Are university professors headed back to campus? As we begin to face the reality of the way the pandemic is tracking through the United States, it’s likely that many university courses – even where students are allowed to return to campus – are going to be held online. It’s a big adjustment, and for many students and university professors who are disappointed and frustrated at this – but there are definitely some benefits of online instruction for university professors.
Health and Safety
Whether we want to admit it or not, we can’t control the spread of the virus effectively, and we don’t have a vaccine yet. So gathering students in a classroom to share breathing air not only puts them at risk but puts you at risk too. Teaching online may be the best way to protect everyone’s health for now. California has already announced that their state universities will be online at least for the fall.
Flexible Schedules
While some courses are required to run concurrent to their time slot on the schedule, most courses use Blackboard and Zoom calls and other forms of networking and collaboration that gives everyone – professor and students – more flexibility about when and how to get the work done. While you may have to have some specifically scheduled time for gathering in discussion, much of the work will be done independently and submitted online, so once you have the course built, you have more free time to work on getting published.
More Time to Dive Deep on Specific Topics
Because online instruction allows you to provide assignments and tests for students to work through on their own schedule, you can spend time discussing topics with your class that you may not always have had time for.
More One on One Interaction
Because you have the opportunity to develop the units ahead of time, you may have more time to interact with students individually. Not only can you focus on students who need extra help with the course, but you can foster the interest of students who excel in and are developing a serious interest in the subject.
Instructional Clarity
When building the course, you have the opportunity to consider the effectiveness of the instruction and develop an instructional model that reaches more students. In many cases, you can be more creative in how you help the students learn and can create projects and assignments that incorporate multiple types of learning.
How EditionGuard Supports University Professors
Here at EditionGuard, we are doing our part to support teachers and professors, schools and higher learning institutions, many of whom are delivering education online for the first time. We provide a wide array of digital rights management (DRM) services to protect intellectual property and to facilitate the sharing and dissemination of materials online. In addition to our 30-day free trial, we also offer a 25% discount to teachers, schools, and non-profits who employ our DRM.
How DRM Helps Professors
Control Access to Your Textbooks. If you’ve written the textbook for your class to use, having the ability to control who has to it and restrict access to purchasers can prevent loss of income.
Control Access to Your Exams. The last thing you want is to deliver an exam and have students share it from one section to another of your course. You can use DRM to control access to documents like exams and worksheets to protect your intellectual property and protect the integrity of your course.
We are here to support you and appreciate the vast effort required to move to an online platform. Feel free to get in touch if you have questions.
