Data from a recent global survey by i-graduate adds to the enormous body of data about COVID-19. i-graduate’s COVID-19 Response Barometer surveyed over 24,000 students in eleven countries and provides valuable insight into education institutions’ response to COVID-19 from the perspective of current students.

This article, part of a series drawing on the survey data, was originally conceived to explore to what extent government policy has impacted students’ satisfaction with their institution’s response to COVID-19. However, it quickly became apparent that the situation is too complex to draw any meaningful conclusions on this.

National comparisons in themselves, however, provide some food for thought.

It is abundantly clear that countries around the world have reacted very differently to the COVID pandemic and when we reach the other side of this, we may eventually get a better perspective on whose strategy was the most successful. In Higher Education it has been a gargantuan struggle to get courses online at short notice as well as providing security and safety for students.

I-graduate’s COVID survey seeks to get a global sense of student satisfaction with the institutional response both in terms of the communication to the students about the pandemic and the quality of the online provision. We had responses from over 24,000 students.

Migrating services to the cloud in higher education is happening at a faster rate than ever before. According to Tribal’s CTO, Mike Cope, this is primarily because the sector’s appetite for risk has changed as education institutions seek solutions that provide the most up to date capability, for the maximum number of use cases, whilst also providing enough flexibility to adapt to increasingly frequent business changes.

Cloud technology in education

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 was, in modern times, unprecedented. And it required an unprecedented response from education institutions around the world.

Now, over six months on from the emergence of the global pandemic and with many institutions preparing for the start of a new and potentially uncertain academic year, it is useful to gauge how students feel about their institution’s response to COVID-19 to date. How have institutions performed on communicating key information to their students throughout the event? How successful was the – in most cases, very rapid – transition to online learning? What should institutions be aware of in terms of student experience as they navigate through the COVID-19 era?

The events of 2020 have rapidly shaped the way the world lives, works, and learns and getting staff and students back on campus safely is the goal for universities everywhere. Never before have any of us faced such a challenge - knowing what to do if there is a positive case and dealing with it promptly and professionally. 

The Coronavirus is having a huge impact on higher and further education, as well as economies and lives across the globe. The education landscape changed, virtually overnight, when on 23^rd March 2020, the UK followed many other countries into ‘lockdown’ in an attempt to slow the rate of infection of Covid-19.

The downturn in demographics and numbers of people going to university and college, competition from international markets, and high dropout rates means that UK institutions need smart ways to demonstrate and deliver the Student Experience they have on offer if they intend to meet increasingly ambitious recruitment and retention targets.

On 14th July, due to the current pandemic, Tribal hosted the first ever Empower Online Conference. The event offered customers from the higher education sector all around the world an opportunity to gain insights into the world of education from 6 live sessions with live Q&A and opportunity for discussion, and 20 on-demand sessions, recorded in advance by Tribal employees.