The professor support system in reality shock transition from traditional to virtual instruction in Covid-19 pandemic

Dear Editor The Covid-19 pandemic around the world made professors shocked all over the country who needed pedagogical, content and technological knowledge to overcome it. With the onset of the pandemic, professors who had to take distance education faced a severe dilemma that could lead to chaos for the university's educational leaders. In line with the efforts made throughout the country to solve this problem, the need to design a professor support system at Birjand University of Medical Sciences (BUMS) was also felt. Some efforts which were done in BUMS in this regard include: knowledge support, technical support, forming a support group, designing e-learning courses, development of virtual education in laboratory courses, providing preparation for taking student exams in a completely virtual way and development of a system for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of professors' educational performance during the course. As a conclusion, existing a professor support system is a crucial element for academic leaders, especially in a crisis. Besides, the evaluation of professors’ performance and distinguishing good and poor performance between them is very effective in motivating them and it will lead to more accountability. Obviously, students in this situation also need a student support system so that they could overcome their problems.