Abstract:

Due to the health crisis caused by the global pandemic COVID-19, all higher education Institutions started working remotely to ensure educational continuity. The challenge was to switch immediately from a synchronous and face-to-face teaching mode to remote asynchronous activities using poorly mastered tools and technologies.

In this context, teachers were initially given the task of organizing distance education activities, without having sufficient resources and without being better prepared, supported or trained. Their skills sometimes do not seem to match the demands of this time of crisis. Universities had to modify their policies and procedures to sustain learning and teaching. It has therefore become necessary for them to support teachers in this newly generalized practice, in the use of teaching tools and in updating their qualifications and skills to be able to respond effectively to the situation requirements.

The purpose of this paper is double. Firstly, in order to support universities in their continuous improvement process, we propose a support strategy for teachers during and also after this crisis period. The proposed strategy is the result of our experience as university teachers, of information collected within universities and a review of initiatives taken to achieve successful distance learning. The stages of this strategy as well as the ways of implementing them will be described in detail.

Secondly, distance education should not be seen as an educational response to the covid-19 pandemic or as an emergency solution but should be thought of as a sustainable distance learning strategy and a practice to establish in the same way as face-to-face teaching. Universities recognize that information technologies are increasingly used in education and prove their effectiveness and their contribution the organizations performance. Thus, to move from an emergency situation to a more sustainable one, we will develop a continuing training management information system. Once implemented, this information system will support the quality of continuing education and enable managers to ensure a capitalization and an adequate use of information. It will also provide managers with tools to facilitate management, monitoring, and access to relevant information to decision making.

Keywords:

Continuing education, support, information systems, distance learning.