Global crisis management and higher education: Agency and coupling in the context of wicked COVID-19 problems

Campus crisis management remains an understudied topic in the context of COVID-affected higher education. In this paper, we contrasted the ability to tame the wicked problems brought by the pandemic of COVID-19 in private and public universities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Kazakhstan, Uganda, and Ukraine. The cross-country analysis and diversity of institutional types allowed us to consider a wide range of challenges faced by academic leaders and their institutions during the global pandemic. By drawing on institutional policy reviews and interviews with university administrators, we have examined tensions between the human and institutional agencies on these crisis-stricken campuses given differing institutional coupling, sizes, resources, and missions. The focus on agential co-dependencies and institutional coupling lays the ground for conceptualizing campus crisis management as a culturally specific construct in the context of higher education affected by the global pandemic.     

疫情折射下日本高等教育的问题与归因 ——基于线上教学的视角

新冠疫情的暴发与蔓延,迫使全球的大学都不得不转为线上教学。日本具有接近世界顶级水平 的多媒体技术,而且改革一直是近20年来日本大学教育的关键词。在此背景下,在面对突如其来的线上教 学挑战时,日本原本应该能够从容应对,但实际上面临各种问题和挑战,如著作权的限制、慕课资源的稀缺、 重科研轻教学的传统等,文部科学省的作用也仅限于政策引领。疫情促进了在线教学的发展,也暴露出了 多年改革中存在的问题。     

Factors influencing faculty satisfaction with online teaching and learning in higher education

Faculty satisfaction is considered an important factor of quality in online courses. A study was conducted to identify and confirm factors affecting the satisfaction of online faculty at a small research university, and to develop and validate an instrument that can be used to measure perceived faculty satisfaction in the context of the online learning environment. The online faculty satisfaction survey (OFSS) was developed and administered to all instructors who had taught an online course in fall 2007 or spring 2008 at a small research university in the USA. One hundred and two individuals completed the web‐based questionnaire. Results confirm that three factors affect satisfaction of faculty in the online environment: student‐related, instructor‐related, and institution‐related factors.     

Reconceptualising higher education pedagogy in online learning

The purpose of this collaborative inquiry project was to examine teacher education practices in two early childhood degree programmes in a school of education at a regional university in Australia. All students are enrolled in these online courses as distance learners. The reconceptualised online pedagogy immersed students, peers and their lecturers in ‘teaching through assessment’ (Edwards, 2010) in a collaborative online environment that mirrors the complexity that students are experiencing in their workplaces. This article describes the pedagogical and conceptual underpinnings we used to reconceptualise our degree programmes. It also outlines our evolving conceptualisations of learning as knowledge creation (Hong & Sullivan, 2009) in the context of our teaching and learning in online courses.     

Inclusive pedagogies in digital post-Covid-19 higher education

The Covid-19 pandemic has not only led to medical conundrums and uncharted scientific territories but has also engendered new educational challenges and opportunities that need to be considered in order to reconceptualise, recalibrate and reconfigure higher education in terms of its inclusive foundations and orientations. While current research has highlighted the role of digital teaching methodologies in creating the ‘new normal’ in higher education in the post-Covid-19 era, the ‘new normal’ must be concomitantly envisaged in terms of the role of higher education in fostering more inclusive e-learning spaces. This article discusses the ways in which the tenets of an inclusive pedagogical discourse can be conceptualized and enacted in virtual learning environments in terms of teaching methodologies, learner-centred content delivery and formative assessment implementation. The pedagogical triptych should be underpinned by an inclusive and equity-based ‘cyberculture’ that constitutes a sine qua non element in developing all students' sense of belonging and learning in higher education.     

How student perceptions about online learning difficulty influenced their satisfaction during Canada's Covid-19 response

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a significant challenge to higher education and forced academic institutions across the globe to abruptly shift to remote teaching. Because of the emergent transition, higher education institutions continuously face difficulties in creating satisfactory online learning experiences that adhere to the new norms. This study investigates the transition to online learning during Covid-19 to identify factors that influenced students' satisfaction with the online learning environment. Adopting a mixed-method design, we find that students' experience with online learning can be negatively affected by information overload, and perceived technical skill requirements, and describe qualitative evidence that suggest a lack of social interactions, class format, and ambiguous communication also affected perceived learning. This study suggests that to digitalize higher education successfully, institutions need to redesign students' learning experience systematically and re-evaluate traditional pedagogical approaches in the online context.

Practitioner notes

What is already known about this topic

• University transitions to online learning during the Covid-19 pandemic were undertaken by faculty and students who had little online learning experience.
• The transition to online learning was often described as having a negative influence on students' learning experience and mental health.
• Varieties of cognitive load are known predictors of effective online learning experiences and satisfaction.

What this paper adds

• Information overload and perceptions of technical abilities are demonstrated to predict students' difficulty and satisfaction with online learning.
• Students express negative attitudes towards factors that influence information overload, technical factors, and asynchronous course formats.
• Communication quantity was not found to be a significant factor in predicting either perceived difficulty or negative attitudes.

Implications for practice and/or policy

• We identify ways that educators in higher education can improve their online offerings and implementations during future disruptions.
• We offer insights into student experience concerning online learning environments during an abrupt transition.
• We identify design factors that contribute to effective online delivery, educators in higher education can improve students' learning experiences during difficult periods and abrupt transitions to online learning.

