A Pilot Study on Comparison of Teaching Workloads of Academicians Based on Working Periods During And Before The Covid-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the world by changing people's social and work lives. All educational institutions, especially higher education, were suspended face-to-face education and switched to distance education. This change in work life inevitably affects academics’ working styles and workloads. In this context, this study aims to reveal the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on academics’ teaching workloads according to their working periods. For this purpose, the transaction data of the one-year face-to-face education period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic are compared. The data used for comparison were obtained from the system logs of a learning management system platform and were used effectively during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. The pre-pandemic and pandemic period data are examined in terms of transaction density, day, and time zone of transactions. The results showed that during the pre-pandemic period, the processing intensity of academics was higher than the processing intensity on weekends. However, with the transition to distance education during the pandemic, it has been determined that the difference between weekday and weekend processing intensity disappeared significantly. It has been determined that the working time has shifted to later hours within the day, approximately one hour after the pandemic.