With no normal first semester start likely universities are working out how they will teach students in China

By DIRK MULDER

With TEQSA announcing a relaxation of face to face teaching requirements, online engagement is gathering momentum.

Universities spoken to in the last 24 hours are all on the “on-line” and “additional support” strategy band wagon.

But while on-line engagement for orientation and mainstream courses is a forward step it is one that will work for weeks, until the end of the semester at best.

Group-work and assessments, taking the form of assignments, can be picked up via changes in pedagogy and enhancing tools, such as Blackboard.

However, DVCs Academic must be tearing their hair out over how to manage examinations and control standards.

And what will work for mainstream courses will not cover face to face or practical requirements for either starters or returning students.

These would need a course by course response and not all programs will have the same flexibility.

Folks close to the epicentre of emergency on-line course development also say tech staff across institutions are madly foreshadowing what students in China may be able to access, given the large firewall and data movement restraints.

Dirk Mulder is CMM’s international education correspondent