University of Peloponnese: Educational platforms during pandemic

The covid-19 pandemic that broke out in early 2020 caused an unprecedented health crisis with huge socio-economic consequences. Governments around the world face a twofold challenge: protecting health and human life while promoting economic and social cohesion. Government intervention has taken many forms, either by imposing a lockdown or by providing social distance counseling or by strengthening affected households and businesses. In any case, the development of public policy was deemed necessary. High uncertainty and lack of knowledge about the evolution and duration of the pandemic make it difficult to make decisions and evaluate public policy. Policy makers should carefully weigh the effectiveness and socio-economic consequences of actions against epidemiological data on how the virus has spread to avoid side effects.

The use of distance education has benefited university students, as the pandemic (COVID-19) has limited learning. The use of distance education in various online applications that received a great deal of attention during the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) was evaluated. With major cities under constraint around the world during the pandemic (COVID-19), distance education thrives as an alternative at all levels of education. To save the school year, educational institutions spontaneously responded by introducing distance learning platforms with online resources. However, the advent of the Internet and online learning applications such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Classroom, BigblueButtons, Blackboard, etc., have changed the way distance learning for e-learning through the Internet. The global pandemic COVID-19 has paralyzed cities around the world. Restricting the educational process to educational institutions was the first step in restricting mass gatherings and imposing practices of social distancing.

The University of Peloponnese responded to this great challenge of the pandemic and organized electronic classes in all its departments for distance learning. The teaching staff, having the necessary familiarity with asynchronous and modern distance learning, organized the distance learning provided using the eclass platform for asynchronous distance learning and the platforms Microsoft Teams, BigBlueButtons, Zoom, Skype for Business, Webex, etc. procedure. The University of Peloponnese was modernized with modern servers and cloud spaces in order to increase the technological resources and the possibility for the whole community to participate in the educational processes without unexpected results. IT support was ongoing to support user requests.