PAN IIT Survey on Online Education: A Report (2007.03613v1)

Abstract: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic that set in in the middle of the semester, most of the IITs (and other institutions from across India and the world) switched to an online mode for completing the semester. Since then, many different institutions from across the world have been discussing ways and means to make online education effective, via various means, such as webinars, talks and short workshops. However, a general observation has been that there is a lack of data on online education, particularly in the Indian context. Anticipating this, we decided to conduct a pan-IIT survey on online education and compiled two sets of questionnaires (one each for faculty members and students) in discussion with the members of the pan-IIT group on Online Pedagogy (https://www.paniit-onlinepedagogy-researchgroup.net/), that has been formed for conducting research on the broad area of online education. The current survey has been steered by IIT Dharwad and IIT Jammu along with the members of the pan-IIT group on online pedagogy. The survey data was collected from 5th May 2020 to 25th May 2020. We received about 11,890 and 840 responses from students and faculty members, respectively. About 82% and 86% of the respondents were males among the students and faculty surveys, respectively. In the following, we present and discuss the survey responses pertaining to various aspects of online education. An infographic representation of the survey responses may be found in Appendix. We note that the survey conducted was a broad survey, covering various broad aspects of online education. However, a fine-grained survey may be required to obtain an in-depth understanding of specific aspects, such as on how to handle lab courses and carry out assessments.