Abstract:

The aim of this research is to investigate the challenges of moving traditional contact-based teaching in Higher Education (HE) to on-line delivery due to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions. Two Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) were involved in this investigation, the University of Huddersfield - UoH (United Kingdom) and University of KwaZulu-Natal – UKZN (South Africa). A survey was conducted among the academics at these universities in the initial stages of lockdown, with emergency measures in place. The objective of the survey was to identify the challenges and possibilities of moving the teaching from classroom/laboratory-based environments to exclusively on-line environment. On-line courses for distance learning are not new, for example the Massive Open Online Courses – MOOCS became a popular mode of learning in 2012. However, considerable time, resources and effort is invested in designing such courses. Moving to on-line course delivery due to pandemic lockdown required a swift response in a matter of days or weeks.

Therefore, considering a wide adoption of on-line courses in the pandemic, the survey was aiming to:
• understand academics’ preferences of technology to support online teaching and assessment
• determine academics’ experiences with the shift to a forced ‘work from home’ (WFH) situation
• identify what quality assurance measures are in place during the sudden shift to online teaching and assessment
• investigate the general impact of the pandemic on academics

The initial results of the survey are collated and analysed. The findings demonstrate that there are similarities in the proportion of contact-based teaching prior to COVID-19, 100% at UoH vs 97.4% at UKZN, and on-line teaching during pandemic, 90% at UoH vs 83.6% at UKZN. Also, the academics’ proficiency in adopting on-line teaching is comparable in two institutions. The differences were found in the adoption of digital technology used to deliver course material and communicate with the students. At UoH there was a significant adoption of the Zoom platform (93%), while at UKZN the prescribed Learning Management System (LMS) (76%), Zoom (78%) and recorded videos (61%), for teaching during the pandemic, Zoom and Email were significantly adopted at both institutions for communication with students and colleagues during the pandemic. While academics at UoH did not cite any significant WFH challenges, while UKZN academics revealed that their most significant challenge of WFH was poor internet connection for their students. UKZN academics felt that the institution would adopt more blended learning post the pandemic. The results of this research provided an insight into the initial impact of COVID-19 lockdown on teaching and learning, academics and students.

Since the initial survey was conducted, most of the university teaching in UoH and UKZN has moved on line. Our future research will focus on on-line and blended delivery of courses in two HE institutions during the pandemic. It is anticipated that there will be some lasting changes in teaching, learning and assessment of HE courses in UK and SA, due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords:

On-line education, higher education, learning technology, academic experiences.