The Use of e-Learning Platforms in a Lockdown Scenario-A Study in Latin American Countries

Recently, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Universities have been subject to a radical change, as they were forced to rapidly and massively shift from residential to online education. In this scenario, e-learning, which has been studied for several years, has attracted an unprecedented attention and revealed many advantages and disadvantages, thus feeding a debate about its efficacy. In an attempt to contribute to such debate, a study in different Latin-American countries has been conducted, in order to understand teachers' and students' perceptions about the experienced online setting during the lockdown. This paper describes the results of this preliminary study and reflects on factors that need to be improved to increase the quality of online education.