Making online education effective and engaging has been a policy priority in the higher education (HE) sector since the COVID-19 pandemic arose in 2020. Based on an online survey and qualitative interviews, we examine experiences of HE students and teachers in Hong Kong, and provide recommendations that can enable countries/economies to leverage on the good practices of online education to rejuvenate HE in the post-COVID era. We find a need for greater institutional support beyond its current availability. Students’ perception of online education is less optimistic than what such labeling as “digital natives” suggests. However, with time, online education is being viewed more positively. Teachers find their online education workload to be higher. More female teachers cite difficulties in balancing work and life, while older teachers report more technological difficulties. Since many respondents come from public affairs programs, which emphasize interaction in the classroom, the findings suggest that a rethinking of pedagogical strategies of public affairs education is required. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s).

How can higher education institutions promote online education effectively? While education technology literature has offered various pedagogical prescriptions, inadequate attention has been paid to the individual-level factors that facilitate or prevent participant engagement, such as their e-readiness, work style, and work-life balance. Using data from a unique online survey of teachers and students in the three sites of Hong Kong, London and Singapore, this paper seeks to explore the ongoing experience of online education under the COVID-19 episode in a comprehensive manner that covers both perspectives of instructors and learners. It seeks to understand what kind of university-level support is available and how they are received by respondents, which offers timely insights as an unprecedented number of universities around the world are being pushed to embrace online education. Preliminary results suggest that while technological support is necessary, it needs to be supplemented by other policy instruments, such as flexible deadline and assessments or wellbeing and distressing advice, so as to help tackle the challenge of balancing teaching/learning with caring responsibilities while working/studying from home. Copyright © 2020 APPAM.