Abstract:

Due to the COVID-19 health crisis, the UPF closed its physical doors in mid-March, as did the rest of universities. Because of this situation, the teaching activities (initially conceived for an on-site learning environment) had to be reorganized in order to fit the new, totally online learning environment. The Teaching Quality and Innovation Support Unit (USQUID) at the UPF School of Engineering and ICT Department has provided the students and teachers of the School with support and guidance in many ways, including a questionnaire addressed to undergraduate students of the following degrees: Computer Engineering, Audiovisual Systems Engineering, Telecommunications Network Engineering, Mathematical Engineering in Data Science, and Biomedical Engineering. The questionnaire aimed to canvass the views of the students on key aspects of the switch to online teaching, such as methods used in every subject, teamwork management, continuous assessment organization, materials made available, etc. The total number of respondents was 242, distributed as follows: 52 from the degree in Biomedical Engineering (taught in collaboration with another UPF department) and 190 from the ICT degrees.

The results show how students value some features of online learning in comparison to those of on-site learning and how they have perceived the adaptation in the case study. For instance, according to the collected data, the closeness between teachers and students (one of the advantages of on-site learning) has been preserved, which students value very positively. Particularly, they value the availability of teachers as well as how lectures, seminars and practical sessions have been reorganized. The results also highlight the fact that it has been difficult for our students to get on with their tasks in the deadlines set, possibly because they are generally not as autonomous and disciplined as the average student of online universities. Another aspect, in connection to the latter, are group activities, which are typically designed to be done on-site and have been necessarily adapted to online learning. In this regard, we have gathered information and data that reflect how difficult it is for group members to attend videoconferences simultaneously or even to form working groups, which leads them to perform their tasks individually. These results stress the importance of facilitating time slots and learning spaces to plan and perform group activities.

This paper presents both the context and the results obtained from the study carried out in the UPF Engineering School and the ICT Department and the subsequent reflection, including student’s reasons, on what aspects of online teaching are valued most by students with traditional profiles (those enrolled at on-site universities), especially regarding the links between synchronous and asynchronous learning. On that basis, some basic elements arise that may come in useful for the entire university community to design hybrid formats that will certainly be present at all universities the next year.

Keywords:

Covid-19, e-learning, online learning, remote monitoring, continuous assessment, training digitalization.