South Korea's educational institutions are facing an emergency situation due to the steadily increasing number of COVID-19 infections. Especially in the case of universities, there are already planned academic schedules. However, since safety of students and staff is the top priority, they are looking for various ways, such as delaying the opening of classes or conducting online lectures. In line with this trend, Chung-Ang University has also decided to replace about 4,171 courses, including theoretical, experimental and practical subjects, with online lectures. Accordingly, professors are using "CAU-MOOC", "YouTube", or "Zoom" to conduct classes. For better online lectures, Chung-Ang University secured Zoom License, mounted it on an e-class and upgraded the server to allow simultaneous access to about 20,000 people. Despite these efforts, many students are complaining about online lecture classes. Let's find out what is causing the students' difficulties.
Request for Tuition Refund
Why Do Students Demand Tuition Refunds?
On Chung-Ang school community sites, some students are demanding tuition refunds. In addition to classes, tuition also includes the right for students to use school facilities. Students are complaining about the current situation in which they have paid the same tuition but are not using any school facilities at all. Some of the reasons for this are that there are only lectures posted on online or in some cases no recordings at all. In addition, some departments that need to conduct experiments appear to be dissatisfied with the way they are taught, such as asking them to view the experiments as videos and submit reports. Also, the fact that these online classes are not all of a quality enough to replace face to face lectures is causing students' complaints. Calls for tuition refunds are coming from many colleges, especially those that require experimentation and practice. In the case of engineering colleges conducting experiments, many classes are just asking for submission of assignments to be given feedback. Other important facilities, such as those requiring the use 3D printers, cannot be used at home. Therefore, if students only take online classes, they are complaining because the classes are meaningless. Nevertheless, Chung-Ang University said that university is a higher education institution with comprehensive education, research and service, it is difficult to return tuition fees. This leads to further intensifying conflict with students.
The Right of Learning for Disabled Students
How Can We Help Them?
Online lectures are causing a lot of inconvenience not only for ordinary students but also for disabled students. As mentioned earlier, the sudden implementation of online lectures did not come up with sufficient support measures for disabled students. In addition, unlike face-to-face classes, disabled students have difficulty communicating with professors and student assistants in real time, raising the problem of not receiving a proper education. If online lectures continue without concrete improvement measures, disabled students may feel that there is a gap between their learning and other students, even if not intended. Let's take a closer look at the problem through some specific student examples.
a. The Visually Impaired Student ‘A’
Students with visual impairments who have trouble looking at the screen are subject to many restrictions until they have access to the information they need in class. In the case of face-to-face lectures, there would normally be a helper, so they can respond immediately to the needs of blind students. Online lectures, however, require disabled students to find and request areas by themselves where they need help. Even if they have asked for help, it will take longer for the help to be approved than for face-to-face lectures, which could make them uncomfortable. For real-time lectures (Zoom) that are not already recorded, the problem becomes more serious. This is because they cannot check the class materials shown on the screen in real time. In addition, e-class data access problems continue to emerge.
b. The Hearing Impaired Student ‘B’
Students with hearing impairments are similarly having difficulty in taking online classes. Although they usually infer the contents of the class by reading the professor's lips in class, it is not easy to recognize the professor's lip movement in online lectures. To that end, Chung-Ang University's Disabled Students Support Center is providing remote shorthand for hearing impaired students. However, the measure is also causing complaints among students and raising problems. Such shorthand is not accurate when it comes to the delivery of technical terms by some departments, such as medical and engineering schools.This is mostly due to variables such as the ability and knowledge of the stenographer.In addition, voice to text programs are still difficult to use due to many errors. Opinions are being raised on "subtitle support" for them, but there has been no specific feedback yet. As subtitle support was a technology that had to be considered from the beginning of the course's production.
According to Article 14 section 1, of the Disability Discrimination Act, "The person in charge of education shall actively seek and provide the following means to ensure that there is no disadvantage in the educational activities of persons with disabilities attending the relevant educational institution." Chung-Ang University's Disabled Students Support Center and related departments willhave to cooperate as soon as possible to guarantee the education rights of disabled students.
The Problem of Grading
How Will Students’ Grades Be Treated Fairly?
In an emergency meeting on April 1st, Chung-Ang University decided to extend the online lectures scheduled for April 11th to May 9th, the midterm period. When the notice was announced, the students questioned the evaluation method in addition to the quality of the lecture. In the case of Chung-Ang University, most classes adopt a grading system that allows up to 35 percent A or B grades, 30 percent C, and a minimum of 10% D or F; with exceptions for teaching and some English A subjects. However, when conducting online lectures, many questions have been raised about equity issues. If a test is replaced by a report or task, the grading criteria are not as clear as the test, which may cause complaints, and online tests pose a risk of proxy testing. In response, the school provided autonomy to operate midterms at the discretion of professors in each class, such as home exams or replacement of assignments. Of course, it is also possible to have no midterm test at all. Above all, the school said it will change the standards for grade evaluation only this semester and apply “absolute evaluation” to all subjects, meaning the ability of professors to assign grades ignoring the curve above, considering the efficiency of students' learning and the difficulty of professors' delivery of class contents.
Pretty flowers on campus have bloomed, but COVID-19 still hasn't calmed down and is still rapidly spreading around the world. Many students want to take classes at school as soon as possible, but online lectures continue to be extended. As a result, various problems and complaints are being raised again. Also, there are voices of concern about the schedule after the midterm exam, as we do not know how the current Corona situation will proceed. Chung-Ang University has been responding steadily to the situation, both in school and student associations, as problems with the COVID-19 persist. However, in order to create a school environment in which everyone can be satisfied, they will have to solve the aforementioned problems. To this end, I believe that the school’s meeting process and result should be delivered to students more quickly and transparently.If the school shares what it is considering, and the school and the students are able to contemplate together, it will be able to solve the problem wisely.
Choi Min-ju
cmj980522@cau.ac.kr