As we prepare for distance learning at NUI Galway – we will be deploying our online resources starting tomorrow – I wanted to share a survey I have prepared for Blackboard.

What I wanted to do with this survey was get a baseline understanding, at the start of this process, of the conditions that students find themselves in, and the barriers they may face in engaging with learning at this time. This will serve at least two purposes:

• Assist me in understanding the needs of my students in relation to instruction, and the limitations they face (which will be important when it comes to assessment and grading).
• Provide data at a module and institutional level for evaluating this process. There are valid concerns among many academics that this (necessary) response to emergency conditions might be leveraged to claim as a ‘new normal’ practices that are introduced at this time. Gathering data about student conditions will ensure that these aspects are properly accounted for when considering what to learn from this period.

I am sharing the survey I developed here, as it may be useful to other instructors who find themselves in similar situations to myself. It is currently formatted for Blackboard, so those using that platform should be able to import it into their modules. If I have time later, I will create a platform-neutral version so that others can also make use of it.