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Prior to 2020, the Czech higher education institutions (HEIs) did not have much experience with distance learning and blended learning. Experience with hybrid teaching was minimal. The Covid-19 pandemic therefore presented the management of public universities in the Czech Republic with a number of new tasks in resolving the crisis situation. It also made the possibilities of distance education and other flexible forms of education significantly more visible. In 2021, a total of 26 public universities joined together in a central development project, in order to discuss the most important issues of distance education and blended learning, the current background for the implementation of flexible forms of education, and also their future plans in this area. In this chapter, the authors present in detail the results of a study on the background of public universities for the implementation of distance education and blended learning, which have become the basis for creating the action plans of individual institutions. The results of the analysis showed, among other things online supported education is important, especially in emergency situations.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the lived experiences from the voice of the authors (a science professor, an instructional designer, a distance learning doctoral intern, and a distance learning director) in the process of transitioning a face-to-face science course to online modality at a large, research university.

The method of this qualitative inquiry involves a personal narrative approach in which the authors reflect on their experiences of this process and analyze it through writing.

The findings examine the challenges of moving a traditional course online and reiterate the value of a team approach to ensure its quality. The narrative offers clarity to the different phases of such a project and can enhance decision making among those involved in course design and delivery, as well as administrators incentivizing the conversion of traditional courses to the online modality.

Online education has emerged as a viable solution. The challenges and rewards of transitioning face-to-face courses to distance learning modalities are well documented, even for a senior science educator.

Universities face several modern day challenges, including reductions in state appropriations, lack of available space for classes, challenges of engaging a technologically savvy generation, and preparing students for a global marketplace.

To support faculty members’ transition to online education, universities offer instructional design support, where ideas are exchanged with faculty members to ensure pedagogically sound and engaging distance learning. The authors conclude with recommendations for both practice and future research in the area of practice and process improvement for diffusion of online courses at traditional universities, one course at a time. This is important to those beginning to transition course offerings online.

This study aims to investigate the aspects of perceived quality differences that influence student satisfaction when the mode of learning is changed from the traditional classroom to online distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This study used an online survey for data collection by distributing online questionnaires to students at a private university in Indonesia. Convenience sampling was applied as the sample method. A total of 253 valid questionnaires were acquired, and all items were recorded on the seven-point comparative scale. Exploratory factor analysis was adopted to identify the dimensions of perceived quality. Then, multiple regression analysis was used to examine the impacts of these dimensions on student satisfaction.

Four dimensions of perceived quality differences were identified, namely, the perceived quality of the campus facilities, learning process, teaching staff and administrative staff. Regression analysis results proved that the perceived differences in the quality dimensions between the traditional classroom and online distance learning had positive and significant effects on student satisfaction.

As a result of using a convenient sample, this study exhibited a limited sample and context. Therefore, the generalizability of these findings is limited. Future research can use a stratified sample with more diverse categories of respondents.

The findings of this study will help universities that plan to change the mode of learning from traditional classroom to online distance learning. Higher education institutions can gain a deep understanding of these perceived quality attributes that have significant impacts on student satisfaction.

To the author’s best knowledge, this study is the first to address the effect of changing modes of learning from traditional classroom to online distance learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic on student satisfaction in the Indonesian context.

This study aims to explore Twitter posts of Turkish government agencies and the public under a specific hashtag, #NotHolidayButDistanceEducation, specifically related to online distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study used a thematic analysis on 22,547 original tweets posted by 6,970 users during the first month of online distance education in Turkish K-12 schools. Based on like and retweet counts, the study further explored the extent of stakeholders’ engagement with the observed themes.

The findings showed that government agencies and citizens used Twitter to provide technical and psychological support, appreciate and motivate stakeholders, demonstrate sample distance education activities, share information and offer suggestions about the ongoing online distance education. It was also observed that the hashtag has been used for expressing negative views about online distance education and for political purposes. A positive relationship was found between social media engagement and providing technical support or sharing information for online distance education.

