On-line delivery of marine engineering courses during COVID-19 pandemic

Among the myriad of calamities and changes brought about by Covid-19 in recent times, the push toward online education in all disciplines throughout the spectrum of teaching and learning is quite significant. Online education was thrust upon all levels of educational organizations as the primary solution to complete educational courses that were started before the pandemic. Due to the magnitude of the issue that necessitated unprecedented solutions, educational institutes adopted various contingency measures, which can now be investigated and evaluated 18 months after the pandemic broke out to ascertain their relative success. This paper explores the differences that students and lecturers in two renowned maritime educational institutes in Asia-Pacific experi-enced between online and on-campus education/training. The study centered around cohorts of Bachelor of Marine Engineering stu-dents across all years and their lecturers at both maritime educational institutes. The study utilizes a descriptive normative approach, with data collected using online survey questionnaires.

The study further investigates the methods of assessments employed in online education and how they affect the quality of the end product, i.e., the marine engineer. As future solutions, several improvements to mitigate the problems associated with such assessment regimes are discussed.