How UNNC made online education happen with digital innovation

宁波诺丁汉大学

2024-09-27

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When Daniel Dai, the team lead of Learning Technologies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) was asked to move the new semester's teaching entirely online within a month, he was understandably concerned. However, he also saw opportunities to achieve something special.

On 2 March, UNNC launched online teaching of virtually all courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Around 8,000 students and over 400 teaching staff spread across China and around the world were involved. Provost Nick Miles described the scale of the achievement as "unprecedented".

The Learning Technologies team had already been working towards the adoption of online learning tools, but flicking the digital switch for all courses in such a short space of time was challenging to say the least. Not to mention that staff and students were scattered across the world in various time zones and with different qualities of internet accessibility. What made the challenge even greater was that all educational institutions in China were planning to do the same thing, meaning that the network would be highly overstretched.

Venturing into the unknown territory, Daniel and his colleagues first compiled a comprehensive guide to UNNC’s existing learning technologies, with solutions tailored to various teaching scenarios.

As enquiries and feedback began pouring into their email boxes and WeChat groups, the inevitable teething problems began to surface.

“At first some users reported having difficulties logging in or downloading and uploading materials, typically on tri-campus platforms such as Moodle, MediaSpace, and Echo360. It became apparent to us that those platforms all have their servers overseas, which impairs accessibility greatly,” Daniel explained. "With a huge amount of traffic coming in from various places, this issue was highlighted.”

However, a change to the existing technology solutions was on the horizon.

Learning Technologies immediately liaised with IT Services and started sourcing alternative platforms with good reputation and locally-hosted services. Within a fortnight, the mainstream web conferencing platform Zoom was adopted for holding live discussions and seminars. For lecture recording and video streaming, one of the world’s top video learning platforms, Panopto was made ready for staff and students, as a replacement for MediaSpace or Echo360.

“Having the new technologies in place so quickly took a great deal of team effort, including support from management to streamline the administrative procedures,” Daniel said. “Our UK counterparts were amazed when told that we had solved the problem inside a week.” Baker Xu from UNNC IT Services recounted with a smile.

As for Moodle, since it was a long-standing major learning hub, a series of measures were instead taken from the network aspect to improve its accessibility. IT Services tripled the number of servers, increased bandwidth and set up a virtual data analysis platform to track the system performance statistics so that any problem can be identified at an early stage.

IT Services also developed a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), a virtual machine equipped with all necessary applications. By logging into the VDI, students can remotely operate an on-campus virtual desktop from their own device, and use the installed software no matter where they are.

As the new semester enters its third week, so far all courses - lab sessions excluded - are being delivered online. Although with glitches, the feedback about this digital transition has been increasingly positive, and the teams have seen quite a few encouraging comments from students and staff.

The Learning Technologies team and IT Services are now working around the clock to prepare for the next phase of teaching, where UNNC plans to accommodate both face-to-face and online tuition. Daniel’s Learning Technologies team is presently working to upgrade the guide to UNNC’s digital teaching solutions. Among other improvements, Baker is leading IT Services to revamp over 100 classrooms, equipping them with ever more advanced technologies.

With the recent return of an additional 100 staff members, the delivery of online teaching is expected to be easier with less difficulties dealing with time differences. Although more technical challenges are likely to arise, Daniel feels positive. “With commitment and teamwork, we have achieved things we couldn’t imagine before," he says. "It is also reassuring to see more and more staff members coming back to Ningbo and making adjustments proactively to cope with the changes. We are now better prepared than ever.”

3月初，宁波诺丁汉大学全面开启了线上教学，近8000名学生和400多名学术教师参与，涵盖了所有本科和硕士专业。

对于一个高度多元化的师生群体，在短时间内从面对面教学全面转变为线上教学无疑面临着一些挑战，比如，需要兼顾多种不同设备和无线网络在速度、稳定性上的差异，保证不同时区、地域的师生的持续访问等。此时，由于大量学校和教育机构开启线上教学，中国的网络已经在超负荷运营了。

宁诺图书馆技术团队身负重任，从2月初着手准备，针对不同的教学场景，编写了线上教学工具和平台使用指南。

线上教学方案刚启动，师生们求助和反馈的邮件、信息便如潮水般涌来，“反映最多的问题是系统登陆及文件传输非常困难，尤其是在使用三校通用的平台Moodle、MediaSpace和Echo360时。这些平台的服务器都位于海外，访客来源由平时的英国、中国、马来西亚三校校园变为全球各地，因此访问不畅的问题变得尤为突出。”宁诺图书馆技术团队负责人戴科星说。

为解决这个问题，图书馆技术团队立即与IT团队联系，寻找可靠的替代平台，最终决定用主流的网络会议平台Zoom作为师生实时讨论和研讨课的平台，用世界领先的视频学习平台之一Panopto代替原有平台用于课程录制和视频直播。

“新技术和平台能在一周之内迅速就位离不开大量的团队协作和努力，包括管理层支持并简化行政程序。”戴科星说。

而对于Moodle这个主要学习中心，宁诺IT团队采取了增加服务器数量、提升带宽等措施来提高其可访问性。IT团队的徐贝说，他们还建立了一个虚拟数据分析平台，用来追踪所有使用中系统的性能数据，以便尽早发现问题。

此外，IT团队还开发了虚拟桌面（VDI），配备了教学所需的各项应用程序。师生可以从自己的设备远程登录，操作校园虚拟桌面，使用安装好的软件。

目前，线上教学进行至第三周，除实验课，宁诺所有课程正按计划进行。图书馆技术团队和IT团队正紧锣密鼓地为下一阶段教学做准备——届时将开启线下线上混合教学。戴科星和图书馆技术团队正根据上一阶段的经验和反馈更新线上教学工具和平台使用指南，而徐贝和IT团队正在对校内100多个教室进行技术升级……

尽管可能遇到更多的技术挑战，但随着约100名教职员工陆续返回宁波、因时差带来的困难减少，宁诺有信心凭借着专业的团队合作一一化解。

Campus security 校园安保热线/邮箱：

0574 88180111 (ext.分机号 1111)

security@nottingham.edu.cn

Campus clinic 校医务室热线/邮箱：

0574 88180120 (ext.分机号 8120) or 15168185997 (for emergency only 紧急情况下)

UNNC.Clinic@nottingham.edu.cn