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.”

Clow says all universities routinely do some teaching online already – many record lectures for students to watch in their own time, for example. But he warns that a large number of staff won’t have any experience of teaching wholly online “and it involves a different set of skills”.

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.

We don’t want people to think this is what we mean by online education. This is an emergency response.' Prof Neil Morris, Leeds University

Leeds has been planning resources that students will be able to access on their smartphones. Although students generally have good digital literacy, the university is still expecting them to find an overnight switch to online learning “a shock”. The university is working to make sure that students and staff can communicate with each other easily to lessen the jolt.

But it worries Morris that if universities are not careful, some of the students who have had to clear the biggest hurdles to get to university – particularly those from more deprived backgrounds, or those with disabilities – might find themselves shut out. “Some disabled students will really struggle with online learning. And there are students who don’t have access to a smartphone or a laptop and we will have to support them,” he explains.

As the vice-chancellor of a modern university puts it: “We are all in unknown territory. We are used to contingency planning, but what makes this so different from something like a fire or an outbreak of the norovirus is that with those incidents you would have some idea of the future.”

Morris says most universities will be considering timed online exams where students are allowed free access to their books and notes. “In some disciplines they will be thinking about remote proctored online examinations, which means having someone watching you through a webcam while you do an exam in a secure browser.”

All of this involves a steep learning curve for most academics – at a time when thousands are embroiled in a strike over their working conditions, pensions and pay. Clow says: “The shift will have an enormous impact on academics who already have an intense workload and a lot of pressure.”

Dr Jason Scott-Warren, a lecturer in English at Cambridge University who went on strike, says that although many academics feel universities need to “lockdown quickly”, they are also “anxious about the work it will involve in terms of redesigning courses”.

One vice-chancellor whose staff were involved in the strikes, told the Guardian: “Staff have been resisting putting teaching material online because of fears about job security.”

The Universities and Colleges Union confirms its members are worried about so-called “lecture capture”. Jo Grady, its general secretary, says: “Moves to record or deliver teaching online in the short term should be voluntary and underpinned with a clear agreement between the union and employers about how material can be used, as well as appropriate technical support.”

Moves to record or deliver teaching online should be voluntary and underpinned with a clear agreement with the union.’ Jo Grady, UCU general secretary

Prof Rama Thirunamachandran, vice-chancellor of Canterbury Christ Church University, says universities like his, which have a large number of teaching and health students, have another problem. “If schools are closed, teaching placements can’t happen, so we are working through whether students would need to go back in the autumn, or whether they can be graduated based on the training they have done already,” he says.

But placements at hospitals will be very different. Universities are expecting to be asked to mobilise nursing and medical students to help, as the NHS struggles to deal with the growing impact of the virus.

“In those circumstances we’d need a clear idea of what they will be asked to do and the levels of supervision,” Thirunamachandran says. “A final-year student will have a rich set of skills. But there are safety issues for both students and patients and they will need appropriate induction and training.”