Practice guidelines for effective and attractive online teaching

Background from the survey

Educators’ and students’ needs regarding the online education

The educators identified in the survey their needs regarding online education, half of them chose to skip the question. Almost 30% of teachers who responded to the question about their current needs stated they have no other needs. Another most frequent teachers’ needs in online education include training for teachers, better equipment, interactive teaching elements, alternative systems, reliable and fast internet connection and full-time clinical teaching.

Students were also asked about their needs regarding online education. We can group the students’ answers in those categories:

• none or I don’t know
• teachers‘ action and behaviour (more interactivity, good communication with the teacher, good explanation, explanation on whiteboard, teachers' help when the students have difficulties to understand the lesson, possibility to ask questions during classes, teachers should show the face, visual contact etc.)
• study materials and forms of online education (recording all lectures, study materials, PowerPoint presentations, more educational videos, individual online consultations)
• technical aspects of the online education (good internet connection, computer, more support from IT department, WiFi etc.)
• examination and assessment (minimizing the amount of tests, no test during lectures etc.)
• logistics (free time between classes, shorter lessons etc.)

Needs and tips regarding the way to activate and/or motivate the students

72% of educators feel the students’ activity is worse or much worse in online education comparing full-time form of education. Concerning the change of the student´ activity from educators‘ point of view, most of the teachers thus reported less activity and less communication with the teacher or even no activity. Teachers also found students more passive, and complaint about no feedback, excuses and cheating opportunities. They also mentioned that everything takes longer.

Only few teachers (about 10%) reported no change or even found students more active or keeping more attention.

Regarding the ways to activate and/or motivate the students, the educators ordered their needs of the most preferred:

• Interactive elements of teaching
• Strengthening communication
• Online lectures and seminars
• Seminar nature of exercises
• Individual online consultation
• Communication via email
• Others – the six most often mentioned comments: none or I do not know, feedback from students, full-time teaching, reliable and fast internet connection, breakout rooms, regular tests

However more than half of the educators skipped this question.

On the other hand, students had a little bit different point of view. They prioritised their needs in the following order:

• Online lectures and seminars
• Communication via email
• Strengthening communication
• Interactive elements of teaching
• Individual online consultation
• Seminar nature of exercises
• Other

The educators commented the ways used to activate and motivate their student during online education, we collected 41 answers to this question. They most often used: small tests during and after the lecture; discussions; interesting facts from practice; case reports; asking questions during lectures and exercises; current information; videos; breakout rooms; games; solving logical tasks; and way of presenting the topic.

Concentration and attention during the online educational activities

Students pointed out the problems with concentration or even lack of attention among frequent negatives of online teaching. On the other hand, a few students pointed out better concentration among the positives. This question is thus inter-individually variable and students apparently differ in this point. Similarly, a few teachers mentioned more students´ attention in online learning. Most teachers, however, commented on decreased students´ attention during e-learning. The decreased concentration and attention thus seem to be much more frequent. Educators also mentioned the need to attract students´ attention among the changes which occurred during the online education era.

Communication settings

Strengthening communication, communication via e-mail and communication with each student were frequently mentioned among teachers´ needs regarding ways to activate and/or motivate students. Furthermore, many teachers complained about less students´ communication in the era of online education (in fact, this was the most frequently mentioned change in the students´ activity).

Similarly, bad communication with the teacher; late replies of teachers; ignored emails as well as problems to find basic information for new students were mentioned among negative students´ experiences with online education. Vice versa, good communication was frequently pointed out among positive experiences: the most often repeated positive experience were the fast answers, followed by e.g. teacher explain everything thoroughly with understandable words; good email communication; teacher helped me when I need it; politeness and kindness of teachers; trying to help me; and really helpful instructions.

Furthermore, more interactivity and good communication with the teacher were among 5 most frequently mentioned students´ needs regarding online education.

To sum up, effective, fast and responsive communication thus represents one of the key steps for efficient e-learning.

Time-constraints of online teaching and learning

77% of educators consider the preparation and implementation of online education is more time consuming (significantly more or a little more) than the in-person forms of teaching.

Creating study materials and other activities used for online classes

File sharing was the third most frequently used approach according to the teachers´ responses (after the real-time online lectures and exercises). For about 1/3 of students, file sharing was the second most preferred approach in online education.

Considering other applications used in the online education, following apps were reported by teachers to be used at least several times a month: the video recording software (31% of teachers who answered this question); audio recording software (21%); presentation/screen recording software (45%); software for creating quizzes, tests, interactivity (46%); and other applications (6%).

Recording the online teaching activities

Most of the educators do not make video recordings of their teaching related activities. The recordings are mainly made from lectures (41%), but in any other activities the educators are not willing to record them. If they make the recordings, the majority of the educators (55%) prefer to publish their education activities video recordings to students registered in their subject. Only 2% of respondents are willing to share such education outputs to anyone.

Recording all lectures was, however, mentioned among the students´ needs regarding online education.

Practice guidelines for effective and attractive online teaching

Choice of synchronous, asynchronous or blended type of course

At the beginning of the course, the teachers need to choose the optimal form of online education (synchronous, asynchronous or blended).

