ADAPTATION AND LATENCY IN TIMES OF CRISIS - CHANGES IN IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Abstract

Germany, end of March 2020: The start of the lecture period in North Rhine-Westphalia has been postponed. The Rector of the Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) wrote in a circular e-mail: "Not on 6 April, but ... only on 20 April will the courses of the 2020 summer semester begin. The Rectorate of the HHU welcomes the decision and is working together with the faculties on the design of the new semester plans". This uncertain situation made it necessary to completely rethink teaching for the following semester and to organise it digitally online. Apart from many uncertainties, everyday life consisted of a number of challenges and also of new opportunities in a large experimental field of digitisation of teaching. Where can you find help? How can communication with students take place? Such and similar questions were absolutely at the centre of attention and accompanied throughout the entire 2020 summer semester. The Centre for Information and Media Technology (ZIM) of the HHU searched in all different directions and compared which solutions were used by other universities and what capabilities were provided by different services. As well as establishing a new videoconferencing service, a variety of measures were implemented to support distance learning. Many existing services were expanded, not only to improve availability and performance, but also to add staff to support training and counselling. Tutorial videos have been produced and new support formats, such as the e-learning consulting hours in Rocket.Chat were highly appreciated by the lecturers. Problem solutions for VPN and WLAN or help with computer problems could only be offered by e-mail or telephone. Course rooms and PC workstations were also closed for the time being. The disruption of the crisis promoted many newly conceived formats and concepts, such as the integration of the chat into courses or the more extensive provision of lecture recordings, much was tried out and discarded, rethought and redesigned. The students positively emphasised the possibility of being able to rework lecture content at their own pace via screencasts and recordings. The experience gained from lectures that were streamed live also led to a considerable acquisition of skills for online courses by both teachers and students. In addition to didactic and collaborative experiences, all stakeholders involved were able to gain insights into which organisational measures are suitable for good personnel support for live streaming lectures and that synchronous lectures with over 1,000 participants are technically possible with video conferencing tools such as Webex. The experience gained was used at various levels and is a useful basis for planning the current winter semester and beyond. Inter-university online events, quickly offered a lively exchange of information on current plans, but also on initial findings. The different experiences were supplemented by surveys among teachers, students and in the area of infrastructure. In addition to the new formats, aspects of hybrid events, both online and on site, are currently being lived out. As well as developing the infrastructure, building up experience and skills among students and university staff, the university is also generally developing as a learning organisation in the form of double-loop learning. be administered very quickly by try, observe, react or act, observe, react , taking agile values into account.