COVID-19 Impacts on Geoscience Academic Instructional Environments in Spring 2020

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This data brief provides preliminary insights from early responses about the changes in instructional environments during the Spring 2020 term. All responding departments shifted from in-person to online-only instruction during the Spring 2020 term. In addition to in-person courses, approxi­mately one-third of departments already were offering online course courses at the start of the Spring 2020 term, and another third had flipped/blended courses comprised of a combination of planned online and in-person instruction. The majority of responding departments converted lab sections into virtual or at-home activities, and nearly two-thirds con­verted lab sections to computational approaches. Across most departments, field courses were converted to virtual experiences (68%) or were cancelled (58%).

Data Brief 2020-006 chart 01: Changes in lab sections/classes during Spring 2020 (credit: AGI)

Data Brief 2020-006 chart 02: Field course changes during Spring 2020 (credit: AGI)

Nearly all departments deferred both faculty and student research during the Spring 2020 term, and nearly one-third cancelled planned research activities. Active research was more frequently cancelled for undergraduate students (38% of departments) than for graduate students or faculty mem­bers. In addition, the mode of research for students was changed to virtual or computational for just over three-quar­ters of departments. Two academic departments reported no impact to some research activities for undergraduate students and faculty during the Spring 2020 term.

Data Brief 2020-006 chart 03: Research impacts during Spring 2020 (credit: AGI)

We will continue to provide current snapshots on the impacts of COVID-19 on the geoscience enterprise throughout the year. For more information, and to participate in the study, please visit: https://www.americangeosciences.org/workforce/ covid19

Funding for this project is provided by the National Science Foundation (Award #2029570). The results and interpretation of the survey are the views of the American Geosciences Institute and not those of the National Science Foundation.