USC will deliver its courses via technology from Monday 30 March after pausing classes this week to ensure all learning and teaching materials will be accessible to students online.

For the remainder of this semester, classes will be provided through various platforms like Zoom and Blackboard to help students enrolled at USC’s six Queensland campuses follow social distancing requirements during the coronavirus pandemic.

Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Robert Elliot thanked students for their patience this week and praised USC’s academic and technical staff for their work in developing technology-assisted coursework.

“Face-to-face learning and teaching has been the mainstay of USC’s offerings since the University opened in 1996, with students from our various communities often stating that they prefer it over online learning,” he said.

“But the circumstances associated with the coronavirus pandemic demanded that we make all our learning and teaching available via technology.

“The effort involved in doing that in recent weeks has been substantial, and I commend all staff involved in the process for their cooperation and hard work.

“This semester will proceed as normally as possible from here. There will be some issues that we’ll need to work through together, but I’m confident USC can still provide wonderful learning experiences for our students.

“As the semester progresses, we will be looking for feedback on how our new processes are working and, of course, how things can be improved or enhanced.”

Professor Elliot said this new way of delivering coursework would provide certainty to students during the pandemic, even in the event of campus buildings being closed to public access.

He said services for students – including counselling and library services – would continue to be offered via phone and online, and food outlets on campuses will continue to serve takeaway meals for now.

Students seeking further details on how the semester will proceed from here can contact their course coordinators.

Those who would like to be reinstated into courses they had dropped for Semester 1 can contact Student Central at studentcentral@usc.edu.au or +61 7 54302890 by 11.59pm Monday 30 March.

— Terry Walsh