• When being selected the appropriate type of online teaching for their course, teachers should keep on their minds that the forms of online education preferred by most of the students (and educators) are the synchronous online teaching or the asynchronous teaching with the pre-recorded commented presentations or video lectures.
  • Video lessons are presented in a very instructive manner, which makes it easier for the viewer to absorb the content. By uniting images and sounds, it is possible to approach students and make them more interested in what is being taught. Video lecture is thus one of the most effective ways to teach and engage students.
• The preferences regarding the type of the online course may, however, be inter-individually different. Introverted students, for example, usually strongly prefer asynchronous courses. If possible, the students may thus potentially benefit from the possibility to choose from more different types of courses.
• Each of the methods has certain pros and cons to be considered (mentioned above in the section focused on the types of courses).
• The synchronous courses should be preferred in following situations:
  • The course requires more interaction (student-teacher or among students), active students’ participation and instant feedback.
    • Among others, this applies to most clinical subjects where the case reports are presented and discussed online.
    • Another example may represent the practical exercises which include the training and practical demonstration of certain skills and instant feedback is required.
    • Similarly, if the extensive discussion among students is expected to be an important part of education process, the synchronous course represents much better solution.
    • For seminars based on students’ presentations on particular topics, again, the asynchronous form of education can’t be used.
  • Most of the students are living in the same or close time-zones.
  • The quality of the technological equipment and internet connection is high both in teacher and students, since the real-time video-chats may present additional technological challenges and a slow internet can cause lag times where students (or teacher) might miss key points or discussions.
  • Synchronous courses are particularly suitable for students deeply suffering from the lack of direct social interactions.
• The asynchronous form of education is preferable in following cases:
  • Most of the students are very busy and prefer more flexible schedule and the possibility to accomplish the assignments in any time according to their preferences.
  • The course does not require direct interaction (student-teacher or among students) and instant feedback.
  • The possibility to view the content several times is required for better understanding and deeper knowledge of the topic.
  • The students live in very different time zones (which may limit their ability to participate in synchronous online classes).
  • The quality of technological equipment and internet connection may limit the speed of real-time video-chats.
  • This type of course is also strongly preferred by introverted students.

Tips for selection of the computing programs / platforms for education purpose

• Consider the list of computing programs supported by the university and provided by the IT department. The programs and platforms listed here should be strongly preferred, since they are available to all teachers and students.
• The choice of the appropriate program or platform for particular course should consider:
  • The suitability of the program for the purpose of particular course and required activity.
  • The practical usability of the program: the student’s ability to achieve the appropriate level of competence to use the tool effectively and participate meaningfully in the education should be always considered.
  • The accessibility of the program: only tools accessible to all students can be used for education process. Specific accessibility needs of learners with disabilities should always be met.
  • The equipment required: The student’s access to technology (e.g. webcams, microphones, Internet access, drawing programmes) should be kept in mind when selecting tools.
• In general, technology skills of the students should be considered in selection of the tools and applications recommended for any type of the course. It is highly important to choose the tools with low barriers to use so that students do not come to feel that their inability to master a chosen tool will negatively impact their learning.
• Considering the results from the survey, most of the students (and teachers), however, have no major problems when using the most common online learning platforms and other software tools routinely used in real-time online education in their universities within the pandemic era. The students’ IT literacy was generally evaluated as excellent or good and the only problems with online education via the e-learning platforms reported by both groups were related to the hardware equipment (problems with internet connection, speakers, microphones or camera) and problems caused by low level of experience with online learning (problems with logging into the platform or using particular features or tools provided by the platform, lack of information on how to participate). The incidence of the latter problems will thus decrease in time.

For more details how to choose particular e-learning platforms and other software tools used to prepare the online classes, please see above in the appropriate section focused on the technical requirements for online education.

Communication setting

The teachers should always keep in touch with their students in all types of course. The communication is particularly important in case of the sudden shift to remote learning, which can bring students a high level of uncertainty regarding the future structure of the course. It´s thus important to let students know about changes in schedules, assignments, procedures, requirements and broader course expectations. Early and frequent communication can ease student anxiety, allow the student successfully continue on the education process and save the teachers from becoming overwhelmed with individual questions. The level of anxiety and uncertainty is only elevated for students with physical disabilities, learning disabilities, and/or mental illnesses and communication with these types of students is particularly important.

For every type of course, the teachers are recommended to develop a communication plan and share it with the students. Such a communication plan should contain:

