2020 has changed the face of higher education. Around the world, schools have closed their campuses and are switching to online learning during the Coronavirus pandemic. However, simply moving courses to a video platform will not produce engaged, successful students.

Take the lessons learned from the failures of the Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs. MOOCs took the best lecturers from the most prestigious universities in the world and made their courses available online. However, MOOCs only have a completion rate of about 4 percent, according to a 2019 study by academics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Clearly, just putting in-classroom content online doesn’t work.

We are now faced with a situation where nearly all instruction has moved online. Professors, students, and many administrators are, understandably, frustrated. Professors are not prepared for online teaching, students are not prepared for online learning, and universities are not prepared for online course delivery.

Online education is not simply improvising with the internet; it is a carefully designed and executed practice that requires technology and expertise.