FOREWORD

The pandemic of Covid-19 affected the education sector and led to an increased use of digital teaching and learning at all levels of formal education. After over a year of experience with online teaching and learning it is possible to draw conclusions about its effective and less effective aspects. This publication presents the results of the original reseach carried out by the authors and supported by the Erasmus+ strategic partnership project. The data used in this study were collected among the students and academics at the University of Economics in Bratislava in June 2021, i.e., after they had a three-semester experience with online learning and teaching. During this period the teaching was carried out fully in an online mode at the University of Economics in Bratislava.

The volume focuses on methodological as well as technological aspects of digital teaching and learning and studies the perceptions of academic staff and students at different levels of higher education studies regarding online education and reflects their individual views. Specific attention is paid to students with special needs and the challenges they faced in their studies during the Covid-19 period. It is the aim of the authors to bring the outcomes of this research to readers and to help them not only to understand the experience of academics and students during the pandemic, but, in the first place, to illuminate the needs they faced, the support they lacked and still need, and thus, to indicate the pathways for further development and improvement of online teaching and learning.

Even though the data used in the analysis are based on the responses of university students and academics in economics and business programmes, we believe that they are also relevant for other social science and humanity study fields. We hope that this publication will provide inspiration for the design and redesign of difgital teaching and will help to improve its quality not only during the times when digital teaching becomes a necessity due to extraordinary circumstances such as Covid-19 pandemic, but also when (re)designing standard distance learning study programmes.

Anetta Čaplánová On behalf of editors