• How the teacher will communicate with students:
  • In general, the asynchronous communication represents the most frequently recommended type of teacher-student communication on the organisation of the education. Synchronous communication is mostly used for teaching, but rarely for course organisation details.
  • All important information should be available in the university information system including those related to the urgent situations.
  • In urgent or critical situations which require major changes in the schedules and type of education (switch to the different type of course or even timely course disruption) it´s recommended to create a group email and send it to the students. University information systems should allow to create a group e-mails and may even provide the possibility to send an email in real time or with a delay depending on the teacher´s needs. Flexibility and accessibility should be part of any solution in such an urgent situation.
  • Some university information systems may allow to create a kind of discussion board which might also be used for communication purpose.
  • Alternatively, social networks may be used for this purpose, if they are officially used for communication in the institution.
  • Online synchronous communications can be managed through various web conferencing applications. The list of computing programs and platforms supported by the university should be considered in the choice of platform used for this purpose.
    • To participate successfully in an online synchronous session, students will need Internet access available at the expected meeting time, and the requisite technical ability.
    • The teachers should also take into account that some students may live in different time zones when planning the synchronous communication. For students living in different time zones, asynchronous communication might be more advantageous.
  • How the students can communicate with the teacher:
    • The most common type of communication is via e-mail.
    • Alternatively, social networks may be used for this purpose, if they are officially used for communication in the institution.
    • The teacher may also recommend the students to use the discussion board on the university information system for their questions (if the system allows such an option).
    • For frequently asked questions (FAQs), the teacher may create a kind of FAQs forum in the university information system which should reduce the need to respond to similar questions repeatedly.
    • The last two options (together with the active teacher-to-students communication) may help to reduce the mass of emails in case of critical or urgent situations.
    • Frequency of student-to-teacher communication: mainly in critical situations, the students may begin reaching out the teacher individually.
      • Fast responses to their e-mails were the most frequently mentioned positive of online learning mentioned by students in the survey. This point thus seems to be of particular importance.
      • Teachers should let the students know how quickly they can expect a response in the outset communication setting.
      • Alternatively, the teacher may set an automatic reply that reassures the students that their message have been received and the teacher will get back to them in a span of time that the teacher finds realistic and appropriate for his/her capacity and the student´s needs.
      • The regular communication is particularly important in the asynchronous type of course, where the students may feel disconnected or disengaged due to the lack or regular social interaction. To prevent or get over these students´ feelings, the teachers are recommended to regularly respond to all discussion posts from students and support the meaningful interactions among students (by creating the projects which require cooperation of smaller groups or all the class).
    • How the students will communicate and collaborate with each other (if needed for the course):
      • In general, the asynchronous tools are recommended to be preferred for the communication among students.
      • The students should be informed why they are being asked to collaborate, how to do it, how their collaboration will be measured and what the learning goals are for any required collaborations.
      • The discussion board, emails, blogs or social networks enable students to communicate asynchronously by posting messages to each other and thus allow for the asynchronous interactions between the students.
        • In case of need of broader and more complex interactions among student, advanced online applications are currently available (e.g. VoiceThread, Confluence, Notion). These apps represent is interactive collaboration and sharing tools that enable students to build online presentations by adding images, documents, and videos, and other media to which other users can add comments for discussion.
      • Teachers are recommended to check the list of computing products supported by their university to find the most appropriate tool for this purpose. Technology skills of the students should, however, be considered in recommendation of similar platforms.
      • Again, the communication is particularly important in the asynchronous type of course, where the students may feel disconnected or disengaged due to the lack or regular social interaction. Teachers are thus recommended to support the students´ activities which require the communication and interaction among students. They should try to make the education more personable, make students feel included and bring them together as one community.
    • How the students are expected to send their assignments (e.g. Word or other text format documents, PowerPoint presentations, videos) to the teacher:
      • It is advisable to avoid sending the assignments as the email attachments, since it can make the tracking of student submissions difficult and increase the teacher´s burden.
      • It´s possible to use the university information system for uploading the assignments. In some universities, however, this option may be restricted for certain types of documents (e.g. batchelor´s or master´s thesis, dissertation, habilitation thesis).
      • Most frequently, uploading the documents to the learning or communication platforms (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom etc.) is used.
      • Alternatively, uploading the documents to the cloud-based storage and file-sharing services (e.g. GoogleDrive, OneDrive, Dropbox etc.) can be recommended.
      • There are also many new innovative digital tools available (for example Floop, ExplainEverything etc.). They allow teachers to build and receive assessments, provide feedback, and create interactive virtual activities. Many of these platforms allow teachers and students interact in real-time. For example, Floop allows students to upload images of their assignments, and teachers or peer editors to point directly to where they want to comment and offer feedback. Students can respond to these comments and ask questions.
      • In all the file-sharing or communication platforms, the course folder should be created. To preserve anonymity, it´s recommended to create sub-folders for each individual students. If anonymity is not important, one joint account for uploading the files can be used.
      • In any case, the students should be informed about the preferred format of the documents including the preferred format for the names of the assignments.
      • In case of sudden transition to the online education, it may take some time for students to become acclimated to the new learning style. When setting the deadlines, it´s thus recommended to be more flexible than usual.
      • When giving an assignment, the teacher should inform the students when they can expect feedback and what kind of feedback they can expect.
      • Small tests and quizzes may represent an alternative assessment method which can substitute the written assignments (for more details, see the appropriate paragraph).

Creating and curating the content

Availability of study materials was frequently mentioned among students´ needs regarding online education. Synchronous online education is the most preferred form of e-learning in both students and teachers. In this type of course, teachers are recommended to consider performing a video-records of their lectures and provide them to students. Alternatively, the pre-recorded video lectures represent the second most preferred type of education, followed by sharing materials. For any type of presentation, clear information with maximum informative value a re-considering of the necessity of particular information can be recommended particularly in case of sudden full transition to online education to reduce the students´ overload.

