Abstract:

CEU Universities is the largest non-profit private education group in Spain, comprising three Universities located in Madrid (CEU San Pablo), Valencia (CEU Cardenal Herrera), and Barcelona (Abat Oliba CEU). More than 17.000 students from over 70 countries studied in one of the three universities in the 2019/2020 academic year. By the end of 2019, news about a potential pandemic from Asia was being reported, but it was not until January 31st that the first case was diagnosed in Spain. As the number of cases increased rapidly, governmental measures were established. In education, on-site classes were canceled on March 11th in Madrid and two days later in Valencia and Barcelona. What were we to do? As the first regulation provided for a closure of only two weeks, the health scenario indicated that those two weeks would probably become months as they eventually did.

For this reason, the CEU Universities deployed a contingency plan within 24 hours as a result of the collaboration of IT services, management, and the firm commitment of teachers and students to keep the university open. But how was this possible?

A few years before the pandemic, a group of teachers with an interest in technology and digital transformation (DT) and led by the Vice-dean of Digital Transformation, created a group, the digital ambassadors (DA), in order to help their peers in DT, the better use of platforms, etc... The role of the DAs was to support other teachers in acquiring new technological skills, so they organized workshops with other teachers. Nevertheless, their role was underutilized.

All three universities offered almost 100% of their degrees with on-site teaching. However, some faculties offered blended degrees where lectures and tuition were online, and laboratory classes were on-site. As a result, faculty staff had the tools to deliver online courses, but they had limited uptake.

Considering all this, the conversion from almost 100% on-site teaching to 100% online teaching was achieved within 24 hours. The DAs created workshops to explain the essential tools for online education to the lecturers for them to start their classes. Laptops and other devices were purchased for the staff so they could work from home, and IT services supported all the new devices, managed the teaching platform, and searched for new tools that could be useful for the online classes.

That was only the beginning; weeks passed, and we were unable to return to normality as the academic year progressed. New tools were needed for assessment with and without proctoring tools, the official signing of marks, Ph.D. defenses, and a long list of everyday things that were impossible to do “as usual.” Thanks to teamwork, the rapid implementation of all these new tools was made possible. The DAs became teachers of teachers demonstrating the great potential of peer learning in rapidly acquiring new skills.

To conclude, collaborative work is fundamental for crisis management, and the new organized pandemic workflow where different areas interact closely should be adopted. Moreover, peer-to-peer learning among teachers from the same institution was proven to be a very effective tool for the rapid adoption of skills because examples of both difficulties and success stories were closely related to their own challenges.

Keywords:

Pandemic, remote learning, digital ambassadors.