How the COVID-19 made universities switch to distance education: the Russian and Czech cases

Abstract

The topic covers distance education at universities with a focus on how the COVID-19 influences the transition from face-to-face teaching to online courses. The aim is to identify non-contact teaching in education and which educational processes can be useful. The research methodology includes several methods that enable a triangular analysis, i.e., the analysis of bibliographic records in the Web of Science database, on-the-desk analysis of selected secondary sources, a focus group, and one narrative case. Information concerning university reactions to COVID-19 was collected by analyzing news and websites in Russia, in the CR, done a focus group interview, and further one unstructured interview for writing one narrative case. Both authors apply auto-narrative reflections to describe the environment at their universities and use their long-term experience with teaching and personal observations during the pandemic. Findings show educational processes at two universities in Russia and the CR in time when the universities transformed the traditional teaching to distance one. Teachers and students quickly mastered the transition; however, weaknesses and threats arose concerning undeveloped teaching methods for online education, the evaluation system of students' performance, managing the work-life balance of staff, and the quality of Internet communication. Based on university reactions and primary data, the authors believe that the future research must focus on the improvement of online teaching methods, re-design of students' performance management, a change of human resource management at universities, global knowledge sharing of best practices among universities, and the social responsibility of universities in the area of public digital competence.