When creating the video lectures, following points should be considered:

• The video lecture is one of the most effective ways to teach and engage students since the uniting of images and sounds makes it easier for the viewer to absorb the content.
• Besides simple recording of the commented presentation, further video and/or audio editing may increase the quality and informative value of the presentation, helps students keep focused and makes the material more captivating and instructive.
• The video- and/or audio editing applications allow manipulation and arrangement of video/audio shots. They allow to cut and/or merge the video recordings, and resize the footage for different platforms. Some of them also allow adding automatic or editable subtitles in many languages, adding soundtrack or visual aids such as gifs, icons and many others.
  • Some video and/or audio editing tools might be recommended and supported by particular universities and listed together with all the other software available. In such case, their use should be sufficient and is highly recommended.
  • If no suitable software is supported and provided by the university, there are plenty commercially available tools (Apple iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, Adobe Premiere Pro, PowerDirector for Windows, iOS and Android, VideoPad, DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks, and many others).
    • Most of these platforms are paid, but many have basic versions for free or they allow free few-day trials.
    • Many of these apps are available even for smartphones.
    • They mostly allow to export the edited video straight to YouTube, Dropbox, and more.
    • All of the platforms are compatible with a high resolution, most of them offer 360° and 3D video editing.
  • To create a video-lecture for online teaching, following steps are recommended:
    • Plan the content and format of the course and particular lectures:
      • If possible, the course plan should be subdivided into topics for each video lecture or even each part of the lesson.
      • This plan helps teacher maintain a coherent line of thought when creating videos so that there is an understandable continuity between your classes.
      • Consider optimal duration of each video-lecture (to prevent making the presentation too long or tiring).
      • The presentation of the content should be modified according to the subject and audience the teachers want to reach.
    • Make the best in speech and presentation.
    • Arrange the scene in which the presentation is recorded so that it looks professional, organized and neutral.
      • The fewer objects in the scene and the brighter the environment, the better.
      • Sitting or standing, you should be as comfortable as possible.
      • Choose a noise-free environment as possible.
    • Prepare the necessary equipment (microphone, camera, good lighting).
    • Record the video.
    • Edit the video (for details see above).

Teachers are also encouraged to integrate the multimedia resources (videos, audios, and podcasts) already available online into their course. According to the survey, videos are mostly preferred to audios or podcasts, which is recommended to consider when searching for multimedia resources.

• The use of the already published materials may be particularly important in case of sudden switch of learning to the online environment. In that situation, teachers may not have enough time to create their own new content and using the pre-existing online materials may help to reduce the burden.
• The use of university library database for readings, link to websites and existing videos and podcasts is recommended for the search for media to be integrated into the course.
• Among others, several newly available interactive online tools or platforms which allow creating or sharing materials can be used as a source of multimedia resources for online education (for more details see section 4.2.2.):
  • Glogster (https://edu.glogster.com/), which is a library of teacher-created “glogs,” multimedia posters that combine images, text, and video. Teachers can build their own glogs or access more than 40,000 glogs on a range of subjects.
  • Wakelet (https://wakelet.com/), which is a content curation platform that helps teachers to share resources, build online portfolios, and share digital stories. It allows them embed YouTube videos, podcasts, music, articles, or original content into a collection that students can access across many devices.
  • Flip (formerly Flipgrid) (https://info.flip.com/) is a platform, which allows teachers to create a topic for discussion and share it with their class. Students can then record short videos on this topic to share with their teacher and classmates. The platform is completely free.
  • Animoto (https://animoto.com/k/homepage) allows both students and teachers to create educational videos. The program lets users add text, create photo slideshows, stitch together several videos, and include images to deliver exciting presentations.
• The use of multimedia materials (both integrated from pre-existing sources and newly created) may later be transferred from the era of fully online education to the future learning setting, which is expected to combine both online and in present types of teaching.

To keep the students´ attention and make the education more interactive, teachers may use the digital platforms which allow for creating the interactive online tests or quizzes.

• Many universities provide their own platforms which provide better safety of the data (the application KvIS available in Masaryk University represents typical example).
• If no custom made platforms are available, free or commercial platforms can be used for this purpose (e.g. MS Forms, Quizizz, Kahoot!, Slido et al.).
• Another option are the digital learning tools which, in fact, gamifies learning. Glimkit represents a typical example. Using this platform, students respond to questions at their own pace in a game show fashion, learning new material or reviewing and practicing material they’ve already learned.
• For further details regarding the quizzes or online tests, please see appropriate section above focused on software tools available for online education.

The use of images, photographs, pictures, charts, animations, videos or audio recordings in presentations or publications

The use of images, photographs, pictures, charts, animations, videos or audio recordings, in general, makes any presentation/poster/publication more illustrative, understandable and attractive for the audience.

