Could faculty at a major research university still hold classes electronically after a natural or man-made disaster?

Faculty members in the Department of Health Policy and Administration in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Public Health asked themselves that question after considering the devastating effects Hurricane Katrina had on Tulane University in New Orleans, which shut down operations and sent students searching for other schools.

To answer the question, a small group of professors recently ran a continuity test on their own classes.

Photograph of Dr. Bill Zelman

With the end of the semester just around the corner, faculty members knew it would be impractical to conduct a full-scale disaster drill. Instead, they opted for a test of four health policy and administration graduate-level classes and restricted the simulated "low-level" event to two days in early April.

Seventy-six students participated in the test. The faculty used several different electronic methods to notify students of the event, including e-mails and departmental and class Web site postings. The students were told that the classes would not be held on campus, and they were instructed to follow instructions for electronic classes as outlined in their announcement. The classes were then conducted online using several alternatives, including educational software and Web conferencing. For most of the students, this was their first exposure to an online learning environment.

"We were very interested in understanding whether or not the students would accept and even embrace an alternative teaching methodology, especially on such short notice," said Zelman. "We also wanted to be able to gauge what level of disruption would occur and whether or not the faculty would feel comfortable with this format. There were a lot of unknowns."

According to Zelman, overall feedback from the students was generally positive. Almost all of the students found the process of notification and logging in to be relatively easy. A majority of students also thought the online environment was a fair or good alternative to the classroom.

But there were some concerns as well. A few students complained that they had to use up cell phone minutes to dial into the audio teleconferencing mode that accompanied a guest lecture, while others complained of the small computer screen window showing the faculty member during lecture. Others were distracted by technical difficulties and the online format.

"This is really a baby step in terms of continuity," said Zelman. "It's clear that we can continue some, if not many, of our classes if students were prevented from attending classes on campus, depending on the circumstances. At the same time, we still have a lot of work to do to make the process easy to access and administer. We also have some work to do to better train and prepare faculty members, some of whom may not feel comfortable teaching in an online capacity."

Photograph of Dr. Jim Porto

"In the case of a major flu epidemic, the key to containing the impact is to use what's called "social distancing" - keeping people from congregating near one another so the disease doesn't spread quickly. In that case, you don't want people coming to classes. But you don't want to shut down the academic process entirely either. For example, some people may be near graduation and need to finish their coursework. In that scenario, you want to have an alternative plan that can continue classes with as smooth a transition as possible, especially if the disaster occurs over an extended period of time."

Faculty members say in the future they plan to expand the number of classes involved in the test. They also hope to be able to test and improve upon the technology that was used during their initial test and even explore other "low-tech" options. 

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School of Public Health contact: Gene Pinder, (919) 966-9756 or gpinder@email.unc.edu.

News Services contact: Becky Oskin, (919) 962-8596 or becky_oskin@unc.edu.