Almost all academic staff around the world had to transform their residential courses into web-based equivalents in a short while due to COVID-19 pandemic last year (Sharma & Bumb, 2021). Moreover, following the physical lockdown of educational institutions, all academic staff suddenly became online educators, regardless of their distance education (DE) experience and the support they needed in this regard (Baggaley, 2020). However, this transition has led to a new instructional design experience, far beyond simply changing the delivery mode. DE offers new learning opportunities and ways of participation and engagement. At this point, the necessary preparations and instructional practice should be planned rigorously to carry out successful online education. Although DE is a well-studied research area, academic staff who cannot find a valid route map during the transition process to DE usually have to learn from their experiences. Even though the Internet has been used as a communication and sharing medium for a long time, it is remarkable that there is a lack of studies on how to convey education onto the Web and to conduct educational activities over it. New instructional models and guidelines are needed to design and carry out education using new technologies and tools offered by the web. The current study investigates what works went well or poorly considering the experiences of academic staff during the rapid transition to DE. It aims to reveal the key points in the implementation and improvement of rapid instructional design practices for DE. In emergency situations, the steps to be followed and the issues to be considered in effectively delivering education via the web will provide important implications for policy makers, institutions, and especially academic staff. Beyond the debates on whether DE will be equivalent to face-to-face training, it is expected that current DE experiences will shape the future demands of both students, academic staff, and institutions. In addition, the results of the study can guide academic staff and institutions that desired to move the existing face-to-face courses to the web environment in a limited time frame. In this context, following research question was formed.

What are academic staff’s experiences during rapid transition of residential courses to online settings?

This study adopts a case study approach. The study is an exploratory qualitative research carried out in authentic conditions. The study group comprises 25 academic staff with different academic ranks and majors based on maximum variation sampling technique. Among the participants, 13 (52%) were male while 12 (48%) were female. Their ages ranged from 31 to 52, with the average age of 39. The data were collected through an online interview form consisting of 13 standardized open-ended questions. Interviewing is especially functional to reveal the participants' thoughts, impressions, feelings, and intentions about a particular circumstance or phenomenon (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006). The personal data survey was also combined with front page of the online interview form to gather participants' demographic features and information about their ICT and DE experience. Online interview form was sent to the participants via e-mail and social networking sites. Thus, a detailed and rich data set was obtained for qualitative analysis by reaching out the participants with diverse characteristics in a short time who were in geographically distinct locations (Creswell, 2012). First of all, 6 participants were discarded from the sampling due to lack of detail. The data were analyzed through a technique similar to the grounded theory to some extend. In other meaning, the findings were revealed by ground-up approach based solely on research data. Data analysis started with open coding. When the number of new codes per data source reached saturation, data analysis continued with axial coding, and then selective coding. As a result of the coding, more than 500 free codes are distributed under 21 themes. Some of the data were also encoded by other authors to find the rate of agreement between coders. The average percentage of pairwise agreement between three coders was found to be 84%.

The themes revealed as a result of qualitative analysis are as follows: Instructional framework, Course contents, Learning process and outcomes, Interaction, Course modality, Readiness, Time management, Student engagement, Student evaluation, Sharing, Support, DE tools, Students, Academic staff, Infrastructure and physical conditions, Institutional directions, Technical problems, Education in emergency conditions, Copyright, Attitude towards DE, Pros and cons of distance education. Regarding findings, learning management systems (LMSs) have facilitated the adaptation of academic staff to DE. Although all the features of LMSs are not known exactly, the academic staff stated that these tools were generally easy to use. However, they had difficulties in presenting digital content on a suitable pedagogical basis. Moreover, it was determined that the academic staff could not use the cooperative learning pedagogy sufficiently. The support services provided by the institutional support units generally have only technical aspect; however, the academic staff needed support for suitable pedagogical route in the online environment as well. Although it is seen that the follow-up of student activities becomes difficult in the synchronous dimension of the course, it is thought that this situation is an extension of the teaching strategy adopted. Besides, DE increased extracurricular communication between students and academic staff. A significant part of these communications stemmed from the orientation needs of students about the DE course processes. The risk of the course content’s becoming public was found to be one of the major concern of the academic staff. In conclusion, the results showed that half of the academic staff intend to use DE technologies in the future within either full distance or blended learning setting, while almost one-third of them thought that DE would not replace face-to-face education and had a negative attitude towards DE. Lastly, the mandatory transition experience to DE is expected to increase blended education activities in the post-pandemic period.

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