Online teaching in higher education after the pandemic experience: guidelines and recomendations. Conclusions from the pandemic era experience

Abstract

In the years during the pandemic, there was a dramatic conversion in the traditional operation of
universities. Until then, distant teaching was used rarely, or not at all. To fulfill their role and continue
their operation in quarantine times, traditional Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) transformed their
teaching services from in situ into fully distant, keeping it this way for at least two years. A critical
question is whether they should return to their usual teaching methods or transform their operation,
based on their experience from distant teaching. The present work uses the collective work of ECOLHE
Project to outline the effect of new teaching methods in Higher Education (HE) during and after the
pandemic. During a three-year research, ECOLHE project investigates the way that Universities have
forwarded the enhancing of ICT resources in HE, through the realization of six case studies in partner
countries HEIs. Furthermore, the Project developed a pilot implementation of an online environment
as an online teaching tool to increase HE teachers’ ability in the usage of digital technologies. Next
step was the creation of a Serious Game aiming to study users’ development of new skills and new ways
of solving problems. Also, a self-assessment tool was implemented aiming to define and evaluate the
level of innovation in HE institutes. Summarizing the extensive work of the previous steps conclusions
were drawn that lead to the formation of Recommendations and Guidelines regarding the Academic
Bodies, with the target of addressing the challenges for modern educational systems.