In March 2020, lecturers and course coordinators, with a tremendous collective effort, shifted overnight to online teaching for the on-campus master’s students. Short course students were encouraged to return home and continue their courses online. Short course participants yet to start were offered the possibility to shift to online learning or postpone their registration with some courses being postponed altogether.

To adapt teaching activities to the reality of the coronavirus pandemic, ITM implemented a ‘flipping the classroom’ principle with fewer contact hours and more guided self-study. We also made investments into the digital professionalisation of teaching staff and infrastructure. This allowed us to switch between face-to-face teaching and learning, hybrid teaching (some students face-to-face, others online) and interactive synchronous online classes.

We aim to further develop our longer-term digitalisation policy in view of the learnings from the corona crisis and the ensuing changes in the demand of students, expectations from lecturers and other stakeholders, and also as a future-proof strategy to expand and diversify our student body.