• In general, the use of photos/images/videos in the highest possible quality and appropriate size is recommended.
• Few clear and highly informative images are usually better than many less illustrative ones.
• When using the images, photos, pictures or charts in the textual documents, they should always be accompanied by the image/ figure legend. Its purpose is to explain the image clearly and thoroughly, providing readers with all the information necessary to understand it without returning to the main text. All images, pictures and charts need to be referenced in the main text.
• In many cases the images, videos or audio recordings may be copyrighted, i.e. their free and/or commercial use may be prohibited.
• Several items can be used by teachers, presenters or authors without any limitation. However, the element of possible co-authorship needs to be considered. This mainly applies to:
  • The images, diagrams, charts, photos, videos or audio recordings they have created themselves of uncopyrightable subjects such as views, or nature.
    • This, however, doesn´t apply to several public sites or places: some countries may impose legal restrictions on the reproduction of copyright material sited in public (e.g. France, Italy or Greece).
  • Own photos, audio recordings or videos of the people who have given the author their consent to photograph, record or video record them and publish the photograph, audio recording or video.
  • Their photos or scans or photocopies of objects or designs whose copyright has expired (for Europe usually 70 years after the death of the author or the last co-author).
• The use of other photos or images including those available on the websites may be protected by copyright law. The teachers should take into consideration that free-to-view images are not necessarily free to reuse. Even uncredited photos on transient websites may be protected by copyright.
• The law regarding the use of images, photographs or videos may be partly different among the countries and appropriate rules should always be followed. In many countries, the approval of the author of the original image or picture may be required for any type of publication including scientific ones. In such cases, appropriate requirements are usually mentioned in the author´s guidelines.
• In some countries, however, using copyrighted images, photographs, or pictures for teaching or scientific research can be acceptable within the scope of quotation rules given by the relevant law. For example, in Czech law the use of a copyrighted work for teaching for illustrative purposes or scientific research is not considered infringement when abiding by the following rules:
  • The images should always be used without any changes or modifications. All the parts of the original photograph, image or picture should remain unchanged when being reproduced (including the description or legend). The author reusing and citing the original work can, however, use additional legend or provide the comment or explanation of the cited image or picture in the text part of his work (which refers to the picture/image).
  • The use must not exceed the extent adequate to the given purpose.
  • The use of image must not be used to gain any direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage.
  • The re-users must fully acknowledge the rights-holder (the image caption or credits should reiterate any copyright statement or licence terms indicated at the source)(the name of the copyrighted work and its source (see below the paragraph dealing with the CC licences)
• In audio-visual works, the copyright owner is not only the author (e.g. original composer or writer) but also the recording company and based on the licencing contract sometimes also the performers and/or the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the making of the audio recording or film are made.
• Teachers should be particularly careful when posting the presentation, poster or text document containing the copyrighted images to a website or when physically sharing the document outside the classroom. That could be considered a publication and therefore copyright infringement. In that case, the use of images released with an appropriate Creative Commons licence (see below) is highly recommended and the source should be properly cited. The citing information should always include:
  • Title
  • Author, artist, photographer, or creator
  • Source (i.e., information about the book, journal, database, or web address where the image was found, including page numbers and publication information)
  • Licence (type of the CC licence if applicable)
    • The abbreviation TASL is used as a mnemonic (Title, Author, Source, Licence)
  • As an example, the following picture (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/copyright.jpg) should thus be cited as:
    • Title: Copyright. Xkcd
    • Author: Randall Munroe
    • Source: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/copyright.jpg
    • Licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/
  • In general, the safest way is to use the pictures, images and photographs released with a Creative Commons licence, which provides a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to the work. The most common licence status of the photos, pictures or images available for use for presentations is the following:
    • CC0 (CCO): in the public domain, no attribution is required
    • CC BY: free to re-use with attribution and indication if changes were made
    • CC BY-NC: free to re-use in a non-commercial context, with attribution and indication if changes were made
  • Although the teachers don't have to credit the creators of CC0 works it's still courteous to do so, as is crediting the site where they found the image.
  • Many image libraries allow the users to filter search results by the above-mentioned licence status.
  • The picture/ image/ photograph/ video users should keep in their minds that any changes or modifications of the public material under any licence status other than CC0 are not allowed or should be indicated.
  • Many websites may serve as an open source of free photographs and images. Some of them provide also paintings, drawings, videos and/or PowerPoint presentations. Some are completely free while others provide also the ´premium´ paid version with more options and more extensive content. Most of the pages, however, don't accept responsibility for their content, since they mostly can’t prevent the situation when someone uploads content to which he/she is not the copyright holder. Checking the terms of use at the source where possible is thus highly recommended. The following websites represent examples of the free sources of photos and pictures (mostly CC0):
    • Unsplash: https://unsplash.com/
    • Stocksnap: https://stocksnap.io/
    • Gratisography: https://gratisography.com/
    • Pexels: https://www.pexels.com
    • photo: https://www.chamberofcommerce.org/findaphoto/
    • Freerange: https://freerangestock.com
    • Creative Commons: https://creativecommons.org
    • Pixabay: https://pixabay.com
    • PikWizzard: https://pikwizard.com
    • Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
    • Morgue File: https://morguefile.com/
    • Google images: https://images.google.com/: Advanced Search enables filtering results by Usage Rights, similar to Creative Commons categories.
  • There are also many paid websites providing photos and pictures. They usually provide more extensive content and mostly offer one week or one month free trial (for about 7-10 pictures). As an example, the following websites may be recommended:
    • Shutterstock: https://www.shutterstock.com/
    • Depositphotos: https://depositphotos.com/
    • Megapixl: https://www.megapixl.com/
    • Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/
  • For further details, please look at Wikimedia Commons, which brings together a variety of subjects and aims to answer the question "Do copyright laws allow the upload of pictures of […]?" (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_subject_matter)

Copyright issues related to the teacher´s work

The teachers should be aware of the fact that their work is also a subject of copyright.

