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.

we were affected. 3 of our 5 courses had strikes for 3-4 weeks this term. Some of those were only 1 semester-long courses

My degree has some compulsory elements for accreditation so we didn't get taught about some vital aspects but are expected to have exam questions on it. (but we can choose not to answer them which makes our choice of topics fairly restricted as its answer 2 from 3)

none of our essays for this year have been marked so we don;t know if we are on the right lines for course work or not really. Some of it was submitted back in early Feb. its worth 25% of each module.

The multiple of your anecdote is not data

and neither are your sweeping generalisations based mainly on anecdotes.
Don't complain officially then ....just continue to moan and bitch about academics on an anonymous forum. I'm not sure what else I can suggest?

Did it not?

No it didn't!

Apart from some mild mannered pickets standing outside the entrances to car parks in the morning, you wouldn't have noticed that a strike had been called at my institution. It was business as usual during the whole strike period. Despite staff having very valid reasons to strike and the support of the Students' Union, they put the interests of their students first.

Some of you are acknowledging that students in universities who were affected by both sets of industrial action will have been affected so what is being done to rectify that? Are any of your professional bodies acknowledging it and taking steps to rectify it? Why aren't you being accountable for the harm caused?

We have the right to strike. Do you think we shouldn't?

But what do you actually want academics themselves to do?

As someone who did an online full time degree, my yearly tuition was half of what the average uni year costs.

This is because I wasn't able to use the university facilities or have direct one to one meeting's with tutors or lecturers.

At the end of the day the experience they have bought is not what is being delivered. And if you compare it to a product sold in the shop or a holiday you would hope you get the price reduced ! A university education is paid for and therefore they should deliver what they have sold.... if they can't then a reduction in the fee is more than reasonable.

PhoneLock

Good for you. But my dds lecturers participated in both strikes. I dont much care how many other universities were affected. Hers was, and so was my nephew. That's eight weeks of teaching time that she missed out on. Eight weeks during which there was no feedback nothing. No catch up was done because it was industrial action, the point of which was to cause disruption.

@ Hearhoovesthinkzebras I know where I work, every department was required to submit a plan showing where teaching was lost in each strike and what was being done to mitigate it. Each plan was reviewed by a senior team and departments were asked to improve plans if they were not adequate. Everyone is acutely aware of how difficult this year has been.

But what do you actually want academics themselves to do?

Publicly raise the detrimental effect that will have had on final year students. Posters have acknowledged as much on here - that they feel sorry for those students affected. What is anyone doing to make sure that hasn't adversely affected student outcomes? Maybe when averaging marks you need to consider second year marks as well, rather than just very limited data from third year, affected anyway by strikes?

So what are academics doing to address this then?

Have not read the posts from academics?

I didn't strike so my students weren't impacted by this. They missed one face to face session which was due to take place on the day after lockdown was announced. This was run virtually a week later and recorded for those who couldn't attend.
Students have been offered unlimited tutorials, weekly drop in sessions, additional material (with audio provided by me), no questions asked extensions........
I've provided additional teaching which they wouldn't have got in normal circumstances and i've cancelled/rearranged annual leave to accommodate extensions. I've also negotiated with our professional body to allow them additional time to meet their professional requirements but in a way which won't impact the timeline of the qualification.

That's what MY students are getting but I'm obviously not responsible for all students.

Some of you are acknowledging that students in universities who were affected by both sets of industrial action will have been affected so what is being done to rectify that? Are any of your professional bodies acknowledging it and taking steps to rectify it? Why aren't you being accountable for the harm caused?

Most academics don't have professional bodies to do anything. My professional body has been very proactive in discussing how our students accredited degree will be affected by COVID (none of us were on strike so that had no effect, I never even saw a picket). We have been careful to make sure that elements of the programme that are crucial to accreditation will be delivered later if they were affected last term.

thereinmadnesslies

So how did you mitigate it? Especially given the latest strike ran straight into lockdown?

I wouldn’t bother arguing with Hearhooves. They pop up from time to time to stir it seems. Do a search for the thread about sitting on a bench eating crisps as an example and look at the last pages of posts.

Accountable? How would you like us to be accountable, precisely?

Solutions? I would reopen universities on 1 June for the rest of term although leave the exams on line as currently planned as it is too late to change that now. I would open university libraries next week. I would also start next term as normal.

