Table 3.

Main Themes and Supporting Quotes from Focus Group Discussion with Academic Staff (n = 8) and Students (n = 9)

Strengths	Weakness	Opportunities	Challenges
■ Availability of different online platforms ■ Familiarity of staff with online platforms ■ Availability of IT support throughout the day ■ Continuous training ■ Visual aids to support E-Learning ■ Skills enhancement ■ Students support. Overall, make continuation of the education process.	■ Difficulty to handle group sessions online ■ Missing objectives that could not be met during the online process ■ Reduced quality of communication compared to onsite education. ■Internet problems ■ Communication with students need more time ■ Reduced active learning compared to onsite education ■ Difficulty in managing students participation and attendance ■ Online assessment validity issues. Health issues: may affect one’s vision	■ Open the door to the development of new teaching approaches ■ Increase the number of students that can be reached. ■ Time-saving if merging students groups is appropriate. ■ Sessions recording can be used to make the material available ■ Can add online courses Add E- learning courses. ■ Lots can be done online e.g, meetings	■ Maintaining good internet access ■ Enhancement of technology skills to deal with technical issues ■ Maintaining functionality of the online platforms ■ Isolation during online process. ■ How to maintain valid students assessment process. ■ How to effectively communicate with others ■ home may not be the ideal place for having classes
Supporting quotes “….at first I got panic when the shift to full distance education took place … but with the experience I have with some distance educational platforms, with the continuous IT support we were receiving, things went more than I expected … now I feel more comfortable teaching online …” Academic staff 1 “. I feel relaxed with the process of distance education … for the majority of the courses I am taking now. the situation may differ when I move to higher levels of study … ” Student 2	Supporting quotes “ … as a lab instructor, teaching fully online will not allow students to meet some of the learning outcomes, with blended learning feel more relaxed when I think of my students and the lab skills they should acquire … ” Academic staff 3 “… I experienced some technical issue while I was performing an online exam … being under lots of pressure will not allow me to think of distance education as a good option.” Student 4	Supporting quotes “ … I Learn lots of things in a short period of time because of the emergency situation and the shift to distance education, which I could not do in normal time.” Academic staff 2 “I am making full use of the recoded lectures … sometimes during the lecture you cannot follow what is being said … it is very good to have a backup.” Student 1	Supporting quotes “ … a challenging issue is how to make good use of the technology infrastructure that we have. but time constrain, it is difficult … for me distance education is a time consuming process … the course I teach requires lots of preparatory work which is reduced when meeting face to face with students … ” Academic staff 2 “I am a kind of a very social person … I enjoy face-to-face discussions with my classmates and my instructors … I learn a lot from the face-to-face communication. I do not think I can cope with the online communication … ” Student 1