RAPID: Collaborative Research: Increased access to infrastructure for distance education in hydrologic science

新冠肺炎大流行导致美国大多数大学以及全球许多大学突然转向在线教学。由于准备时间有限，水资源和水文学教授和讲师必须至少在2020年春季和夏季学期快速生成在线内容，并且这种形式越来越有可能延续到2020年秋季学期。与此同时，各机构和个别教师在获取和准备在线授课方面存在很大差异。在水文学科学中，我们期望向在线教学过渡的准备工作以及由此产生的学习将根据项目规模、机构、教师经验和教学支持的可用性而有所不同。综上所述，由于这些关键的差异，存在着将水文教学分为“有”和“没有”的重大风险。在为应对COVID-19大流行而从传统学习向远程学习过渡的过程中，平等获得关键支持和教学资源，对于缩小这一差距和平等获得高质量的水文科学教学至关重要。因此，我们的目标是为教师，最终是学生提供水文科学方面的教育基础设施和培训，以应对COVID-19大流行。该计划将实施六项主要活动，以达到我们的目标，包括：(1)通过小组讨论和调查模板促进教师和学生之间的双向交流；(2)通过我校的HydroShare平台实现课程资料共享；(3)开发开源、数据驱动的教育资源；(4)建立水文科学客座讲座数据库；(5)利用远程教育材料和平台进行社区培训和支持；(6)举办一系列研讨会，编写一份水文科学远程教育综合报告。这些活动的结果将是一个公平的竞争环境，为所有水文科学教师和学生提供无障碍的优质教育。此外，我们期望这些努力能够培养一个水文科学在线教育工作者社区，他们将开发和使用教育资源，这些资源将在当前的COVID-19大流行之后持续存在。最后，扩大远程教育资源的使用，支持正在进行的扩大水文学科学多样性、平等性和包容性的倡议，该倡议由CUAHSI和HydroLearn平台提供，以共享本科教材。该奖项是由地球科学部的水文科学和教育与人力资源项目共同资助的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a sudden shift to online teaching for most universities in the United States, and many globally. With little time to prepare, water resource and hydrology professors and lecturers must generate online content rapidly for at least the spring and summer semesters of 2020, with an increasing possibility this format will extend into the fall 2020 term. At the same time, there is large variation in access to and preparation for online delivery among institutions and individual faculty. In the hydrologic sciences, we expect preparation for the transition to online instruction and the resultant learning to vary based on program size, institution, instructor experience, and availability of instructional support. Taken together, there is a significant risk that hydrologic instruction will divide into “haves” and “have nots” as a result of these critical differences. Equal access to critical support and instructional resources during the transition from traditional to distance learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to closing this gap and providing equal access to high quality instruction in the hydrologic sciences. Thus, our goal is to enable access to educational infrastructure and training for instructors, and ultimately students, in the hydrologic sciences in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will implement six key activities to achieve our goal including: (1) facilitating two-way communication between instructors and students through panel discussions and survey templates; (2) enabling sharing of course materials through CUAHSI’s HydroShare platform; (3) developing open-source, data-driven educational resources; (4) developing a guest lecture database for hydrologic sciences; (5) community training and support using distance education materials and platforms; and (6) hosting a series of workshops and producing a synthesis report on distance education in the hydrologic sciences. The result of these activities will be a leveled playing field for accessible, quality education to all instructors and students in hydrologic science. Moreover, we expect these efforts to foster a community of online educators in hydrologic science who will develop and use educational resources that will persist well beyond the present COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the expanded use of distance education resources supports ongoing initiatives to expand Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in the hydrologic sciences by CUAHSI and the HydroLearn platform to share undergraduate educational materials.This award was co-funded by the Hydrologic Sciences and Education and Human Resources programs in the Division of Earth Sciences.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.