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COVID‐19 has immensely disrupted tertiary education ecosystem. The crisis has compelled numerous unprecedented and accelerated changes. The traditional and conventional way of teaching and learning has completely shifted to fully online. Nonetheless, the trend of integrating technology in the classrooms is not new. This has led to numerous questions and arguments of the existing concepts and theories of traditional education. This phenomenon also provides new opportunities for educational institutions to explore and leverage on the prospects of online modalities, fashioning unique inquiries. Thus, the key purpose of this research paper is to identify the challenges and opportunities encountered by lecturers during the Covid-19 pandemic. The results of the interviews showed that there are some challenges that the lecturers faced; for example, unpreparedness to tackle the new norm of online teaching and learning process, internet connection, and online engagement. The findings from the interview showed that there are opportunities which have emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic such as experimenting with numerous digital tools and platforms, employing different online teaching and learning modalities, and commissioning online assessments to support the students' needs and engagement. It is postulated that the findings of the research although may be preliminary, are able to facilitate vital discussions on fashioning best practice guidelines for asynchronous or synchronous modalities post the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has affected various sectors particularly the education sector. The decision by the Malaysian government to close down higher learning institutes and schools has forced educators and teachers to switch their teaching and learning techniques from face-to-face to completely online. This situation has pushed the lecturers from the General Studies Department, Sunway University, Malaysia to master not only the technological tools, but also the pedagogic aspect that drive the entire process, to ensure the teaching and learning process can be carried out properly. Within a short period of time, different methods and modalities were designed and experimented, yet little is known on how such abrupt and rapid modifications affect the overall quality. Considering the value of experiences and reflections, this study probes on the mediated experiences of GSD academics on online teaching and learning, whereby a qualitative-research design was leveraged in a plethora of collective reflections in using E-Learn. The findings revealed that E-Learn has a huge potential to be effectively employed for synchronous and asynchronous modalities due to its user-friendly features and tools within the capacity to disseminate information, structure virtual lessons, record students' involvement, monitor reports and deploy both formative and summative assessments. This study concluded that the various features of E-Learn had tremendously assisted the GSD lecturers during the online teaching and learning process, and is deemed suitable be used as a platform or Learning Management System (LMS) for online teaching and learning activities.