Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021;81(3):623-641.
doi: 10.1007/s10734-020-00561-y. Epub 2020 Jun 4.

COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration

Richard Watermeyer  1 , Tom Crick  2 , Cathryn Knight  2 , Janet Goodall  2
Affiliations

COVID-19 and digital disruption in UK universities: afflictions and affordances of emergency online migration

Richard Watermeyer et al. High Educ (Dordr). 2021.

Abstract

COVID-19 has caused the closure of university campuses around the world and migration of all learning, teaching, and assessment into online domains. The impacts of this on the academic community as frontline providers of higher education are profound. In this article, we report the findings from a survey of n = 1148 academics working in universities in the United Kingdom (UK) and representing all the major disciplines and career hierarchy. Respondents report an abundance of what we call 'afflictions' exacted upon their role as educators and in far fewer yet no less visible ways 'affordances' derived from their rapid transition to online provision and early 'entry-level' use of digital pedagogies. Overall, they suggest that online migration is engendering significant dysfunctionality and disturbance to their pedagogical roles and their personal lives. They also signpost online migration as a major challenge for student recruitment, market sustainability, an academic labour-market, and local economies.

Keywords: Academic profession; COVID-19; Digitalisation of universities; Online learning, teaching and assessment; UK higher education.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Agreement to statements on LTA
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Perceived impact on workload
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Aoun JE. Robot-proof: Higher education in the age of artificial intelligence. Cambridge (MA): The MIT Press; 2017.
    1. Arvanitakis J, Hornsby D, editors. Universities, the citizen scholar and the future of higher education. London: Palgrave Critical University Studies; 2016.
    1. Blackmore P. Prestige in academic life: Excellence and exclusion. London and New York: Routledge; 2015.
    1. Blackmore P, Kandiko C. Motivation in academic life: A prestige economy. Research in Post-Compulsory Education. 2011;16(4):399–411. doi: 10.1080/13596748.2011.626971. - DOI
    1. Bryant A, Charmaz K, editors. The Sage handbook of grounded theory. London: Sage; 2010.

LinkOut - more resources