Adapting new learning and teaching practices during COVID-19 pandemic has impacted students’ learning in higher education. Using a cross-sectional research methodology, the study attempted to understand the cross-cultural impacts of COVID-19 on higher education students in Cambodia, Nigeria, Oman and Spain to determine the changes that COVID-19 has brought about in higher education students; examine how students' learning behaviour and attitudes have changed during COVID-19; identify the challenges they have experienced; and identify the changes that have taken place in learning and teaching in the selected countries. A total sample of 242 students was randomly selected from four higher education institutions in each of the selected countries. The study provided a cross-cultural understanding of how COVID-19 has affected students’ well-being, behaviors and learning. The results show that COVID-19 had adverse effects on the well-being of students in the four countries. Students received inadequate social support and security protection from others and instructors when they needed it. Omani students received less social support compared with the other three countries. COVID-19 had the worse effect on students’ employment in the four countries. The effect pressed much concern on Nigerian students who experience a great job loss. Students from the four countries were required to put a lot of effort and energy to fulfil the requirements in the program.

This study applied a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) model to explore how 27 first-year university students in two different English proficiency groups improved their lexicogrammatical choices and metafunctions for writing analytical exposition essays during a 15-week course. To explore how “the teaching learning cycle” influences students’ understanding of the target genre essay, a survey was conducted; furthermore, to explore changes in students’ understanding of metafunctions (ideational, experiential, and textual meanings) of the target genre essay, students’ pre- and post-essays were scored by raters using the SFL framework rubric. Then, six students with lower rating scores at the pre-essay stage from both English proficiency groups were selected to explore how they progressed differently in the target linguistic resources. The results demonstrated that applying an SFL framework of writing assessment to English students’ understanding of essay writing can be used to explicitly examine their improvements.

COVID-19 has significantly impacted teaching and learning in higher education, leading institutions to embrace Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) in response to school and university closure. A systematic review research methodology was used to identify, analyse and synthesise literature on professional development in higher education published between 2010 and 2020. Following an inductive thematic analysis, the authors identified four themes that represent the literature: learning approaches, delivery modes, design features and institutional support. Based on the emerging themes and the analysis of the selection of studies, a framework for professional development is proposed to prepare teachers in higher education for ERT. The use of the framework is recommended to guide higher education institutions in best assisting their academic staff during an ERT context.

Most higher education institutions have embraced emergency remote teaching (ERT) as a response to school and university closures due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We used a cross-sectional survey design to examine teachers’ views on the implementation of e-learning for ERT due to Covid-19 in Omani higher education. We examined four barrier categories: teacher-related, institutional-related, curriculum-related and student-related. We also assessed the relationship between these barrier levels and measured the differences between e-learning and teachers’ gender, academic qualifications, teaching experience and prior experience in e-learning. Through an investigation of 856 university faculty members, we found that student-level barriers had the strongest impact on the implementation of e-learning for ERT during Covid-19. Furthermore, teachers’ academic qualifications and prior experience influenced the success of e-learning practices. Based on these results, we presented some implications with respect to student preparedness, curriculum modifications and institutional readiness for the successful implementation of ERT during Covid-19 or any similar future pandemics.

Smart Capillary Barrier (SCB) has been recently promoted to decrease soil salinity and improve water use efficiency and the sustainability of arid land agriculture. In this study, we investigated the effect of SCB on soil microbial diversity, enumeration, and respiration in a tomato field trial. SCB soil and control (unstructured homogenous soils, H) plots were irrigated with four levels of salinity (EC w = 0.8, 3, 6, and 9 dS m −1). Microbial diversity was assessed by ITS and 16S rRNA gene sequencing, enumeration of culturable heterotrophs by agar plates, and microbial respiration by MicroResp™ assays. Salinity was the main driver of the soil microbial diversity, showing a substantial reduction in the number of operational taxonomic units (− 8% for both bacteria and fungi), enumeration of culturable heterotrophs (− 51% for bacteria and − 53% for fungi), and respiration (− 18%) at 9 dS m −1 water salinity. Microbial community composition was significantly different between the SCB and H soils, as evidenced by multivariate analyses and by the appearance of 3352 unique operational taxonomic units at SCB samples that were absent in H plots. The SCB soil showed a steeper metabolic quotient increase in response to soil salinity than the H soils. The abundance of functional microbes such as nitrogen-fixing and nitrifying prokaryotes, as well as mycorrhiza, was also significantly increased in the SCB soils in comparison with the H soils. Our findings suggest that adopting SCB design leads to higher overall soil microbial biodiversity, including those communities unable to withstand extreme soil salinity conditions.