UK universities are racing to ensure that the coronavirus does not prevent final-year students from completing their degrees. But experts say a sudden shift to online learning is a “huge challenge” for both institutions and students.

All universities have been treating the coronavirus as a major emergency for some weeks. Last week the London School of Economics, University College London, Durham University, Manchester Metropolitan and Loughborough became the first to close down class teaching and move online.

Oxford University’s term ended at the weekend, and its vice-chancellor, Louise Richardson, said in an email to staff and students that the university would use the break to prepare to transition to online teaching and assessment.

The LSE is switching to online teaching and online exams until the end of the academic year to give students and staff some certainty. Others cancelled in-person lectures for the semester, while acknowledging that this might be extended to reflect changing advice from government.

All of these universities stressed that their campuses and student halls would remain open, as panicking international students at Harvard University took to social media to complain that they had nowhere to go when the campus closed on Sunday.

Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at Oxford University, says: “Much now depends on how these large student populations are handled. Parents must be very worried about their students in foreign countries.”

But with just weeks to put in place such a radical shift in teaching, many universities are wrestling with practical problems, including how to ensure that poorer students with no laptop aren’t shut out, and how to examine students at their kitchen table if closures stretch into exam season.

Vice-chancellors are also debating whether to cancel field trips. On Wednesday, UCL was the first to place a formal ban on all official UCL international trips by staff or students until May.

Dr Doug Clow, who spent 20 years at the Open University and is now advising universities on the coronavirus, says: “It is a huge challenge to suddenly switch to online teaching. It takes the Open University more than a year to develop an online course.”

Prof Neil Morris, dean of digital education at Leeds University, says the onus has to be on ensuring that final-year undergraduate and master’s students get what they need to meet their degree requirements and graduate. “Whilst we are all preparing to be able to move online at short notice we don’t want people to think this is what we mean by online education. This is an emergency response,” he says.

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