A white elephant or a silver bullet? What (not) to do with online higher education

The COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to resort to online forms of teaching and learning. This offered a unique opportunity to gain more insights into online teaching and learning strategies and how these can meaningfully contribute to existing on-site educational practices. The research that underpins this dissertation was initiated to gain insights from the experiences of teachers and students with online education that can be used to (re)develop more sustainable online teaching and learning strategies. This was the central question: How did teachers and students experience emergency remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic and which online teaching strategies did they identify as advantageous or inauspicious? Some overall conclusions can be drawn based on the conducted studies. First and foremost, numerous experiences with online teaching and learning strategies have been identified that have potential value beyond the pandemic. By contrast, many obstacles have been described as well, which have to be accounted for before online teaching and learning strategies can be sustainably integrated in higher education curricula. The title of this dissertation concerns the question whether online education is a white elephant or a silver bullet; a suboptimal and expensive form of education, or valuable and welcome addition? At the very least, the online transition has fueled a debate about what good education does (not) encompass. The insights reported throughout this dissertation suggest that online education could play an important part in the future of higher education. Under the right conditions, online education could become a silver bullet.