Faculty Support in Higher Education Provided by University Administration during Emergency Remote Teaching: A Case Study

Abstract

COVID-19 caused a global crisis and influenced approximately 1.5 billion students. Due to the threat of COVID-19, schools and universities suspended all the face to face classes and faced a mandatory transition to online learning to continue their teaching and learning. Teachers and students did not have time to prepare or get supported for emergency remote teaching. This study aims to examine the support services provided by the university administration to the faculty in Turkey. So it is designed as a case study, which is one of the qualitative methods in education. Regarding the findings related to support systems in the time of emergency remote teaching provided by the universities, it can be seen that administrative and technical supports were well provided. However, it can be said that the universities ignored their faculties' needs regarding academic support as well as counseling support, which faculty needed most. Although library support is one of the support systems in the literature, faculty mentioned that they did not need any support in this regard. Peer support can be shown as the most prominent type of support in the emergency remote teaching, although it is not included in the open and distance learning literature for faculty.