Regulator TEQSA wanted to know how students managed with the move to remote classes

So it commissioned Lin Martin to analyse experience surveys for the first half of the year from 118 institutions.

In general, Dr Martin finds institutions stepped up, which students recognised.

Problems areas she identified do not strike CMM as surprising given what higher education providers were scrambling to do; IT issues, academic interaction, examinations, staff expertise and discipline/delivery specifics. “The most common area of complaint about on-line teaching and learning was that there was insufficient engagement with teaching and tutoring staff and that much more interaction with individual students was expected than had occurred,” Dr Martin writes.

What students liked was “flexible access” to course content, “good access to academic help and advice on-line” and technology being used in ways that made it “easier” for students to learn. “Often students commented that they hoped such flexibility might continue after the return to face-to-face teaching,” she adds.

Which is what students in the surveys want to do. For a start they miss libraries, which “provide two major benefits: being a quiet place to study away from the increasingly congested home environment during lockdown; and libraries now being major places of student social interaction where work is also discussed.”

“A rather surprising outcome was also students reporting that they had much more difficulty managing their own time and workload than if they were studying face-to-face on campus. The feelings of isolation and lack of interaction with peers in the online environment no doubt contributed to this sense that they were on their own in managing their studies.”