A targeted e-learning approach for keeping universities open during the COVID-19 pandemic while reducing student physical interactions.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic led to widespread closure of universities. Many universities turned to e-learning to provide educational continuity, but they now face the challenge of how to reopen safely and resume in-class learning. This is difficult to achieve without methods for measuring the impact of school policies on student physical interactions. Here, we show that selectively deploying e-learning for larger classes is highly effective at decreasing campus-wide opportunities for student-to-student contact, while allowing most in-class learning to continue uninterrupted. We conducted a natural experiment at a large university that implemented a series of e-learning interventions during the COVID-19 outbreak. The numbers and locations of 24,000 students on campus were measured over a 17-week

SUBMITTER: Yeo SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8031760 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature