There is certainly pressure of going online, either fully or at least blended. There are expectations from students, department, school, university and also pressure from outside of the academia. However, when going online you probably might need some support. And you might notice that you don’t get or find the all the support you need or in some cases you experience even resistance from outside. Below, I share some of my own experiences (which are unfortunately shared by some colleagues of mine)

Institutional help might not have practical understanding
Luckily nowadays there are usually some instances within organizations that help with technical issues when going online. In the best case, there might be even some pedagogical support available as well. Their help and support is of course, always appreciated. However, these might not always help you – at least in the extent you expect. Unfortunately, the technical support has very rarely any relevant teaching experience and the solutions they provide might not have any practical relevance to actual online teaching practice. Also, most pedagogical experts do not have actual experience or knowledge of online teaching. Teaching online e.g. unmotivated youngsters in a mass course context is very different than teaching motivated adults in a small group in a live setting. 

The management might have unrealistic picture
While the technical and pedagogical support might not be able to help you as much as you need, they usually have the same orientation and are with you. However, this might not hold true in the case of management, that can be your supervisor, department, school or university. Unfortunately, the management usually does not have any relevant recent teaching experience. In most cases, even if the management has some recent teaching experience it is from small group teaching of advanced and motivated students, which is only very marginal amount of the overall teaching. The management usually does not have any idea what online teaching actually is, and for instance how much and what kind of effort is needed to create an online course. Common setup is that the management thinks that it’s only about recording your inclass lecture videos and uploading your slides.

A big misconception especially from the side of management is that online course saves automatically money and effort compared to traditional course. This not always the case – and sometimes it’s far from it.  Online course is a way to conduct and deliver a course, but it should not be assumed to automatically to be more economic. It can be (at some point, maybe after many years), but not necessarily. Creating an online course usually needs much much more tools, preparing, learning and problem solving from the teachers end than a traditional course. Online course can/should be done if the content and situation (e.g. distance) needs that. Saving money is a bad motivation of creating an online course and leads likely to serious disappointments which are usually directed to completely wrong address. 

Even bigger problem is that if the management thinks that they know how to conduct an online course. Good – if they can, but very rarely this is the case. If/when the management actually does not know they should admit this and not to try to infer. The management of an airline company should not take over the pilot in flying, and the same should apply within university teaching as well. 

Great, if you decide to go online and super if you get good support. That’s how it should go. However, things do not always go that way. But it’s good to know beforehand that everything might not go that nice way. This is my contribution to that.