This study highlights the role of social media in providing practical and emotional support to education stakeholders in times of crisis. Thus, governments can use social media to provide evidence-based psychological and physical health support to their citizens during a pandemic. Social media can serve to improve education practices in schools through the interactions between the public and policymakers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study can be considered unique because it demonstrates the civic use of social media for educational crisis management. This study highlights the influence of social media in educational policy and practice development in the contemporary era.

This paper aims to summarise the methods and main findings of a study of the environmental impacts of providing higher education (HE) courses by campus‐based and distance/open‐learning methods.

The approach takes the form of an environmental audit, with data from surveys of 20 UK courses – 13 campus‐based, seven print‐based and online distance learning courses – covering travel, paper and print consumption, computing, accommodation, and campus site impacts. Results were converted into energy and CO₂ emissions per student per 100 hours of degree study.

Distance learning HE courses involve 87 per cent less energy and 85 per cent lower CO₂ emissions than the full‐time campus‐based courses. Part‐time campus HE courses reduce energy and CO₂ emissions by 65 and 61 per cent, respectively, compared with full‐time campus courses. The lower impacts of part‐time and distance compared with full‐time campus courses is mainly due to a reduction in student travel and elimination of much energy consumption of students' housing, plus economies in campus site utilisation. E‐learning appears to offer only relatively small energy and emissions reductions (20 and 12 per cent, respectively) compared with mainly print‐based distance learning courses, mainly because online learning requires more energy for computing and paper for printing.

Assumptions were made in order to calculate the energy and emissions arising from the different HE systems. For example, it was decided to include all the energy consumed in term‐time accommodation for full‐time campus students while part‐time campus and distance learning students live at home, only requiring additional heating and lighting for study. Future studies could include more distance and blended learning courses offered by institutions other than the UK Open University and impacts other than CO₂ emissions.

Existing HE sustainability programmes should be broadened beyond considering campus site impacts and “greening the curriculum”. Indeed, were HE expansion to take environmental impacts seriously, then part‐time and distance education should be prioritised over increasing full‐time provision. This appears compatible with the Leitch Review of Skills on continuing education and training for the UK workforce.

The paper represents the only existing quantitative study of this issue.

Examines student performance indicators in online distance learning courses offered on the Internet at a mid‐sized private college in the USA. A sample of 74 undergraduate and 147 graduate business students in ten courses were selected for statistical analysis of their grade performance and the relationship with various indicators. The research results include findings that gender and age are related differently for undergraduate and graduate students to performance in distance learning courses, and that undergraduate grades, age, work experience, and discussion board grades are significantly related to overall course performance. However, standardized test scores (SATs, GMATs) and organization position level are not related to the performance in distance learning courses. Makes recommendations for further qualitative and empirical research on distance learning student performance in online computer‐mediated courses and programs.

The literature on non-traditional classroom environments claims that the changed emphasis in higher education teaching from the lecturer to students has intensified the global focus on student-centred learning, prompting colleges and universities globally to introspect, re-examine, and re-structure their pedagogical approaches in an attempt to align with national educational policies, and to position themselves favourably with potential students in an increasingly competitive higher education environment. This is an environment that now relies heavily on digital learning technologies, which has provoked scholars such as Heick (2012) to perceive the change to the virtual as one that makes higher education institutions accessible from anywhere – in the cloud, at home, in the workplace, or restaurant. The COVID-19 crisis has reinforced the need for this flexibility. These forces have put universities and colleges under pressure to implement new teaching approaches in non-traditional classroom settings that are appropriate for, and responsive to, the COVID-19 crisis and students in terms of learning and social support. This chapter identified and appraised key teaching approaches. It is evident that there are three key teaching approaches that higher education institutions have adopted for delivering learning in an emergency and in a student-centred fashion. The three approaches, which include the time and place dispersion, transactional distance, and collaborative learning approaches, embrace social support because they are grounded in social constructivism. Academics need to be fully committed to the role of social support giving – that is, emotional, instrumental, informational, and appraisal support – in order to foster student wellbeing and cognitive development as students learn together but apart in non-traditional classrooms. The hurried manner in which teaching and learning practices in many higher education institutions have been moved to the online format has led academics to violate many key principles of the approaches they have adopted. And this situation is borne out in the case study discussed in Chapter 8 of this volume. A review of current remote teaching and learning practices is required if academics are to embrace the full principles of the approaches that are appropriate for teaching and learning in non-traditional classroom contexts.