• In most universities, the university holds the copyright to works created by its employees within the scope of their employment, as these are works produced for hire.
• Among others, this mostly applies to the presentations, video recordings of presentations and other educational works of the teachers. They are the subjects of copyright and can´t be distributed or reproduced without the permission of the university except for the learning process of the students of a particular course/subject/faculty/university which holds the economic rights, depending on the decision of the author. For this reason, most universities recommend using the copyright notice as an integral part of any presentation. An example of such a notice is the following:
  • This presentation is copyrighted work created by employees of the University XY.
  • Students are allowed to make copies for learning purposes only.
  • Any unauthorised reproduction or distribution of the presentation or individual slides is against the law.
• Different copyright rules, on the other hand, mostly apply to scientific papers published in journals or abstract books. In these cases, the copyright holder of the work is the author, who is usually asked to transfer all or part of the copyright in this particular publication to the publisher.

Distributing Materials

In any type of course, the students should be provided with the study materials. The availability of the materials and their timely distribution were among the frequently mentioned students´ needs regarding the online education in the survey. File sharing represents one of the most frequently used forms of online education. It is essential for asynchronous courses and is frequently used also in the synchronous ones (where is combined with online lectures or exercises). Timely distribution of materials is even more important in crisis situations (e.g. sudden and full switch from in-person to online teaching). Mainly in such situations, the teacher may need to provide an updated syllabus that modifies the planned course activities, assignments, content and due dates since some parts of the course (e.g. practical or laboratory exercises) may become less manageable or even inaccessible for a certain period.

For creating the study materials, teachers should be provided with the list of the recommended computing products supported by the university (e.g. tools for creating video or audio lectures, quizzes or interactive platforms) which they can use for the preparation the study materials (see appropriate sections focused on creating and curating the content and preparing captivating lecture above and below for further details).

Several ways how to distribute materials for online education can be considered:

• Most frequently, the course materials are uploaded in the university information system.
• Alternatively, the storage clouds (e.g. Google Drive, One Drive) can be used for sharing the materials depending on the university regulations and supported systems. When using this way of sharing, the it´s, however, particularly important to make sure that all students have an access to these platforms (which is unquestionable in university information system).
• Currently, there are also many new interactive online tools or platforms which allow creating or sharing materials. For example:
  • Glogster and Wakelet were mentioned in the previous paragraph.
  • Flipgrid is a platform, which allows teachers to create a topic for discussion and share it with their class. Students can then record short videos on this topic to share with their teacher and classmates.
• If needed, it´s also possible to send the materials as group email attachments. Hosting materials in a centralized location (university information system, storage clouds) is, however, more manageable than emailing them and provides higher level of certainty that all students have an access to all materials required.
• All options (university information system, storage clouds and group emails) can also be used for sharing the links to online multimedia resources like videos, websites or podcasts.
• In critical situations with sudden switch of learning to the online environment, teachers should consider converting the Word, PowerPoint and Excel materials in pdf format, which can be read on a mobile device, since some students may only have access to a phone available.
• In any case, the students should be informed where to find the study materials via university information system, email, discussion boards or social networks (depending on the communication plan mentioned above) and the teacher should make sure students know where to find them.

Teachers should also set, who can access their materials. Most teachers are willing to share materials (including the recorded lectures) only with students signed in their course or (less frequently) with other students/ teachers in their university. Only minimum teachers are opened to sharing the materials for anyone outside their university.

Tips for preparing attractive and captivating online lectures and getting and keeping the students´ attention

