New semester starts online due to epidemic outbreak

Several universities in China started their spring semester as scheduled on Monday, but students took to online classrooms instead of physical ones because of the ongoing novel coronavirus outbreak.

At Peking University, 2,600 undergraduate courses and 1,800 graduate courses were conducted online via different platforms, including its internal online classroom system, video conferencing and the China University MOOC, according to the university's website.

"The university will provide necessary IT support to ensure that studies and research are not interrupted by the epidemic prevention and control measures," it said.

Many professors have been livestreaming their classes, playing recorded course videos and organizing discussions using instant messaging apps such as WeChat, according to a report by China Youth Daily.

Over at Tsinghua University, reports of its online courses were posted on its website. Dag Westerstahl, a Stockholm University professor who had to cancel his travel plans to Beijing because of the epidemic, taught the course "Foundations of Logic" to 30 students via video conferencing platform Zoom.

A Tsinghua student said the teacher used many tools to interact with the class and gave a three-minute quiz after teaching a topic.

"There are no borders for studying, and one should cherish the opportunity of learning, especially in difficult times," the student was quoted as saying in the university report.

In East China, Xiamen University in Fujian province also rolled out online instructions on Monday.

Meanwhile, Zhejiang University has announced that it will commence the semester online on Feb 24. The university's IT department on Monday started training teachers on the use of online platforms and conducted technical tests.

The shift from physical classrooms to online ones has not been without problems. Students from Tsinghua University and Peking University have complained about network congestion, slow connection speeds and loss of connection to the online classrooms.

The education authority in Shanghai has decided to wait two more weeks before commencing the spring semester as its universities are still preparing to roll out online instruction.

Lu Jing, director of the Shanghai municipal education commission, said on Tuesday that schools and universities will start the semester online starting from March 2.

Li Runqi contributed to the story.