**Preface to "Online and Distance Learning during Lockdown Times: COVID-19 Stories"**

The rapid spread of COVID-19 in early 2020 changed many aspects of society including that of education all over the world. On 11 March 2020, The World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 as a pandemic. Exponential rises in infection rates meant many countries began to introduce public health measures to protect their population. When these were not adequate to control the spread of COVID-19, governments began to introduce ever more severe measures including locking down most areas of social and economic activity. Physical buildings and spaces in schools, colleges, and universities were closed (with some exceptions) too.

Teachers, school leaders and other stakeholders with responsibility for providing education at local and national levels were faced with the unprecedented challenges when providing education without the use of physical classrooms, lecture theatres and laboratories. Teachers and school leaders had several days, if not hours, to prepare to move their teaching online.

The Special Issue published in the journal Education Sciences under the title "Online and Distance Learning during Lockdown Times: COVID-19 Stories" brought together empirical evidence from a diverse range of countries across the world on the use of online, remote, and blended teaching and learning methods across all levels of educational contexts during these unprecedented times.

The present volume is a collection of papers from the Special Issue covering research into teaching and learning in Higher Education (post-secondary) contexts. They represent the international experience of online teaching and learning from the first year of the lockdown, from March 2020 (the start of the first lockdowns in many countries) to about March 2021. These 12 months represent different waves of lockdowns in our authors' national contexts and how teachers and learners had to adapt to the challenging conditions imposed on them during these difficult times.

The first paper in this volume is by Zohra Lassoued and colleagues offering insights on teaching and learning during the pandemic in four countries in the Arab world (Algeria, Egypt, Palestine ad Iraq). Based on data collected using online questionnaires with academics and students during the first wave of lockdown, the authors report the barriers to engagement in teaching and learning activities from pedagogical, technical, organisational, and financial perspectives.

Victoria Abou-Khalil and colleagues' paper also offers an insight into the experience of university students' lockdown learning in low-resource settings in Lebanon. Using Moore's interaction framework as a theoretical model and data collected form students through an online questionnaire, the authors identified a range of strategies students to maintain leaner–content, learner–learner, and learner–teacher engagement. They propose a 10-level guide for engaging students in online learning environments which could have potential uses in education beyond the pandemic.

In the next paper, Marcos Garc´ıa-Alberti and colleagues consider the impact of the pandemic on teaching and learning issues in civil engineering in Spain and Peru. In addition to the research methodology, their paper offers a detailed account of their learning design approach for transforming predominantly practice-oriented subject content and activities for online delivery which might be useful for other practitioners, too. Findings from their study have potential applications for incorporating technologies to leaning opportunities for courses in other STEM areas.

The paper by Sehar un Nisa Hassan and colleagues is based on their research carried out in Saudi Arabia examining undergraduate and postgraduate students' academic self-perception and satisfaction with their online learning during the pandemic. Data were collected using an online questionnaire with 378 students during a semester of online learning. Based on the data from a majority female student sample (71% of the sample), their findings highlight the range of concerns that students have had during their online learning. Recommendations emerging from the paper would be useful for course designers, teachers, and technical help providers who have had the task of moving from in-person teaching to the online delivery of courses.

In the next paper, Kasiyah Junus and colleagues report the results of their research carried out in Indonesia in which they examined the lecturers' readiness for online teaching as they were required to do so with the closing of physical buildings in universities. The authors were also interested in the obstacles that academics have had to overcome in providing classes online. Using a mixed methods approach involving a sample of university teachers representing all provinces in Indonesia, data were collected on teachers' perspectives at the early stages of lockdown. Results show how teachers adapted to online teaching and various concerns that they had about course design and student learning.

The paper by Ati Suci Dian Martha and colleagues also offers perspectives from Indonesia in which they report students' readiness for online learning. Using a questionnaire as the data collection method (n = 482 from 22 universities), students' leaning experience during the first few weeks of lockdown was explored. The results show the differences in the level of readiness according to the stage of their academic programme (i.e., year of study), academic/subject area of study, e-learning culture of the university, gender, and the region. The study also identifies several barriers to e-learning and offers a set of recommendations for implementing online learning.

The paper of Juan Carlos Mosquera Feijoo and colleagues investigates students' experience in ´ Engineering courses delivered using the flipped classroom model and Open Educational Resources (OERs). Based on data collected from Spain and Peru, the paper provides a detailed account of the learning design involved in developing and delivering teaching, which might be relevant for others who teach similar subjects and who might be considering transforming their courses for online and blended delivery. Based on a survey of students during the one-semester delivery of the modules, the authors highlight the roles of OERs and the effectiveness of the flipped classroom approach.

Engineering is the teaching and learning context of the research reported in the paper by Trina Johnson Kilty and colleagues from the USA. Online teaching during the lockdown periods posed challenges for engineering educators to think about how to deliver practical laboratory-based classes online. Their paper offers findings from a study in which undergraduate university students and a secondary teacher (pre-services) planned a set of lessons for a STEM outreach programme for K-12 students.

Jana Pocsov ´ a and colleagues' paper is based on their research into redesigning a mathematics ´ course at a university in Slovakia. The article provides a detailed account of the learning design involved in redesigning the module for online delivery. Based on the data gathered from multiple methods, e.g., students' grades, a questionnaire survey, and analytics from the Virtual Learning Environment, the authors outline their findings on the effectiveness of the online delivery of the maths lessons.

Chris G Lambert and Allan E W Rennie's paper reports the experience from a second year engineering module from a UK university. Based on data collected from academic staff and students on emergency remote teaching and learning using several methods (self-reflection, summative and formative assessments, and student feedback), the paper outlines the challenges that the teachers and course designers faced in making the move from the face to face to online delivery of a module. The paper outlines the variety of ways online delivery engaged students' learning experience as well as challenges with group work and social engagement. Implication for teachers, students and institutions are provided which have the potential for integrating online methods for predominantly campus-based courses.

The paper by Mar´ıa Teresa Costado Dios and Jose Carlos Pi ´ nero Charlo explored students' ˜ perception of their learning experience from a comparative perspective, relating to in person and online learning during the different stages of the pandemic. Based on a descriptive analysis of data from a questionnaire completed by 100 primary education degree students in Spain, the authors identified implications for blended learning approaches as we move beyond the pandemic.

The final paper of this volume is by Arkadiusz Januszewski and Małgorzata Grzeszczak who investigated the challenging circumstances faced by students who undertake internship placements in organisations. These students faced additional challenges due to the lack of organisations that were willing to offer internship opportunities during the pandemic. The authors report their findings from a study on an e-internship initiative. Based on the data collected using questionnaire surveys, they report the students' perception of the effectiveness of the e-internship programme.

The authors in this Special Issue reflected on how educational institutions might need to rethink their teaching and learning provisions as we learn to live with health and other emergencies, such as COVID-19. The knowledge that we can gain from exploring the developments of teaching and learning approaches in many countries and educational contexts in response to the pandemic would be useful for all stakeholders in education in order to reconsider the future of education, and to meet the challenges in the months and possibly years to come.

> **Palitha Edirisingha** *Editor*