• Teachers should count with the fact that they don´t reach 100% attention even in the in-person education. In the distant mode, the students are even more distracted by many interfering stimuli from the surroundings and/or many other online activities and their attention is only partial. Teachers thus should be aware of the fact that students´ ability to keep the attention in the home environment is definitely lowered comparing to the in person education in school. Realizing such situation may help to set the online classes in the most appropriate way to preserve as many attention, as possible. Teachers thus should put particular effort to make the online lecture more interactive, think twice about the content and make the students more involved in.
• It´s recommended to focus on important points and cut back on the content to only what is crucial. The teachers thus should try to get rid the things which are not critical and unnecessary. Focusing on limited extent of highly important information increases the students´ ability to follow-up all the subject matter and may help to retain the students´ attention.
• In contrast to the in-person education, most of the students are not able to focus for a long time in the online environment. Teachers should thus consider preparing lessons that are a little bit shorter than in-person ones or breaking up the lesson into smaller segments. Free time between classes and shorter lessons were repeatedly mentioned among the students´ needs regarding the online education.
• It´s important to stay focused and be clear and straight forward while teaching, mainly in the online environment. Teacher´s focus helps the students to stay focused as well.
• Clear organisation of the lecture helps students focus and get back to the lecture in case they wandered off for a while.
  • Teachers are recommended to write a concise lesson plan and goals for each session and stick to it.
  • They should also provide the plan and goals for their students. It helps break up the lesson for students and give them goals of learning to reach each lesson.
• Opening lecture with the interesting facts or throwing a challenge may help students focus on the topic. It´s thus recommended to present attention-grabbing facts or to incorporate a challenge that stimulates the students´ thinking at the onset.
• The transitions between topics or important parts of the lecture should be very clear. The best way is to delineate different parts of the lecture by clear statement summarizing the content which is going to follow or which just have been finished. This approach may help the students who have wandered off digitally or physically focus on the presentation and realize that something is changing at this moment and/or what they missed and must get.
• During the synchronous lecture, teachers should individually check in with their students if they can, make sure that they are all on task and understand the content. If not, they are recommended to repeat the parts of the lecture which are still not fully understood.
  • In asynchronous type of education, such check in could be done through discussion boards or blogs.
• Holding students accountable for learning clearly increases their attention. Students more likely stay engaged if they know their teachers have specific expectations regarding their participation and engagement.
  • Educators need to clearly communicate what participation looks like in a virtual classroom by laying out clear and measurable goals (e.g. they require students to make a certain number of written or oral contributions each class).
  • When assigning work or activities teachers should communicate:
    • The time frame students have to complete the work or activity.
    • What the students should produce, explained in specific terms (for example, each group should produce a list of five examples of the diseases which may present with headache).
    • The method by which students will be held accountable (for example, each student must share their work on the platform for all to see).
  • In the synchronous online education, interacting with different types of content helps students stay focused. Teachers may use full-of-text presentations, engaging videos, images, quizzes or tests. It´s also recommended to pause the presentation to ask a question and invite students to answer or comment.
  • Teachers may also find it useful to split up their online classrooms into breakout rooms for discussions (see below for further details).
  • All materials showed to the students during the online classes should be converted to the digital form (e.g. scanned and provided in the shared screen and not just shared from camera).
  • More attention is kept mainly by including pictures or very short videos. The number of the non-textual elements should be increased in the presentations intended for online education.
  • Telling the real-life examples or case reports helps students understand why they should learn this particular topic. By telling stories that are relevant to real-life problems not only gives student clearer learning objectives and expectation but also emphasizes the importance of learning in their lives.
  • More interactive education helps students to retain attention, mainly in synchronous type of teaching.
    • Teachers are thus recommended to incorporate different interactions: teacher-students interaction, students-content interactions, students-students interactions etc.
    • Besides sharing the presentation, they should engage directly with the students, use the whiteboard tool in the communication platforms and switch between these within the same lesson.
    • Students should have the opportunity to engage with a teacher, ask questions and having a teacher answer a specific question.
    • The other way around, just like a classroom, teachers should call on students and ask questions or get their opinions on the topic.
    • It´s also possible to let students vote on the correct answer or use interactive tests or quizzes.
    • Students may be encouraged to work in groups, to generate questions, to explain to each other, and discuss using breakout rooms.
      • Breakout rooms are essentially mini virtual conference rooms where smaller groups of students can collaborate in a discussion or on a group assignment. The teacher can enter these rooms to observe or support students through their work.
      • Teachers may ask students to go to breakout rooms for a designated amount of time before returning to a whole class discussion.
      • Smaller groups can make it easier for every student to participate.
      • Some video conferencing platforms offer shared documents that students can create together, and teachers can access when the session ends.
    • Use of a certain type of play also increases interactivity and may improve the students´ attention.
      • The most natural way is to split the class into smaller teams and incorporate game mechanics (leaderboards, points, badges, levels, etc.) to create a competitive environment. Quizzes or short tests may be used for this type of competition.
      • Students may even be awarded by badges or points for starting the online learning unit on time, progressing successfully through an important part of the lecture or finishing the lecture and understanding basic principles of the topic.
      • A timed crossword or jigsaw puzzle is a good example of a game format that employs challenge as a game mechanic.
      • A game like ‘spin the wheel’ where players spin a digital wheel and are posed questions based on where the needle rests, is a great way to leverage the emotion of excitement in a player.
      • ‘Treasure hunt’ is another game format that builds on the emotion of ‘surprise’.
    • Interruptions with an unexpected stimulus may also help students refocus and restore their attention.
      • As an example, teacher may suddenly turn off his/her camera when providing instructions and pretend something wrong is going on. After few seconds, he/she may turn it on and ask the students to remind him/her what he/she have said or explained so far.
    • In synchronous lectures, teachers are recommended to make everyone show their faces on screen (including the teacher himself). They should make sure every student has their monitor and camera turned on, which allows teachers to monitor their students and eliminate at least some of the distractions that might take away from their lectures.
    • It´s highly important to make and keep the eye contact during the online presentations. To make the camera eye contact, it´s necessary to talk to the camera and look at it (and not to the screen). Teachers should always notice where they eyes are and where they’re focusing their gaze. Adding place marker(s) near the camera may help.
    • Educators should also think about their communication style and skills. The styles which are acceptable or tolerable in person may not be acceptable online. Small speakers make voices less impressive and normal inflection when recorded sounds monotonous. The online education where only face and shoulders are seen decreases the teacher´s impact. It´s thus recommended to change both the tone and inflection of to voice and add “much more life” in it. This helps them to become more captivating.
    • The teacher´s movements during the online lecture may also help students staying focused. Teachers can move a few feet away from the camera while they’re providing instructions to grab more your students’ attention. By contrast, they can get closer to the camera to listen to or read students’ questions, answers or comments. From time to time, educators may even stand up and keep the interaction with students standing. In such situation, they should stand back in order to move from one side to the other and students can see their body language and hand gestures.
    • The use of non-verbal communication (thumbs up, high fives or even a fist bump with the student in camera) makes students feel more connected, seen and heard from a distance. These gestural praises produce positive motivational effects and help teachers build more connection with their students virtually.
    • Changing speakers during the lecture may also have positive effect on students´ attention.
    • Teachers are also recommended to make more frequent short breaks that allow their students to re-energize, drink water, stretch their legs and take some time to breathe outside that learning environment.
    • Besides common breaks, teachers may use also so called brain breaks in their online classes when they feel their students’ energy and attention are waning. Such brain breaks may include practising yoga or making some movements, sharing jokes or funny anecdotes, playing games, making guesses, watching funny videos or many other similar refreshing activities for 3 to 5 minutes. Jokes or anecdotes are particularly important: Humour is known to get people comfortable and build a positive learning environment. Pausing for a moment to relax is essential for resetting students’ energy level, retaining and staying on task.
    • It´s also recommended to provide students the opportunity to watch the lecture or other type of content repeatedly. In fact, this option represents one of the major strengths of the online education which helps students retain the subject matter. For this reason, the pre-recorded commented presentations or video lectures are among the most preferred types of online classes and recording all lectures is frequently mentioned among the students´ needs regarding online education. In synchronous online learning, teachers thus should consider recording the lecture and making them available online for review.
      • Based on the review, only part of the teachers is opened to record their lectures, and most of them don´t record any other teaching activities. If they record any type of activity, they are mostly willing to share the records only with the students singed in their subject or course. Only minimum educators are opened to sharing the materials to anyone. Based on the survey, recording of all teaching activities is highly appreciated by students and should be considered in all the cases.
    • Teachers should count with the fact that the preparation and implementation of online education might be (and mostly is) more time consuming than the in-person forms of teaching.
    • Teachers should keep in their minds that students may feel disconnected or disengaged during the online education.
      • To prevent or get over these feelings, teachers are recommended to support the discussion and online social interactions among students and bring them together as one community.
      • Furthermore, making the education more personable, answering individual questions, and making students feel included may also help to reduce their isolation feeling.

