News

In Poland on March 12, the Minister of Science and Higher Education took a decision to suspend all classes conducted at the universities. Immediately after that, the authorities of the University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw announced that the University would start to launch distance learning. It was a great challenge for the University to organize such a huge undertaking in a short time.

The University educates over 6,000 students, which is why it was important to make a decision which platform for distance learning to choose. The final choice was MS Teams for many reasons, one of which was fairly easy accessibility and ability to conduct many classes at the same time. THe next ten days were devoted to extensive communication campaign – with students and professors on the one hand and preparation (customization) of the platform – on the other. This process was undertaken by most of the administrative staff from all departments. In the meantime, the academic staff has organized itself to share earlier experiences in distance learning (methods, tools and technical aspects). They organized on-line meetings and trainings in small and larger groups. The University also set up an on-line and stationary training for those professors who wished to participate.

Later, the University prepared instructions for students as well as encouraged them to organize a voluntary inter-student support which is also supervised by the University staff. All academicians and administrative staff were also informed about the new rules of working from home. The professors are obliged to send daily reports to their immediate supervisors. The same refers to the administrative staff working from home. The University prepared a list of the departments which need to operate at the workplace and the rules of serving the duty by the staff.

The greatest challenge was to introduce so many changes in such a short time. The other difficulty was that some of the professors resigned from conducting classes when the University introduced the obligation of teaching on-line. Luckily, the deans managed to find all substitutions. The on-line classes started on March 27 and are attended by approximately 80% of national and international students. Challenging and tough though it was, it brings rather positive feedback. Professors and students seem to be satisfied from the classes. Professors report that the classes are much more demanding that the regular ones. New circumstances have taught us all (staff and students) patience, understanding and raised the sense of solidarity, responsibility as well as the need to help each other.