Organisational resilience in a higher education institution: Maintaining academic continuity, academic rigour and student experience in the face of major disruption (Covid-19 pandemic)

Shafi, Adeela ORCID: 0000-0002-6265-5024 and Middleton, Tristan ORCID: 0000-0001-8111-3856 (2024) Organisational resilience in a higher education institution: Maintaining academic continuity, academic rigour and student experience in the face of major disruption (Covid-19 pandemic). Journal of Applied Teaching and Learning, 7 (1). doi:10.37074/jalt.2024.7.1.4

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Abstract

This paper aims to understand how an institution responds to major disruption such as the Covid-19 pandemic by focusing in detail on one university in England. The study collected data from a range of levels, including survey data from students and staff as well as recruitment data, degree outcomes and financial impact to explore how academic continuity, academic rigour and student experience can be maintained. Using a systems-based approach and drawing on an organisational resilience framework, findings demonstrated that the case study university had made a positive adjustment to the pandemic. It managed to maintain academic continuity, rigour, and the student experience. What was less clear were the longer-term impacts and the extent of that resilience as defined in the organisational resilience literature which focuses on adversity as an opportunity to learn and land in a better overall place after adversity rather than return to a ‘business as before’ place. This is applicable to other universities who made similar adjustments in response to the pandemic. A better understanding of organisational resilience in higher education institutions is important in order to enable them to plan for other such disruptions that are part of a modern, connected and global world.

Item Type:	Article
Article Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Academic rigour; COVID-19; higher education; organisational resilience; student experience
Subjects:	L Education > L Education (General) L Education > LB Theory and practice of education L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Education and Science
Research Priority Areas:	Society and Learning
Depositing User:	Anne Pengelly
Date Deposited:	28 Nov 2023 16:16
Last Modified:	09 Jan 2024 10:30
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/13505

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