Recommendation for students attending online courses focused on solving the most frequent problems related to the online education

Mainly for students starting with the online education for the first time, teachers may provide some basic information about potential problems which they may face during the online courses and tips, how to handle it. The most frequent problems are the following:

• The online education itself is considered to be time-consuming and requires a lot of self-discipline. Following steps may help to handle in this point:
  • The students thus should be particularly respectful of themselves and plan their time and efforts.
  • They should also consider their management of a work-school-life balance.
  • Regardless the type of programme (synchronous, asynchronous or hybrid), they are recommended to block off the time to accomplish the assignments in the daily schedule and not saving all the assignments to be done at the last minute.
• Students may experience the problems to keep attention during the online lectures and stay focused when studying at home. To improve their focus and concentration skills, students are recommended:
  • Maintain the consistent schedule and set aside time every day to accomplish the assignments (to prevent working on them at the last time). The consistency is highly important.
  • Make a daily checklist containing all the assignments including their due dates and times. It allows the students to sort the assignments according to their priorities and get the idea about the time required to accomplish those which are due soon. It also helps them to allocate their energy and to plan undertaking the more arduous tasks to the parts of the day when they feel more active.
  • Set up a comfortable workspace: the desk or table with a chair should allow to be comfortable sitting for a long time. Adding a lamp may help to make the learning less strenuous on eyes. It´s also important to keep the desk or table (or even the room) tidy. Students are also recommended to find out what else they need to make their environment the most conducive to concentration (music, aroma, availability of snacks or drinks) and to set their learning environment accordingly.
  • Minimize distractions:
    • Keep the room and desk tidy.
    • The mobile phones should be switched to the non-disturbing mode.
    • Try to mitigate the use of social media, video-sharing websites (e.g. YouTube), television networks or video streaming services (e.g. Netflix, HBO and others) as much as possible.
  • Remember to take breaks: the breaks help students relax and return with renewed energy and sometimes a new and additive perspective on their assignment.
• Mainly in case of sudden and/or full switch to the online environment, the students may suffer from the lack of social interactions. This feeling may be even more severe in the asynchronous type of course.
  • To prevent or get over the feeling of isolation, students are recommended:
    • Communicate with educators and schoolmates.
    • Actively participate on the online discussion and assignments requiring collaboration, respond to particular discussion points and try to make meaningful social interactions with the classmates via social networks, video chats, discussion forum or other communication platforms. Such approach may help them keep in touch with the teachers and classmates.
    • If needed, find online tutors or assistance: this may help if the student doesn´t fully understand the topic from the lectures and other content provided. In such a situation, different way how to explain things may help and allows the student continue with the course without missing any information potentially important for understanding next lectures or topics.