Academic Women Online Learning Experience during COVID-19 Pandemic in Turkish Higher Education Institutions

This paper aims to explore academic women's online learning experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic in Turkish Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and consider the gendered implications for policies. We use a traditional literature review to provide a comprehensive and critical analysis of the current knowledge on a specific topic (see Baumester and Leary, 1997). Furthermore, we use document analysis using the Success Case Method(SCM) (see Yin, 2018) to explore the academic women's online learning experience and challenges and to examine the situation of academic women in Turkish universities (Atay, 2023). We selected the Case Study University (CSU) as a research site because CSU made great progress in promoting inclusive online learning experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. CSU has also been a leader in gender equality in Türkey. We identify how CSU has successfully created a supportive organizational climate for open and distance education. We discuss the potential implications of major policy initiatives to promote effective online learning. The key takeaways are that policies in higher education institutions need to reshape, revise, and integrate new learning models and new technologies into the current programs and curriculums based on knowledge derived from a gendered analysis of online learning. Thus, they need to consider the gendered nature of such policies and programs in order to create more gender equity and inclusiveness.