The necessity, position, challenges and opportunities of virtual education in the era of Corona

The spread of the corona virus, which has overshadowed all the political, economic, social and cultural fields of Iranian society since the beginning of March 2018, has also affected the educational system, which is based on continuous face-to-face education as usual in all parts of the world, challenged. The purpose of this research is the views of professors regarding the necessity, place, challenges and opportunities of virtual education in the era of Corona. The type of descriptive research is Delphi-type survey, and from the point of view of the research family, it is a combination of qualitative and quantitative. The research population of the professors of Islamic Azad University of Saravan Branch is equal to 135 people, and 100 people were selected as a sample by random sampling method. The measurement tool includes a researcher-made questionnaire that has 21 questions on a Likert scale to measure the necessity and status of virtual education, and 21 challenges and 21 opportunities extracted from library studies and interviews with 4 university professors, and the validity of the tool has been evaluated by several University professors confirmed and its reliability was obtained using Cronbach's alpha for necessity (0.73), position (0.79), challenge (0.73) and opportunity (0.75). The data were analyzed using SPSS software and the t-tech test of a sample with the hypothetical average of the population and the confirmatory factor analysis test with varimax rotation: the results showed that the necessity of virtual education in the corona era from the point of view of the professors is higher than It is the expected limit, but the position of virtual education is lower than expected. Also, 21 components related to challenges were combined into 9 factors using confirmatory factor analysis, and the most important of them were technical and infrastructure issues, out of 21 components related to opportunities, they were combined into 8 factors, the most important of which was the opportunity to upgrade the level. The media literacy of the professors