This chapter reflects on a recent initiative as authors and tutors for the first module of a new online Masters in Public Administration (MPA) programme now offered by the University of Birmingham for public sector professionals around the world.

Our focus is particularly on the key lessons with regard to using the ‘online’ mode for ‘experiential learning’ – that is, facilitating our mid-career practitioner students in the acquisition of added management learning through critical analysis of, and structured reflection on, their work-based experience.

Three particular challenges for online programme designers are identified as follows: the challenge of achieving a ‘learner-centric’ online design (rather than a teacher-centric one); the challenge of facilitating effective communication (within the student group as much as between students and teachers); and the challenge of building an effective online learning community.

The chapter concludes by proposing strategies for approaching and mediating these three challenges in turn. With regard to ‘learner-centricity’ we advocate an approach that promotes in the students a spirit of inquiry and which encourages conceptualisation on the basis of their existing knowledge and experience, rather than following a traditional ‘teacher-centred’ and lecture-dominated pedagogy. In relation to communication, particularly critical is the choice of a high quality course management system (CMS) and exploitation to the full of the system’s capabilities in relation to computer-mediated communication (CMC), both within the student community and through ‘synchronous interaction’, between students and staff. Finally, on the building of a ‘learning community’ of students, we emphasise the importance of facilitating students’ cognitive and social presence throughout the modules and programme through the promotion of active engagement and critical reflection on the key issues in the curriculum.

‘I like the fact that it's simple; I like the fact that it's not too complicated, and I think that whoever developed it, developed it with the people in mind’. Blended learning master's student talking about Solent Online Learning.The authors carried out an extended project aimed at making effective use of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for the delivery of high-quality online distance and blended learning. This was in response to a greater demand for such courses through the emergence of a new constituency of learner, principally professional learners, those already in employment but seeking to improve their level of qualification and employability through the study of flexibly delivered credit bearing courses. The growth of this constituency can be seen very much as a response to the changes to the funding structure in the higher education sector in the UK. To this end, the authors worked within a team that developed an approach to effective course design, the Solent Online Learning Standard, and then a new methodology for collaborating with academic staff in the development and delivery of such courses. In order to best facilitate this, the team also created a new instance of its institutional VLE, called Solent Online Learning and tailored more to the needs of these new professional learners.

In 2020, the education system was preliminary halted by the COVID-19 crisis and went through radical improvisation, and online-based distance learning was the only plausible initiative to continue educational activities ensuring health guidelines properly. However, in reality, such desperate measure in case of a lower-middle-income developing nation lacking proper structural capabilities raised some issues and concerns for both pupils and mentors, and this study aims to explore the practice of online-based distance learning in private universities of Bangladesh and the challenges associated with it.

This exploratory research is qualitative in nature. A total number of 89 undergraduate level university students from different private universities were divided into two main clusters and interviewed in depth.

The findings of this paper revealed that common developing country syndromes like improper technological infrastructure development, limitation to devices or internet accessibility and financial hindrances can disrupt the harmony of the online learning experience. Also, the lack of tech literacy has created a huge tension and psychological inertia among both the teachers and the students.

The coronavirus pandemic event, with its dreadful influence, is creating immense mental pressures for students to cope well with the online learning system. Comprehending the underlying challenges affiliated with online-based distance learning and enabling faculties or respected personnel with training and development programs to handle impediments better way, this learning initiative can ensure the best outcomes.

The significance of this study lies in comprehending the feasibility of online-based education regarding lower-middle-income developing nation context and the realism of such learning process's acceptability considering its actual effectiveness.