I would refund to student loans account or to the parents who paid the fees half this year's fees.

Most academics don't have professional bodies to do anything.

You have unions, no? What are universities and academics doing to represent students and the difficulties that they have faced, particularly final year students?

This year is a shambles for some students. To say it's better for some or that next year wi be better and students will be helped to catch up does not help those students graduating now with worse degrees than they should have got because of disruption out of their control. Arguably they've just wasted three years of university and just agreeing that they've had a tough time isn't really good enough.

Not quite sure how graphic design will work online. It's very practical with lots of studio time (my son is due to start at NTU in September).

Accountable? How would you like us to be accountable, precisely?

By publicly acknowledging the effect that a combination of strikes plus lockdown will have had. By acknowledging the detriment that final year students have suffered. By making the complaints and appeals process more accessible and supporting students through it. By insisting that everything possible is done to award fair final marks, not just basing it on an average of grades in a year you are agreeing has been badly affected by strikes.

I don't know. Universities and some staff have screwed up this year and those responsible need to look at ways of putting that right. Actions taken this year would have impacted on some students lives going forward. They won't have got the degree needed to progress and when that is down to a failure of the university the university should put it right.

By publicly acknowledging the effect that a combination of strikes plus lockdown will have had.

Sackcloth and ashes, everyone.

All of the rest are things that are already happening at my institution.

For honours students we have no detriment arrangements. For the vast majority of our students less than 40% of their final assessment is affected so there is substantial unaffected work to base a degree classification on. Extensions have been granted with no questions asked on all coursework in all years.

Every honours project has a statement from the student explaining how COVID affected it, which must be taken into account in assessment. Research projects were paused at the point of lockdown and all objectives were revised to allow for there being no further lab work. Where necessary projects were reformulated and in some cases new software provided to swap to modelling rather than experimental work. Most of our students have a laptop that we provide with essential software. Design project groups met online with supervisors. All courses have online discussion, which is well used and lecturers are required to respond in a reasonable timeframe.

Up until last week students received a daily update form our head of teaching about what was going on. This included how to raise concern, reminders of who to contact for support and details of the new exam style.This has been reduced during the exam period to avoid stress.

Pastoral support staff are available for email and Teams meetings, as are academic tutors. One-to-one named academic contact meetings for vulnerable students continue online as do case meetings with the mental health team for the most at risk.

The remaining students stuck in accommodation continue to be supported by the wardens and their staff, in some cases they have been consolidated into "households" to improve their lives.

I think this is not an unusual level of response, what else should we be doing?

Dd finished her third year exams last week. She’s a microbio student and has had a really interesting semester taking epidemiology and food microbio. Obviously they have had the most vivid real world backdrop which has demonstrated the validity of their program (they are all now chomping at the bit to get on the fourth year virology courses). They have had no problems with attendance for scheduled lectures. She experienced a tech issue with the software for one scheduled, timed, online exam (getting error message after every answer submission) so she copied every answer prior to submitting it and messaged the prof with all content in case her responses hadn’t saved. Moving to an online model is not without problems for programs with lab content, but both students and universities are working hard to look at schedules. Dd is planning in taking the courses with the least lab content in semester 1. She’s switching to double major so is looking closely at how she schedules the workload over the next 18 months to get the best outcome. They’ve negotiated delaying signing their rental contract until the exact position becomes clear. I have no issues with paying full tuition fees for online content, with the understanding that this is an interim measure.
I work in a very small specialist arts college. We are basically fucked. It’s going to take years to recover, if we ever do.
Propping up education and knowledge on a wider scale is the very least I can do.

Chemenger

From what I'm hearing, that is an unusual level of response. Why aren't all universities being made to support to the same level? I'm sure my DD would be thrilled with that level of support, but it hasn't happened. Have unions polled their members to ascertain quality of support being given to students?

I'm surprised that the university isn't taking any second year marks into account. It might be worth speaking to the student union about that to see if any pressure can be put on there.

There might be a point in academics at institutions that did strike and haven't managed to mitigate "going public", even then I imagine it will achieve fuck all. Again, something to speak to the union about to see if they can get the academic union to support them in this.

It's just so bloody unfair when academics on here are admitting that students would have been adversely affected and yet, officially, nothing much is being done to help said students.

What Chemenger describes is very much what we are doing.