31959: A University Online
Creators: name: Project, Lockdown2020 and Beyond
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2023
Subjects: classificationCode: 479999
subject: Other language, communication and culture not elsewhere classified

description: A general day begins with getting up, having breakfast, then taking a quick look at email. This hasn't changed but what has is that after that we then have to prepare the home schooling so we look at the BBC Byte Size activities for the day, print out anything we need to (we are lucky to have a printer) and maybe find a couple of other things from sites like Twinkl.co.uk that will keep our daughter going for at least a day. At 9.00 a local social enterprise based in Oxford does a PE class for young children (PT Project) so we all do that. Then it's to work which seems mainly to be a series of Microsoft Teams meeting. A few things I've discovered: setting up an ideal home office is not easy, I still can't get the seating or lighting right but I keep telling myself it's not for too long so I should just put up with it; video-conferencing is exhausting mainly because you have to concentrate fully all the time, but I also suspect it's because you are 'on show' (I've taken to turning my camera off for a few meetings). Wonder if concentrating on a screen that is always exactly the same distance away from you adds to this (whereas in meetings your depth of perspective changes, you move more, and so on). So meetings seem more focussed and shorter (which is good), but more intense, and often back-to-back (gone are the days of walking between buildings or cycling across town). So to try to get a break I take 10 minutes off here and there and due to the good weather go out to the garden if I can. In addition to the daily formal meetings we've also tried to put in a few 'coffee' mornings with our close teams, just to keep in touch and talk non-shop. It's a way of relaxing, keeping team spirit, remembering the people you work with, but also checking up on everyone. The meeting seems to always begin with 'so how's everyone doing?' or similar. It's been noted to me that the usual restraint in talking to people about their problems has gone out the window - everyone is showing much more interest in other peoples' well-being. Back to my day lunchtimes can vary but if I can I get to eat in my kitchen or garden with my family, whereas normally it is a sandwich at my desk in my office maybe catching up on the news. I break off about 4.00 if I can for a rest and take some exercise. Once a day my daughter and I also go for a walk or bike ride. After tea I then try to pick up some email again and probably keep an eye on it, and Teams during the early hours of the evening. I also catch-up in the evening on the daily Government briefing, read some commentators on Twitter, and so on. Every now and then I take on the home schooling. It's fun, and makes me realise that for all the problems with lockdown and the hardships many people are going through one benefit for me is having this time with my daughter which I would never have had. I try to keep an eye out for University communications. My feeling is the University has done this well bearing in mind the unprecedented world we now live in, and the speed we had to adapt. There is a weekly cascaded email from Silver (see below) which goes out giving you information on the University's response to the latest guidance. Everyone has pulled together. The University has a governance structure in place with a high level 'Silver' committee, then a series of 'Bronze' groups looking at various areas. I sit on a sub-group looking at Teaching and Learning but colleagues sit on groups to do with Operational activities, but also Exams and Assessment. The immediate priority when the lockdown was declared (20th March?) was to get ready for Trinity Term. As the terms here are shorter than other Universities we made it to 8th week in Hilary so then had the vac to prepare (in most cases - though some students/teaching/exams were going on in 9th/10th week). The end of March seems like a lifetime ago and I recall meeting a student in the outside cafe in Bonn Square (when such things were allowed) for him to inform me he'd been told to go home by his college and was on his way to the station. That last week feels now like a lot happened in a very few days - libraries suddenly closing, mixed messages from the Government, Johnson's announcement on live TV, saying goodbye to colleagues as buildings gradually emptied with strange statements like 'I'll see you when it's all over - whenever that is!'. Over Easter we were all planning for Trinity then. Working in IT but also English I saw the extraordinary efforts that went on during this period from everyone as we moved the entire University to online teaching in the space of a few weeks. This involved boosting IT Infrastructure, sorting our training, but then moving to thinking about proper online teaching and examining where the burden fell to the divisions, departments, libraries, colleagues in the Centre for Teaching and Learning, and many others. We are now in 4th week of Trinity and so far teaching online is working in many places though not without issues, but often these are less to do with technology and more with the local experiences of students and staff trying to find places to quietly work/study, or sit exams - whilst the rest of the household carries on. All eyes are on the peak expected in 4th-6th weeks where a lot of examined work will be submitted online. Thoughts are also moving to Michaelmas Term 2020, using a few scenarios to plan around as nobody really knows what the world will be like then. Will we all still be in lockdown, will there be a second spike, will there be a vaccine? Will students be allowed back and if so how will they be taught (hybrid with online/face-to-face in small groups)? Or will it all be sorted out by October we will be back to normal? At present the University is planning for multiple scenarios and divisions and departments are thinking this through. People are coping with the lockdown and working through it. There has been an element of easing in the last week but it was surrounded by confusion sparked by a communications muddle from Government. Currently people are discussing how (and why) schools are being reopened for yrs EYFS, 1 and 6 in Primary but parents and teachers are rightly concerned and a lot of questions remain unanswered. As a member of staff I not only will be impacted by that but am following the mantra - work from home if you can.