This timely volume documents the immediate, global impacts of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) on teaching and learning in higher education. Focusing on student and faculty experiences of online and distance education, the text provides reflections on novel initiatives, unexpected challenges, and lessons learned. Responding to the urgent need to better understand online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this book investigates how the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) impacted students, faculty, and staff experiences during the COVID-19 lockdown. Chapters initially look at the challenges faced by universities and educators in their attempts to overcome the practical difficulties involved in developing effective online programming and pedagogy. The text then builds on these insights to highlight student experiences and consider issues of social connection and inequality. Finally, the volume looks forward to asking what lessons COVID-19 can offer for the future development of online and distance learning in higher education. This engaging volume will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in online teaching and eLearning, curriculum design, and more, specifically those involved with the digitalization of higher education. The text will also support further discussion and reflection around pedagogical transformation, international teaching and learning, and educational policy more broadly.

This book is to explores a variety of facets of online learning environments to understand how learning occurs and succeeds in digital contexts and what teaching strategies and technologies are most suited to this format. Business, health, government and education are some of the core sectors of society which have been experiencing deep transformations due to a generalized digitalization. While these changes are not novel, the swift progress of technology and the rising complexity of digital environments place a focus on the need for further research and novel strategies. In the context of education, the promise of increased flexibility and broader access to educational resources is impelling much of higher education’s course offerings to online environments. The 21st century learner requires an education that can be pursued anytime and anywhere and that is more aligned with the demands of a digital society. Online education not only assists students to success-fully integrate a workforce that is increasingly digital, but it helps them to become more comfortable with the use of technology in general and, hence, more prepared to be prolific digital citizens. The variety of settings portrayed in this volume attest to the unlimited opportunities afforded by online learning and serve as valuable evidence of its benefit for students’ educational experience. Moreover, these research efforts assist a more comprehensive reflection about the delivery of higher education in the context of online settings.

This edited volume examines the implications of COVID-19 on distance and online learning, discussing how the move to online teaching and learning modes proved to be a source of immense institutional, organizational, and educational challenges. With chapters grounded in theoretical and methodological approaches pertinent to education and pedagogy, the book explores the relevance of theory to the educational situation brought about by the pandemic and highlights the specific issues and challenges that distance learning has to account for in crisis situations. Key topics discussed include innovations and best practices in online learning, research, and management; developments in computer-supported collaborative learning, training, and research; the use of intelligent tutoring and mentoring systems in times of crisis; the role of university leadership and users’ perceptions and attitudes to online teaching and learning. The book offers fresh insights into the specificity of distance learning in a pandemic and its effects in established working patterns. It will be highly relevant reading for academics, researchers, and post-graduate students in the fields of online learning, distance learning, educational technology, and pedagogy, as well as university administrators and those directly involved in online teaching.

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This open access edited volume is a comparative effort to discern the short-term educational impact of the covid-19 pandemic on students, teachers and systems in Brazil, Chile, Finland, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Spain, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. One of the first academic comparative studies of the educational impact of the pandemic, the book explains how the interruption of in person instruction and the variable efficacy of alternative forms of education caused learning loss and disengagement with learning, especially for disadvantaged students. Other direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic diminished the ability of families to support children and youth in their education. For students, as well as for teachers and school staff, these included the economic shocks experienced by families, in some cases leading to food insecurity and in many more causing stress and anxiety and impacting mental health. Opportunity to learn was also diminished by the shocks and trauma experienced by those with a close relative infected by the virus, and by the constrains on learning resulting from students having to learn at home, where the demands of schoolwork had to be negotiated with other family necessities, often sharing limited space. Furthermore, the prolonged stress caused by the uncertainty over the resolution of the pandemic and resulting from the knowledge that anyone could be infected and potentially lose their lives, created a traumatic context for many that undermined the necessary focus and dedication to schoolwork. These individual effects were reinforced by community effects, particularly for students and teachers living in communities where the multifaceted negative impacts resulting from the pandemic were pervasive. This is an open access book.

The COVID-19 pandemic affected a wide range of global sectors, but one of the most important is education. The transition from classroom to computer screen was a difficult one for many Asian students, parents, and teachers. Since this transition, global education systems now mostly depend on online technology. It is crucial that the impact of the pandemic on education is not only examined from a Western point of view, but also from Eastern perspectives. The Handbook of Research on Asian Perspectives of the Educational Impact of COVID-19 provides the current issues the education sector is facing in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book investigates the issues and challenges the education sector is facing as well as the future directions needed to provide education in a more effective way. Covering topics such as academic perspectives, university-level employees, and leadership challenges, this book is a dynamic resource for students, teachers, pre-service teachers, school administrators, education providers, faculty, researchers, policymakers, and academicians.

The increasing use of innovative technologies by global businesses has sparked debate about their application in crisis resolution. Resolution tools can be used by global businesses to manage various types of crisis situations, such as natural disasters, information security issues, economic downturns, health crisis situations, and sustainability issues in education, among others. Further study and consideration of the uses of technology in the areas of crisis and change management and intra-company communication practice in the context of global business must be done to ensure successful and sustainable businesses. Future Role of Sustainable Innovative Technologies in Crisis Management raises awareness of the multifaceted field of new technology in crisis management that has resulted in a paradigm shift in the way contemporary industries and global businesses communicate and conduct their daily business operations. This book defines the scope of innovative technologies as the application of new technologies to support the resolution of various types of crisis situations to achieve regulatory compliance and improved risk management in an effective and automated manner. Covering topics such as sustainable business and disaster scenarios, this reference work is ideal for managers, entrepreneurs, researchers, academicians, scholars, practitioners, instructors, and students.