The online teaching and learning experience for pharmacoinformatics during COVID-19

At the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pharmacoinformatics is a second- year undergraduate Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences course designed to introduce students on how to use technology to improve pharmaceutical care services. Until the outbreak of COVID-19, teaching, learning, and assessments for this course were predominantly conducted face-to-face. The unannounced arrival of the pandemic with its unprecedented uncertainties meant a drastic change in programme delivery was necessary. Social distancing and movement control orders were imposed to control the transmission of COVID-19 and hence a complete shift to online learning was required. All available tools were therefore deployed to make the transition a successful experience for both students and lecturers. The advantage of the new learning approach was that both synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences were explored. The group assignments were mostly synchronous using video conferencing applications. However, student assessments by the lecturers were predominantly asynchronous.