Still Open During the Covid-19 Lockdown: An Analysis of Online Students’ Engagement with the Virtual Campus

Abstract

The global pandemic caused by the Covid-19 outbreak and the subsequent mandatory lockdown made university students spend more time at home, changing their daily habits including studying, as a consequence of the forced self-confinement. In this article we describe the changes observed in the connection patterns to the institutional learning management system of the students enrolled in a Spanish online university during the lockdown. Our results show that the students were more likely to connect to the virtual campus, they did so more evenly over the days of the week, and more concentrated in a few hours in the central part of the days. Interestingly, the changes in students’ connection patterns were not associated with their socio-demographic characteristics, although they were affected by their academic trajectory and their academic enrollment.

Julio Meneses

Full Professor

Professor de metodologia de la investigació, director d’Anàlisi de l’Aprenentatge i de la Docència de l’eLearning Innovation Center i investigador de l’Internet Interdisciplinary Institute de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.