Introduction
Recently, the world passed the one-year mark of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most challenging global crises “since World War II.”1 The impact on education systems has been particularly “staggering.”2 At the peak of the pandemic, school closures affected 1.6 billion students, including more than 200 million in higher education3 as universities were abruptly required to shift their programs online due to campus closures.
While many experts predict an end to the strictest public health measures in the near future, there is concomitantly a realization that we must transition into a “new normal.” For universities, online learning will, in some capacity, “be a part of education for the foreseeable future,”4 as a result of both pre-existing trends as well as pandemic-related developments in higher education over the past year. The question becomes: in what ways can universities leverage online learning as a long-term resource?
