Abstract:

After the profound challenges that European countries faced during the COVID-19 pandemic, characterized by a widespread shift to remote teaching, there is a widely held belief that the higher education landscape has undergone a significant transformation. This transformation necessitates higher education institutions (HEIs) to adopt a more adaptable approach, offering a blend of synchronous, asynchronous, and face-to-face instruction. This flexibility is seen as crucial to enabling students to seamlessly transition between various delivery modes. Project SOULSS (Scaffolding Online University Learning: Support Systems, 2022-1-IT02-KA220-HED-000090206) is an Erasmus+ initiative designed to enhance the capacity of HEI teachers. The project's focus is on applying Universal Learning Design (UDL) principles to implement inclusive instruction, instituting early interventions to prevent dropout, and crafting and delivering optimal hybrid instruction that strikes a flexible balance by leveraging the strengths of different delivery modes.

Among the initial tasks of the project was the completion of a comprehensive literature survey on the State of the Art of UDL implementation at the tertiary level in online and hybrid delivery modes. The chosen methodology for this literature survey was the scoping review, considered appropriate for assessing emerging evidence and constituting an initial step in research development. The process adhered to the PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (Tricco et al., 2018) and aimed to address three key research questions:
1. What are the perspectives and practices of higher education professors regarding the use of UDL in online or hybrid classes?
2. What are the perspectives and experiences of higher education students concerning the use of UDL in online or hybrid classes?
3. What are considered good practices in the implementation of UDL in online and hybrid classes in higher education? What factors facilitate its implementation, and what barriers exist?

This presentation provides a detailed account of the entire scoping review process, offering a synthesis of the collected data and analyzing it to provide insights into the research questions. The findings lead to recommendations for practice, along with implications for the implementation of the SOULSS project.

Keywords:

Universal Design for Learning, Higher Education, Online and Hybrid Education, Inclusive Education.