Distance learning: giving value to the COVID-19 emergency

This paper addresses the current state of Italian higher education. On the one hand, the Covid-19 emergency revealed some vulnerabilities in Italian universities while, on the other hand, it enhanced their resiliency: in a short time, most of them were able to ensure the continuity of teaching activities, replacing face-to-face experiences with online ones. Teaching is one of the main aims of higher education, but it is often taken for granted and undervalued, while research activities receive far more attention. The pandemic had the advantage of bringing teaching activities back to the center of attention. It became fundamental to redesign teaching activities using distance learning methods even if stakeholders (including university lecturers) were not prepared to do so. Indeed, in addition to the difficulties of accepting and using information technologies, lecturers faced the challenge of planning and designing new forms of teaching that would ensure students’ attendance and guarantee their level of learning. In the beginning, distance learning represented an emergency "solution" introduced in response to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Its implementation required a significant investment in digital skills, including the learning of new software and the procurement of adequate supporting hardware. Generally, a crisis like the one we are currently facing leads us to deeply reflect on our future and on lessons learned that might give value to the emergency. Now the question is whether, in the aftermath of the health emergency, the outcomes of this digital investment can become an integral part of our educational offer and the new teaching strategies can endure. This paper reflects on the experience of the University of Milan Bicocca, discussing the outcomes of a survey administered to university lecturers using the CAWI methodology. The survey was distributed to the lecturers’ institutional email addresses through the Qualtrics web platform. It is part of a broader research project, which compares the survey results to administrative data about the same university lecturers and concerns the effective use of distance learning tools available on the university online platform. Furthermore, the research employs mixed methods strategies and involves, in addition to lecturers at the University of Milan Bicocca, students and technical-administrative staff. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 1,205 lecturers who taught during the first semester of AY 2020/21. A total of 955 questionnaires were collected, of which 456 were fully completed.