Smart Education: Opportunities and Challenges Induced by COVID-19 Pandemic : [A Survey-Based Study]

The viability of online education and comparisons of modes of education have long been a topic in educational study. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic declared in Spring 2020, a stay-at-home order was made in many cities in the United States and other countries, which caused the conversion of university education entirely online right in the middle of a semester. Students have experienced both face-to-face and online instruction in a single semester with almost the same duration. This paper discusses our survey-based study of over 300 students taking a course from the departments in computing and engineering college of a higher education institution in the US, in order to understand the effectiveness of face-to-face and online education through quantitative and qualitative research methods. The familiarity of online resources is relatively high to students and instructors in the computing and engineering disciplines than other disciplines. That technology use itself might be less likely a barrier in the instruction allows us to focus on the effectiveness of teaching and learning. We also offer discussions on the challenges and opportunities of online education that are likely to be a persistent future education option.