THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 VENTILATION REQUIREMENTS ON THE TEMPERATURE AND AIR QUALITY IN UNIVERSITY CLASSROOMS

The current study analyzes educational buildings aiming to determine the long and short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic situation regarding the usage patterns and indoor environmental quality standards. Through monitoring campaigns in various classrooms, data has been gathered on temperature and indoor air quality which has made it possible to obtain a picture of the current situation in rooms with forced ventilation systems as well as in rooms where only natural ventilation is available. Results show that the CO2 concentration levels remain controlled regardless of the number of students in spaces equipped with mechanical ventilation;however, in classrooms where only natural ventilation is available, these values vary depending on the occupancy and, when attempting to maintain the recommended levels, indoor thermal conditions are greatly affected by the external weather. The factors with the greatest impact on comfort are airspeed and outside temperature, which in several cases have resulted in very low indoor temperatures that do not comply with the legally required limits. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee AEIPRO, Spain. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/bync-nd/4.0/)

THE ADAPTATION OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT COURSES INTO VIRTUAL TEACHING DUE TO COVID-19

Due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19, the course 2019-2020 passed, brusquely, from in-person to virtual teaching. The rapid actuation of the university and its schools to transform the lessons to a virtual mode caused a dispersion of approaches. After one month and the troubles with software, it was decided to do both the teaching and evaluations virtually until the end of course. The process of virtual teaching suffered constant changes due to the adaptation needs of the professors together with their lack of experience and also due to the expectation's adjustments from students. The autumn semester 2020-2021, although it began with some perspectives of semi-in-person teaching, it rapidly shifted to 100% virtual teaching. This study analyzes the teaching models before and after pandemic in five groups of two engineering schools in Terrassa and Barcelona and in two master and bachelor courses on projects and project management. The study analyzes the different teaching strategies, tools and activities that teachers used to give the best response to students. Moreover, students evaluated these experiences and tools during the course. © 2021 by the authors

SUPPORT OF UNIVERSITY TO VIRTUAL TEACHING DUE TO COVID-19 AND THE RESPONSE FROM TEACHERS

Since the first confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, virtual teaching is a reality in universities. Each university had a particular way to confront this process and, in big universities with many schools such as the UPC, schools had the capacity to decide their own ways following some directives from presidency. This study analyses three proposals followed by the engineering schools ETSEIAT, FIB and ETSEIB. Moreover, this study analyses how teachers deal with this change and, in close relation to the dynamics proposed by them in virtual classrooms, the study analyzes the formative proposals and accompanying given by schools and the university to professors do better adapt to this new situation. The study also analyzes the response that these proposals received from professors and how they applied these changes in the way they teach and the student's satisfaction based on questionaries. © 2021 by the authors

Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the energy consumption of university buildings.

Exceptional pandemic lockdown measures enabled singular experiments such as analysing the energy consumption of vacant buildings. This paper assesses the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the energy use of academic buildings. For this purpose, weather-adjusted energy use was compared before and during the lockdown, including different levels of lockdown restrictions. Results obtained for the 83 academic buildings of Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech (UPC) reveal that the avoided energy consumption amounted to over 4.3 GWh during the post-pandemic year. However, the results indicate that academic buildings were still using approximately 46.9% of their typical energy consumption during strict lockdown. This revelation emphasizes the high environmental burden of buildings, regardless of whether they are occupied.