     

Cross-boundary collaboration and knowledge creation in an online higher education course

This study investigated an international, inter-university and multidisciplinary online course with the aim of helping higher education students develop competencies for solving complex problems in collaboration with their peers and stakeholders. The course design was informed by the knowledge creation framework and ideas about cross-boundary collaboration. We attempted to enrich perspectives on knowledge creation by investigating how higher education students (N = 42) from different fields of study and from 17 different nationalities perceived, built and regulated cross-boundary collaboration in the pursuit of real-life problems presented by companies or non-governmental organisations. Drawing on data from 11 in-depth group interviews and team reports of students who had completed this course, we showed the kinds of activities the students considered relevant for cross-boundary collaboration and knowledge creation online. Given this extended context for knowledge creation, the study contributes to the pedagogical development of online learning in higher education.     

Refugees and online education: student perspectives on need and support in the context of (online) higher education

ABSTRACT

Online education and in particular Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are often regarded as a way to solve global educational challenges. In this article, we highlight the students’ uptake of such a ‘digital solution’. Presenting initial findings from a research project in Germany, we situate our investigation in the specific context of digital educational offers for refugees, using Kiron Open Higher Education as an example. Kiron has designed an innovative academic model, with MOOCs at its core, to ease refugees’ access into higher education. Drawing from student data of 1375 Kiron students we look at students’ actual usage of the offer and the accompanying support services as well as the difficulties refugee students face while navigating online higher education. Results show, amongst others, rather low completion rates in the online courses and point to a much more nuanced picture of how students make use of the offer – putting online education as an easy, straightforward formula to the integration of disadvantaged students into question.     

K-12 Students’ Online Learning Experiences during COVID-19: Lessons from China

Online learning has become the new educational pattern during the COVID-19 pandemic and is likely to supplement conventional schooling in the post-pandemic world. Lacking prior online learning experiences, the population of K-12 students deserves our special attention. Using purposeful sampling, this study investigated K-12 online learning experiences in China based on a large-scale survey (N = 118,589). Leveraging both quantitative and qualitative evidence, this study supported online learning as a flexible alternative to conventional schooling in emergency situations with a discussion of its benefits and limitations, and revealed key findings regarding K-12 students’ online learning pattern, experiences, and engagement, as well as the influencing factors. The research findings can inform the future design and implementation of online learning programs in primary and secondary schools.     

Student performance in computing education: an empirical analysis of online learning in programming education environments

The benefits of using online exercises have been analysed in terms of distance learning, automatic assessment and self-regulated learning. In this study, we have not found a direct proportional relationship between student performance in the course exercises that use online technologies and the exam grades. We see that the average submission rate to these online exercises is not positively correlated with the exercise points. Yet, our results confirm that doing exercises along supports student learning and skill accumulation equipping them with the knowledge of programming. While the student performance in programming courses is affected by factors such as prior background in programming, cognitive skills and the quality of teaching, completing the course exercises via learning-by-doing is an indispensable part of teaching. Based on the student feedback from the course survey, the students are highly satisfied with using online technologies as part of learning.     

Understanding effects of COVID-19 on undergraduate academic stress,motivation and coping over time

The rapid and unprecedented shift from face-to-face instruction to remote online learning as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic had a substantial impact on teaching and learning in Higher Education: students had to adapt to a new way of learning, away from typical campus settings and their peers, and to new forms of assessments. This study examined academic stress, learning strategies, motivation and ways of coping from a sample of 177 unique students from a large London university, collecting primary data via survey at three time points during the academic year 2020/21 when teaching was remote and online only. Our findings show how patterns in academic stress, learning strategies, motivation and coping vary over the course of the academic year giving novel insight into how student learning and adaptation to the situation changed over time. We also report on differences in these patterns according to year group and for those students who are the first-in-family to attend university and those who are not. Based on these findings we identify priority areas where higher education institutions should support undergraduate students and provide evidence that some groups of students may need more and targeted support to secure their ongoing learning and well-being.     

后疫情时代高等教育国际化的未来走向

新冠疫情给全球高等教育国际化发展带来严重冲击,其加剧了高等教育国际化的变革。由于新冠疫情的影响,全球高等教育格局面临重构,高等教育国际化流动模式与主体也将随之发生转变。后疫情时代,高等教育国际化发展除了要从经济驱动转向文化理解,构建多元化、可持续的高等教育国际化发展新模式外,还应提高高等教育国际化的多样性。中国要在正确看待政治、经济、教育环境变化的基础上认识到高等教育国际化与地缘政治的关系仍然牢不可破,高等教育国际化中的“文化霸权”短期内仍然难以撼动,高等教育国际化发展的规模与质量矛盾仍然长期存在,进而强化研究、大力创新、文化引领并重视以“一带一路”建设推动构建人类命运共同体,以此更好地推动高等教育国际化发展。     

新冠肺炎防控期高校图书馆利用AI开展线上服务探究

新冠肺炎（COVID-19）防控期间,高校图书馆利用最新的技术手段开展线上服务势在必行。采用文献分析与实证研究等方法,分析高校图书馆以新媒体、VPN、文献传递等方式进行线上服务的弊端,并探讨在新冠肺炎防控期间,高校图书馆利用AI技术开展智能咨询、智能推送、知识库及阅读增强等线上服务的方式。实践结果表明,利用AI技术可有效解决疫情防控期间各种文献资源难以获取的问题,提升了文献服务质量与效率。     

疫情下高校线上教学状况调查:以辽宁省为例

以疫情期间接受线上教学的辽宁省高校大学生1262个样本为研究对象,通过网络问卷来调查疫情下高校学生大规模线上学习状况,分析出影响学生线上学习效果的因素是网络与教学平台、学生自主学习态度与能力、教师在线技术与能力等。基于此提出线上教学质量提高的建议。