Université Gustave Eiffel drew on the experience of the Digital Campus of the former UPEM (now the Digital & Media Department of the CIPEN), which has been implementing digital training means and promoting open and remote teaching since 2008. This strengthened the resilience of the establishment.

Following its creation in January 2020, in March 2020 the CIPEN was forced to structure its services and the tasks of its officers differently, in order to respond to various imperatives and anticipate potential needs. In the weeks prior to closure, the CIPEN was able to concertedly re-organise itself, with a view to assisting, supporting and guiding teachers and teacher-researchers in the implementation of their teaching continuity measures.

Concrete actions were set in motion:

• The reinforcement, technically speaking, of the digital teaching platform thanks to the IT department (DGDIN)
• The creation of a remote-teaching guide
• The creation of remote training modules for teachers and teacher-researchers
• Individual support and training for teachers in the setting-up of remote classes
• The creation of a temporary hotline for audio-visual and digital tool queries
• The promotion of user-friendly tools to maintain contact with students
• The setting-up of tools such as Zoom to enable teachers/teacher-researchers to continue organising group sessions and deliver lectures
• The creation of a discussion group and hotline with a hundred volunteer teachers on Discord (The Monitors) and a discussion group with student delegates, also on Discord (Student Monitors)
• The setting-up of remote language teaching

Similarly, in readiness for the 2020/2021 academic year, the CIPEN wished to build a stock of audio-visual equipment (graphic tablets, webcams, microphones, headsets, etc.) in order to equip teachers individually. Given the international scale of the crisis, world shortages in audio-visual equipment did not allow for this stock to be made available immediately. This delay was rapidly offset by priority deliveries for our establishment by the holders of public orders.

The end of 2020 was also marked by the preparation of the 2021 calendar year, mostly via teleworking and remote teaching for students.

Feedback from Glenn Le Borgne, educational engineer

‘The whole school went into action to ensure teaching continuity for our 500 students: the teaching department, the IT Department, Student Affairs and of course the teaching staff. The transition periods to 100% remote generated a significant and relatively stressful rise in workload. We had to reassure the students and the teachers. We managed this through dialogue, the implementation of harmonised communication means, the use of the simplest software and procedures possible and personalised tutoring, etc.

Following the announcement of the first lockdown, we instinctively looked to our students and their online habits to ensure the continuity of lessons as rapidly as possible. Some of them were already working on their projects via Discord and there was great enthusiasm for this tool. We drew on their experience; the students created a server, replicated a virtual version of the rooms on the campus, including the cafeteria, and I then drafted a tutorial adapted to remote teaching techniques.

Within two days, all of EIVP was on Discord, and for the entire duration of the lockdown we only had to cancel two or three lessons! This said, remote teaching has its limits; attending six to nine hours of synchronous lessons per day is exhausting for the students and the MCQ format with limited response time creates extra stress. The teaching department rapidly adjusted the classes so that half of them took place asynchronously, with teachers providing commented PowerPoint presentations. For exams, homework assignments with longer submission deadlines were advocated. During the November lockdown, we maintained this form of organisation, but changed our video-conference systems to Teams and Zoom in response to the needs of professionals. From the user point of view, the shift was relatively simple; on the administrative side it required a more sustained effort.’

‘The crisis was not all negative; it strengthened the ties between students, teachers and staff.’