours of the CafeBars in the university.

Closed pizza counter and other understaffed canteen expenses: No one who visits the canteen regularly for lunch has missed the fact that the pizza counter has been permanently vacant for several months. In addition, the Culinarium is often closed due to a lack of staff, and even at peak times there are often too few food distribution points and cash points in the cafeteria.
Ice café is closed: Since its opening, the university’s ice café has become a popular meeting place for students and staff. It is currently becoming apparent that the ice café closes soon and will not be reopened next summer. The reason for this is probably too little income. We will work to ensure that a concept is developed under which the ice café can be preserved.
Shortened opening hours of the CafeBars: For more than a year, the CafeBars on the university campus have been closing at 5 pm. However, for students who have courses starting at 6 pm, the CafeBars were a welcome place before this regulation to stock up on dinner or coffee in the short break between two courses from 5:45 pm to 6:15 pm. Especially with the current increased use of late lecture times until 10 pm longer opening hours are important to provide the students with food. Students do not always have the time to go to the cafeteria or the supermarket. We will therefore advocate an opening of the CafeBars until 6:30 pm.

For an independent university

The economy and political parties of this country should stay out of internal university policy! This is currently not the case, as there exist several party-based groups, which are organised as university groups. We want to show with this list that interest groups do not necessarily have to follow a politically coloured agenda or have a sponsor at their side. We see ourselves as a technology-oriented group of individuals. We do not pursue an external agenda, but rather our own, which is made up of our personal interests and experiences on the one hand, and our skills as engineers and scientists on the other. We want to offer practical goals and solutions for improving the work at the university, from which not only computer scientists benefit, but every person that uses technology in everyday university life.

More staff in department 3 or lower administrative fees

Parts of Division 3, in particular the Examination Office, were unable to perform their duties to the extent required. This is due to unfilled positions, for example, the Department of Computer Science had to cope with 1.5 months without an examiner at the examination office. We call for the immediate filling of all positions and, if necessary, the creation of new positions in areas that are obligatory for studying at this university!

More covered bicycle parking

Oldenburg is a bicycle city. Many students come by bike, but roofed bicycle racks are scarce. This becomes clear when you take a look at the places where bicycles can be protected. These are regularly so crowded that the wheels often block passageways and footpaths. That is why we are calling for more roofed bicycle racks!

No events on Sunday

Due to the current shortage of space, the lecture times are constantly expanding. Events after 8 pm on weekdays and on the Weekend are not uncommon. We demand that Sunday shall not be used for courses. If a course takes place on a Sunday, there must be an alternative similar course on a weekday. This is especially intended for block events. Lectures and tutorials in compulsory modules should under no circumstances take place on a Sunday. If you want to get through your studies without any lasting damage, you need the opportunity to take a break on at least one day of the week. This should be taken into account by those responsible. Besides, there’s no coffee on Sundays.

Use of digital event offers and media

We want teachers to be asked to provide more digital courses for students. One of the large lecture halls has been extensively modernized and offers the possibility to automatically create video recordings and make them available in Stud. IP. However, this possibility is only used seldomly and needs to be extended.

More information events for doctoral students!

Currently, there are only a few information events for the group of doctoral students. It is often forgotten that doctoral students belong to the group of students and have student status. We are committed to ensuring that doctoral students are better informed and integrated into the student body.