University Fees for on-line Lectures

[Kastanien]

Latest this morning(sorry if it is already on here, I checked and could not see a thread)
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-52506283

Just wondering how those of you with DC due to start (or return to Uni) in the Autumn feel about full tuition fees for on-line learning?
I feel there should be a reduction as the teaching is not the same on-line as face to face.

Of course I’m getting paid. I’m working about ten hours a day!

Redesigning 2 assessments and getting those through exam boards and external examiners. Running revision sessions for students. Running drop in sessions for students. Answering several hysterical emails a day from students, explaining to students what limited stuff I can tell them about the assessments, putting more revision material online, prepping material for lectures and seminars which I’m about to start teaching because we’re bringing some of next year’s theory forward and teaching it this year so hopefully we can focus on more practical stuff next year. Will soon have plenty of marking to do.

For my teaching I’m doing PowerPoints, panopto recording the powerpoints for the more audio learners, doing flipped classroom stuff so setting activities for the students to do, quizzes, interactive stuff. Will be running live online discussion groups following most sessions for question and answers and also recording these discussions for those who can’t make the live discussion groups.

So yeah, I’m busy. And teaching and prepping will take longer than if it had been face to face.

Every single person on this thread could describe difficult home circumstances at the moment, juggling work, childcare commitments etc.

Perhaps there are reasons why some students aren’t engaging as much as we would all like, for example, because they have poor WiFi at home (that’s us), 2 parents attempting to work full time from home, other young adults in the house also with university commitments, school age children being home schooled, lack of space, lack of privacy etc.

Maybe some of them just feel pretty low at the moment and just aren’t engaging.
The point being that very little of this is satisfactory despite many people’s best efforts.

Thanks @CatandtheFiddle I start nursing in September so I was very much wondering how this would work. I really hope there is a way to get back to some form of normality.

I work at a university and am in some of the meetings for planning what will happen next year. Part of the difficulty is that we have absolutely no idea what the position will be re lockdown and social distancing. Therefore, at the moment we can only make educated guesses until we have more information from the government.

However, the student experience is at the forefront of all our plans. We want our students to have the best experience they can and that includes social experiences as well as educational ones. At my university academics, support services and our Students' Union are all working together along with consultation with professional bodies.

We're trying to work out what modules need to have physical attendance and then whether we can do that safely for everyone including how students and staff can safely move from one room to another, how placements can work as well as how to deliver good quality learning, teaching and assessment online when our programmes weren't designed to be delivered in this way.

We're looking at whether students (and staff) need support in having the right equipment at home and what we can do about it. @SueEllenMishke is right, our online learning for next year will be different and staff will be working all summer to adapt what they do using the research on online learning and sharing practice with other institutions.

I do feel for our students. This isn't what they signed up for but we are doing everything we can to support them in unprecedented circumstances.

Tyrannid that describes the kinds of discussions I’ve been in since the lockdown started.

Alongside discussions of what we will have to cut to keep the university afloat: salaries, new staff recruitment, building maintenance, new buildings such as new lecture theatres, all on an attempt not to have to make redundancies in staff on continuing contracts (no such thing as tenure any more).

And frankly, the safety and working conditions of staff - both working at home and when the physical buildings of the university open - hasn’t been top of the agenda.

We are scared and worried - for our futures and the future of the universities.

I go back to a very early post on this thread - parents need to think carefully about their mercenary demands if you want universities for your DC to return to.

Students have been getting a progressively worse deal for several years

• a stupidly high interest rate on student loans
• interest kicking in on loans before they graduate
• extortionate hall fees and 51 week contracts
• seeing SLT paying themselves sky high salaries and perks
• seeing facilities built out of their fee money that they are not allowed to use
• seeing austerity cut into their career options
• seeing the Brexit vote massively impact on their future choices

to then have Lockdown with all facilities closed
and many lecturers not responding to emails
while clocking up more bills
and seeing graduate career options evaporate

has been a kick in the teeth that makes students and their parent less than sympathetic to those in comfortable positions

Covid is the straw that broke the camels back
the problems have been brewing for years

parents need to think carefully about their mercenary demands if you want universities for your DC to return to.

What mercenary demands? Lectures, Seminars, labs, information?

Thank you to all the academics on this thread who have been incredibly patient and helpful in trying to explain so many things to the one poster complaining.
My dd has had, and continues to have support from her lecturers during this time. Including what a lot of the public would assume was 'holiday time'.
Despite the fact they will have been working all hours trying to produce / change all their presentations so that they can go on line.
Despite the fact, at the same time they are attending all sorts of meetings to decide what might, or might not happen for the rest of the year.
Despite the fact their own research may well have been affected by them not being able to be on the premises for week (potentially months)
Despite the fact they are trying to support post - docs, PhD and Masters students whose (time limited) research may have gone down the pan
Despite the fact that they are still having to put in grant applications and othe funding applications to an ever shrinking funding pot
Despite the fact, in their 'spare time' they are being told to prepare for 3 or 4 different scenarios about how and when the universities will be open
Despite the fact that, just like everyone else, they too might be looking after small children at home, or might have been bereaved, or might be worried about someone close to them working in hospitals or care homes, or might be worried about elderly relatives they can't see.

