ONLINE THERMODYNAMICS EDUCATION UNDER PANDEMIC TIMES, IN CONSTANTA MARITIME UNIVERSITY

Abstract

As well known, the day of 11 March 2020 will remain in the history as the day in which The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared COVID-19 a pandemic. Under these circumstances, the international higher education was forced to remove the campus activities in online. Constanta Maritime University is one of the universities across the world which moved the educational process from face- to- face to online learning. This was a challenging task for the academic, managing and technical administration and for the students, as well. This paper focuses on the disciplined entitled Thermodynamics 1, encountered in the curricula of the Electromechanics Faculty, Constanta Maritime University. The paper describes the steps done during the online education along the semester, both by students and lecturers. At the end of the semester, students and lecturers had to face another challenge: the online examination. Since in the new conditions, the students had to gain the same knowledge as during the classic educational process, we are providing the results obtained by our students. Their exam was scheduled on June 26, 2020. The number of students attending the online examination was 108. The online report for the examination, available on the online platform of the university, indicates that online 17 students were not able to pass the examination (grade 5). The same chart data shows that 19 students have obtained grades in the range (8,00- 8,50), while 2 students obtained grades in the range (9, 50- 10,00). These results are considered to be encouraging for lecturers and students. This type of examination it is seen as a potential long term examination manner, given its benefits: online generation of the test, online verification and not last, transparency.