Barriers to Removing Barriers of Online Learning

In response to the turmoil and the anxiety created by the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities transitioned to online delivery with limited support and resources. University teachers adapted to the online environment to ensure the effectiveness of students' reaching their outcomes. Using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a framework, this study analysed ethnographic data from two experienced university teacher narratives about their online teaching strategies in two different university settings, in a developed and a developing country. The results showed that teachers used more or less similar strategies based on the affordances provided within the Learning Management Systems (LMS) and by also accessing other existing technological tools. However, the results showed inequalities in students' participation due to their financial, economic, and socio-cultural backgrounds. This paper emphasises the need for investigation into personalised and inclusive learning for consolidating and accommodating social and geographical barriers to minimise inequalities in students' access to education. Students should not be deprived by the digital and technical divide limiting equal opportunities for learning and development in the so-called ‘global village' in the 21st century and beyond. © 2023 by the Association for Information Systems.

Survey data on the impact of COVID-19 on parental engagement across 23 countries.

This data article describes the dataset of the International COVID-19 Impact on Parental Engagement Study (ICIPES). ICIPES is a collaborative effort of more than 20 institutions to investigate the ways in which, parents and caregivers built capacity engaged with children's learning during the period of social distancing arising from global COVID-19 pandemic. A series of data were collected using an online survey conducted in 23 countries and had a total sample of 4,658 parents/caregivers. The description of the data contained in this article is divided into two main parts. The first part is a descriptive analysis of all the items included in the survey and was performed using tables and figures. The second part refers to the construction of scales. Three scales were constructed and included in the dataset: 'parental acceptance and confidence in the use of technology', 'parental engagement in children's learning' and 'socioeconomic status'. The scales were created using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Multi-Group Confirmatory Analysis (MG-CFA) and were adopted to evaluate their cross-cultural comparability (i.e., measurement invariance) across countries and within sub-groups. This dataset will be relevant for researchers in different fields, particularly for those interested in international comparative education.