Oh, and - newsflash - despite what one poster seems to think the Universities aren't responsible for this pandemic, they are just responding to it in the best way they can, like most of the rest of the populations are.

backforgood you've nailed it. Thank you ♥️

Listening half the things in your list are completely out of an academic's ( and often a university's) control....and many of us are supporting students and preparing them to face these challenges.

Despite all that the academics on this thread have been doing they've got time to be on MN for hours. I wonder how many students they could have helped during this time 🤔

backforgood or is it sock puppet? 🤣

If she is, she's a pretty busy one given the impressive post history.

I'm glad she posted, I was beginning to wonder why I bother.

Backforgood have you somehow sneaked into my Teams calendar?

I think I’m allowed to be On MN at 10pm and not working.

@brassbrass you are coming across as very bitter. Chill out. My Dd is at uni so is in the same boat as every other student. I do understand that students (and parents) are worried. As others have said this term is an assessment term. Those assessments will still be happening, maybe in a slightly different form. Or some lucky students will just pass their year without final assessments.

Nobody knows what sept will look like so no point getting excited about it all yet. Let’s wait and see.

I wonder how many students they could have helped during this time

I've have received five emails from students since I sat down in front of the TV at 7:30ish. I have responded to all of them .

@brassbrass once you start insulting other posters, it’s pretty clear that you’ve run out of arguments and evidence. You seem to have a rather large plank on your shoulder about academics and universities. But insults aren’t a good look for you.

Can I just say, as a student, that I really really appreciate everything that my tutors and lecturers are doing for us? They seem to be working so hard, and honestly the tutorials on Teams are the things getting me through this. The other day I emailed a lectora about special exam arrangements for a mock, she replied a few hours later, at 11pm, as cheerful and reassuring as ever. This is a shitty situation and there are many things that are difficult (as an aside, humanities students without books are no better off than STEM students without labs), but so far, although some official communication has been unclear, the work of individuals has been amazing. Thank you!

brass not that it's any of your business but I'm actually still working. I'm recording lectures now because the house is too noisy during the daytime to do it......this is on top of already working 8.30-4.30 which included facilitating the online drop in sessions the students asked for ( at the time and date they requested)

I've have received five emails from students since I sat down in front of the TV at 7:30ish. I have responded to all of them .

Sorry, have I missed anything? I was just responding to one of the students above who wanted further clarification regarding the alternative assessment that I set in place of his exam this summer

I am not necessarily advocating a reduction in fees but it would be good to see the academics here actually acknowledging the students are getting a very raw deal for their 9k.
My thoughts will be a bit rambling as wine has been consumed and relevant and in the interest of full disclosure, this year I have had 4 dc doing different degrees at various RG unis and , my husband is a part time academic, part time clinician

1. the point about universities not being businesses. All of my dc laughed in my face over a Christmas when i was critical of the ridiculously high salaries paid to VC as they were public bodies. Universities are businesses was the resounding cry.
2. there is a massive variation in quality of teaching between institutions and courses within institutions, 2 of my dc doing stem degrees are not being well supported eg
3. Universities said supervisors would offer online advice, final year dissertation methods Section was submitted to supervisor for comments 5 weeks prior to final submission date. Date now passed and still no response, though they have responded to another student on the course. Suggestions at this point to put In a formal complaint are ridiculous, the dc in question has a PhD offer and does not want a complaining record following them.
4. decisions by unis this week that there will be exams this semester, following loads of on/off communications. Yes they are no detriment exams but still stressful for dc.
5. in any stem subject they are not getting anything like the offer, no practical labs, no IT labs, and one of the dc had to wait until the new student loan came in to buy a high enough spec laptop to run CAD and other things ( and was fortunate that we are lucky enough to not need to ask for food money from them) making deadlines really tight.
6. all the other non academic student offerings have gone, no sports teams etc etc, this is a very reduced student experience in every shape and form
7. different uni to 3 and 4, the online lectures uploaded currently are just the ones from this course last year, no new input at all from staff
8. obviously everyone is worried about getting back to work, but as it looks like schools will be back by half term, or definitely by September, why should school teachers be less important than academics in terms of not being exposed to lots of potential carriers?

But not all students are getting a raw deal....that's the point I'm trying to make.
Those that are need to take it up with their individual institutions or OIA/OfS. Complain if necessary... However, we can't treat them like one homogeneous group and while some may be getting a less than ideal experience others are getting more support than they would have in normal times.
Most universities have only been shut for for 6 weeks.....and 3 of those weeks were the Easter vacation. What some universities have managed to achieve in that short time is commendable.

SueEllen
May be commendable in some circumstances, but please don’t extrapolate to all universities and also a main thrust of this discussion isn’t really about the past six weeks but the very odd idea that there will only be online content for next academic year, despite the fact that schools, ( and virtually every other business) which are similar in many respects ( except the staff get closer to those under instruction) will almost definitely be open by then

Cant imagine online being any different to being sat in a dark lecture hall listening to a professor and reading slides....

But it is highly, highly unlikely that the entire year will be delivered online only. As many pp's have said it's likely to be a combination of methods and more akin to blended learning.

Also, as I explained earlier people should not compare the current experience with what will take place in September. We are all working on adapting content and courses to make remote delivery work if needed.
There is also a huge difference between online courses and remote delivery. The latter still includes face to face teaching just via a digital platform. And remote delivery is what were actually talking about.