Information for employees of the departments

There are 5 major stages up to go-live, which are described in more detail below:

1. Stage from the end of September 2025:
   Basic data migration and event planning for summer semester 2026
2. Stage from November 2025:
   Start of room planning for summer semester 2026
   Development of the information websites and student handbook
3. Stage from January 2026:
   Start of examination planning for summer semester 2026
   Start of dress rehearsals for going live
4. Stage from February 2026:
   Final preparations for going live and start of the changeover (February 20, 2026)
5. Stage on March 9, 2026:
   Latest activation of EXA for all users

The prerequisite for event planning is basic data that must be transferred from the old system:

• Rooms and buildings
• facilities
• Personal data from the person directory

Once this initial data migration is complete, the system is released for the departments and central facilities. The planning of courses for the summer semester 2026 can now begin:

• Entering courses
• Assignment of courses to existing modules of the degree programs
• Planning the dates for the summer semester 2026
• Requesting/booking rooms

You can find out who can assign you rights (system role) in your department at https://sharepoint.uni-kassel.de/sites/ecampus/Lists/Akteure/AllItems.aspx. The ProductOwner and KeyUser are authorized to do this.

From November, the central room administration department will be able to process room requests from the departments. Departments will probably still be able to book rooms or submit room requests.

The information website required for the changeover phase is expected to be finalized in November. In this context, communication on the changeover and maintenance phase will be intensified. Manuals and videos for students will be created.

The planning of examination dates for the summer semester 2026 will begin in January. For this purpose, target group-oriented training courses will be offered on an ongoing basis, similar to event management. There will be two training courses, one for teaching staff and one for examination offices.

The support services will also be extended to examination management, and the EXA consultation hours can also be used for this purpose.

From January 2026, departments can apply for course registration deadlines and registration procedures. Once ITS has set up the document deadlines, they can be assigned to the courses by the departments.

The IT team will begin (probably) weekly dress rehearsals for the changeover from January at the latest. We will rehearse the entire process internally, from shutdown to release, on our test infrastructure. The main purpose of this is to eliminate any final errors and ambiguities and to refine the checklist for the "real" changeover.

To ensure that everyone involved is aware of the individual steps of the changeover phase, these are briefly listed below and provided with an estimated time frame. The performance is based on a successful/positive implementation of the previous step. The following dates should therefore be seen as an ideal progression. As a precautionary measure, all regulations were planned to cover the following week. A start of the new system on 9.03. can be regarded as certain.

1. Friday, 20.02. 15:00: Switch off the productive systems and switch on the maintenance pages; link to information offer
2. Friday, 20.02.: After shutdown of the productive environment, the setup of the shadow systems begins
3. Friday, 20.02.: Start of preparatory work for data migration
4. Saturday, 21.02.: Start of performance data migration (duration approx. 24 hours).
5. Sunday, 22.02.: First visual inspection of the performance data migration. After positive visual inspection, start of grade calculation for all examination regulations (duration approx. 36 hours).
6. Monday, 23.02.: Start-up of the shadow systems and information to employees
7. Tuesday, 24.02.: Start of post-processing of the migration and technical quality control of the migrated performance data.
8. Thursday, 26.02.: If technical quality assurance is successful, release of advance access to the new system environment for the specialist departments.
9. Monday, 02.03.: If the feedback from the departments is positive, the productive system can be released as early as 02.03.

The time schedule mentioned here assumes that all steps run smoothly and that there are no unforeseen interruptions or problems. A time buffer of approx. one week is planned for this case, so that in the worst case there is time for a complete second transfer of the data.

With the release on March 9, all users can access the eCampus. Students can start pre-booking courses and exams. Help pages and explanatory videos for students will also be published.

The shadow systems will be switched off with the release and will then no longer be available. For research purposes, there will be a purely internal legacy system with read-only access for departments. If, for example, students express doubts about the correctness of the transferred performance data in individual cases, it will be possible to verify the correctness.

Results for examinations taken by students shortly before or during the changeover phase can now be recorded in the system by teaching staff and can then be viewed by students. Deadlines then run again in the usual way.

Deregistrations or late registrations can also be stored in the system.

The additional support offered by the IT team will remain in place until the end of the project: There will continue to be ongoing training on how to use the systems. In addition to the usual e-mail support, the established EXA consultation hours will continue on a weekly basis and the chat channel that has already been set up will be maintained. For questions relating to EXA, a telephone hotline for initial support will be offered by trained support staff for the period after the changeover.