Educational Alternatives, Volume 19, 2021

Abstract: Traditionally, the workload of lecturers and educators in academia is measured in “hours per week”, whereas hours are counted as time of frontal teaching only. This approach does not take into account educator’ time needed to prepare the course, to provide from time-to-time relevant changes in the materials of the course, grade student’ assignments, to calculate final grades, and deal with student appeals. This traditional approach became even more problematic when the course is provided by using cloud means like ZOOM. In this paper, attempt is made to evaluate the time needed to develop and support ZOOM and CLOUD-based laboratories. Results and time evaluations are based on the three ZOOM and CLOUD-based laboratories provided in the last three “COVID-19” semesters. Because of “COVID-19” restrictions, electronic laboratories were provided as CLOUD-based TinkerCad simulations. Set of tables summarizes educator’s time actually spent on each task. Those tables (after proper modifications relevant to the specific course) can be used to provide a more realistic prognosis of the educator’s workload required for the development and support of the specific laboratory.