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U of A students 'furious' with quality of school's online courses, students' union says

The president of the University of Alberta Students' Union said students accept that they need to be online right now due to the Omicron variant, however, he said students do not accept the "incredibly poor quality" of online learning they are currently receiving

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Students at the University of Alberta are “furious” with the school’s failure to meet basic standards for online courses, said the university’s students’ union.

The president of the University of Alberta Students’ Union said students accept that they need to be online right now due to the Omicron variant, however, he said students do not accept the “incredibly poor quality” of online learning they are currently receiving.

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“There is no reason that after two years, the university is still not able to do things like oversee the use of invasive online proctoring tools,” said students’ union president Rowan Ley.

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“Students generally feel they have not gotten what they have paid for, they have gotten an online education that is substantially worse than it had to be, and they’re upset and frustrated and demanding the university to do something about it.”

Ley said the quality of the previous year of online learning was better and more consistent, while this year students are widely telling the students’ union that it has been “terrible.” He added students are paying 14 per cent more in tuition this year compared to two years ago.

In a survey focused on student experiences since the winter semester began on Jan. 5, 42 per cent of students reported a refusal to record lectures, 37 per cent reported a negative experience with online proctoring and 38 per cent said they face internet instabilities.

The data is from a University of Alberta Students’ Union survey of 1,238 students with a 65 per cent response rate.

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Students’ union leaders are scheduled to meet with representatives of the U of A on Thursday to discuss where things are going with online learning.
Students’ union leaders are scheduled to meet with representatives of the U of A on Thursday to discuss where things are going with online learning. Photo by Shaughn Butts /Postmedia, file

“There’s a lot of classes in which lectures are not being recorded for students who are stuck in a different time zone, or have problems with their internet connection and this is a serious problem because if they are unable to access a lecture in real time, then they are unable to learn the material and it puts them at a big disadvantage,” said Ley.

Twenty-five per cent of students said they are being required to take an in-person midterm before campus even reopens. Ley said this is a situation where those not living in Edmonton have to come into the city just for one exam.

“There’s also the fact that at this point, I think a lot of students don’t feel that it’s safe to be in a classroom with hundreds of people writing an exam because Omicron is on the way down, but it’s certainly not subsided entirely,” he said.

Ley said the university needs to crack down on its unauthorized use of online proctoring. He said the U of A promised last year to restrict the use of proctoring tools to only cases where there were no reasonable alternatives and it had to be approved by the deans. The school has not been enforcing this requirement, said Ley.

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The U of A also needs to announce a predictable return to campus plan for Feb. 28, said Ley.

“I think we’re at the point now where it’s fair for students to expect that and where possible the university needs to make sure that lectures are being recorded and there’s accessibility for students in different time zones or with different levels of wi-fi quality or technology access,” he said.

He pointed to the university’s budget cuts as a source of many of the issues.

Ley said students’ union leaders are scheduled to meet with representatives of the U of A on Thursday to discuss where things are going with online learning. He is hopeful the students’ union will know in a few days what changes are happening as a result of the meetings.

ktaniguchi@postmedia.com

twitter.com/kellentaniguchi

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