Towards the Maturity of Distance Learning Under the Restrictions Imposed by COVID-19

Marinel IORDAN, Ph.D., Director of Distance Learning Department, and Gabriel BÎZOI, Ph.D., Distance Learning Coordinator of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

Status of Distance Learning Before Pandemic

The flexible and student-centred approach of the educational process, regarding time, place and individual rhythm of study in all levels of university studies, led to the introduction of distance learning study programs in the educational offer of the West University of Timișoara, whose experiences and practices are presented below. At the beginning of the academic year 2019-2020 there were seven distance learning study programs for the bachelor's and master's degrees. At the same time, the Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) was available at the university level and accessible through a Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication system for all study programs that proposed to provide the blended learning format for certain subjects in the curricula. The LMS is integrated with a similarity checking system for bachelor’s/master's thesis of students at all university study programs.

Approaches and Consolidations of Distance Learning During the Pandemic Period

The state of lockdown in 2020 determined the transition to the online format for all study programs in the university, with all the challenges generated by the diversity of programs in a comprehensive university with STEM type fields, business education, sociology, psychology and vocational fields (arts, music, sports) at the same time. Challenges were raised not only by the need to create teaching resources for supporting a digital curriculum but also by the necessity to adapt teachers' teaching strategies for managing the online educational process.

The state of lockdown in 2020 determined the transition to the online format for all study programs in the university

The assimilation of online learning and training methods and techniques was enhanced by workshops for showing and sharing examples and good practices in the development and use of open educational resources. Meanwhile, guides and tutorials were available for students and teachers on the Distance Learning Department`s website.

A short analysis on the increase of LMS in the pandemic context was made based on the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (FEAA), where the LMS is the only used platform:

Therefore, statistics provide a significantly increased dimension of teacher-student interaction in the first semester of the academic year 2020-2021 versus the first semester of the academic year 2019-2020 in online format activities.

On the other hand, the statistics from LMS proved that the most accessed courses were those in distance learning format with a significant increase in the number of digital resources used and in the average of accesses/course, offering additional experience to develop distance learning programs.

The development of the educational process in the online format required a consistent technology to allow the development of learning materials, achievement of face-to-face workshops, assessments and support sessions for exams and dissertations. For this purpose, LMS has been developed through plugins and customized reports to monitor and support the educational process. Also, LMS has been integrated with platforms that allow flexibility in digital resources and activities: Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, h5p, Cisco Webex and now the mobile branded Moodle application is under deployment.

University infrastructure was significantly developed by arranging 20 new multimedia video conferencing rooms and the purchase of IT equipment for teachers and students. The objective of this action was both the development of communication in teaching, learning and assessment and the development of interactive digital educational resources for improving the quality of distance education.

Knowledge, experience and good practices in the process of carrying out teaching activities in the online environment of the university made possible the realization of a postgraduate study program for middle school teachers. During the program, learners from three series acquired the skills for the efficient use of digital resources and tools in teaching-learning activities and improved their communication and collaboration skills using and implementing good practices to create digital content.

Perspectives in Distance Learning

The constraints imposed by COVID-19 and the challenges related proved to be opportunities for preparing a strategy for digitizing the educational process and developing distance learning. As a result, the number of programs run in distance learning format will increase: a new master's degree program was introduced for the year 2020-2021 and other distance learning programs will be developed in the near future.

This process will be also stimulated by the adaptation of national standards for the development of higher education in a distance learning format. Current standards state that “a study program in the form of distance education may be offered entirely at a distance or maybe a combination of distance and face-to-face education activities in the higher education institution (blended learning).”

Training and communication methods, techniques and resources developed during the pandemic will enable the development of distance learning and will be also adopted in face-to-face education as complementary methods and tools in digitizing the educational process.

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