As of 5.00pm on 18 March, the government has advised all education settings to pause face-to-face provision.
This is a change from previous guidance, which was still being promoted until very recently.
For example, education secretary Gavin Williamson advised universities to follow scientific advice:
I would urge any educational establishment to actually look at what the medical and scientific advice is—and the medical and scientific advice is that we shouldn’t be closing educational settings.”
And on 17 March Universities Minister Michelle Donelan tweeted:
Medical and scientific guidance continues to be that universities and other educational settings should remain open unless advised otherwise. They should take sensible steps to keep students and staff safe”
Because of the absence of a formal list of providers moving to remote provision, I have created an interactive map to allow people to understand how universities are behaving. This shows where a university has made a formal statement (on their web page or, exceptionally, via twitter) that in-person teaching is being suspended.
Updated 19 March, 18:00
All UK university provision is now moving online.
If you want to find details of a particular provider use the “highlight name” box on each visualisation.
Rumours abound, so I’ve been cautious in providing properly sourced information. If I have missed something, or if the situation changes, I’d be glad if you could let me know via this web form – I’m updating regularly. If you follow me on twitter you could also send me a direct message.
Other responses
Nearly all other on-campus activity has now been cancelled or paused.
Of course, you should check directly with the provider(s) in question before acting on information you find here. Remember that this is a complex and fast-moving situation, and information may change quickly.
Despite what the government advice is, I suspect many universities are being influenced by the fact that student attendance has dropped dramatically.
Students have decided for themselves that they would prefer not to be on campus at the moment and Universities are responding to that by implementing remote teaching protocols.
This is really useful, thank you! Is it possible to have numerical data displayed too? Number / percentage of those who’ve moved online?
This might help: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sjPjabCRx0N2k12p-gBe_5vrtj4MF-F0MxhGGQHI6B0/edit#gid=886060452
Try here: https://twitter.com/Detnam1/status/1238907330449887233?s=20
I suspect universities are being influenced by their experts in biology & mathematical modelling.
I suspect also many universities are being influenced by other universities. The way I see it is the moment the first university moved to remote teaching, they forced every other institutions’ hand. Regardless of the facts, we now all have to move to remote teaching or we will look bad in the eyes of our students.
I think many universities are also now thinking that it looks bad for them if they don’t move to remote teaching when others have already started.
University of Manchester (whihc is not on the map) IS moving to online teaching.
Manchester is on the map and the chart. Use the “highlight names” box to find providers.
De Montfort is not in the map
Fixed this. Fascinating reason. De Montfort uses a non-geographic postcode… the map plots postcodes so it wasn’t on the map.
Could you now switch this to which universities are completely shut down rather than teaching online?