Across continents: A comparison of African and Australian academics' online preparedness

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted higher education across the globe, in particular the shift from face-to-face teaching and assessment, as well as interaction with students. In 2020, an online survey was distributed to African and Australian higher education academics to gather insights into academics’ transformation of educational practices during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular it focused on the effects on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. The survey questions investigated the comparison of the use of teaching and assessment technologies prior to, and during the COVID-19 pandemic; academics’ experiences with the sudden shift to work from home (WFH) arrangements and quality assurance measures for digital technologies. The sample included 71 academics across 12 Australian universities/tertiary institutions and 278 academics across 21 African higher education institutions. This study identified that while many Australian academics had prior experience and training in online/blended delivery, African academics, despite not having formal training in digital pedagogy, rated themselves as more than average in their ability to adopt technology for the online environment, just as the Australian cohort had. The most effective online tools adopted during the crisis in the African region were Zoom and WhatsApp while in the Australian region the learning management system (LMS) was the most popular. The major factors that affected African and Australian students’ ability to engage online included lack of access to connectivity and devices, technological competency and emotional and social factors. The results suggest that the predominant challenges faced by students as reported by academics across both continents in the “forced” remote work environment other than general anxiety about COVID-19 were social isolation (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020), connectivity for their students and the lack of a balanced work life (Kotteeswari & Sharief, 2014; Oliveira et al., 2021). This study has implications on institutions’ readiness in terms of capacity building for academic staff, infrastructure and support during digital delivery of courses

Experiences of female academics in Australia during COVID-19: Opportunities and challenges

An online survey collected data on a range of female academic experiences globally gaining 260 responses with 144 Australian specific academics’ responses (55% of total responses). The pandemic has highlighted positive opportunities such as online teaching and skill development, flexibility, time efficiency, increased collaboration, and time for research. In terms of challenges identified responses indicate an increased workload, less motivation for career progression, and perceptions of greater and obvious gender disparity and bias against female academics. Australia is often referred to as a ‘lucky country’ which can further be enriched though fostering its rich and diverse female academic community into the future. Rapid measures to support women immediately and with longer-term solutions that address gender equity is critical for female academics to ensure future engagement of female academics for positive economic and social growth as a nation

Case studies to enhance online student evaluation: Central Queensland University – The big red button

Student feedback is imperative to the improvement of courses and teaching. As stated by Harvey, “to make an effective contribution to internal improvement processes, views of students need to be integrated into a regular and continuous cycle of analysis, reporting, action and feedback”(2003, p. 4). Thus students are critical stakeholders in course evaluations, and can act as a mechanism to providing meaningful feedback about their experience, leading to improvements in learning and teaching

Case studies to enhance online student evaluation: University of Western Australia – A journey towards greater engagement through closing-the-loop

Feedback from students has shown time and again to be useful indicators of what is happening in the teaching and learning environments. Such feedback from students, pivot around the actions that are taken. This implementation of actions expresses to students that their voice is being heard in higher education institutions. To achive such utility of feedback provided by student, it is essential to ‘close the loop’ and constitutes; the collection of qualitative and quantitative feedback from all cohorts of students; triangulating the data from various sources to identify areas of good practice and areasneeding improvement; communicating the results and actions of the feedback with students and staff; implementing improvements in consultation with stakeholders; and monitoring the impact of actions in future student survey results. Such a framework would constitute effective quality assurances of the student feedback systems in higher education institutions