The incorporation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education has been carried out in a transversal manner within the curriculum, and the processes of formative research in both face-to-face and virtual programmes are not an exception to this process. In this context, it is recognised that students’ perceptions of the inclusion of technologies in the classroom can influence their teaching and learning process; however, they have not been widely addressed in multiple settings including research seedbeds. Thus, this paper aims to identify such perceptions represented in the attitudes, knowledge and uses of ICTs in students ascribed to the research seedbed in a virtual business administration programme of an Institution of Higher Education located in Colombia. For its fulfillment, the ACUTIC scale was applied to a sample of 65 students in order to identify these perceptions through a hierarchical cluster analysis, a single factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) test, a post hoc Tukey method and a factor analysis. The main result is that attitudes, knowledge and use of ICTs are varied and they can be represented in three clusters. In general, the attitude towards the incorporation of technologies in the research seedbed is positive; however, there is a gap in terms of knowledge and use, especially of those tools oriented to the disciplinary field and research.

La educación superior virtual está creciendo significativamente y se caracteriza por la necesidad de articular eficazmente la tecnología y el proceso académico e instructivo. Este estudio ha tratado de analizar los requisitos para que las instituciones ofrezcan un servicio de calidad cercano a las necesidades de los estudiantes. Para ello, se aplicó una encuesta a una muestra aleatoria de 350 estudiantes. Los resultados confirmarían la fuerte asociación entre los factores relacionados con la infraestructura tecnológica, el servicio académico y el apoyo institucional. Estos resultados pueden ser una referencia para tener en cuenta por las IES cuando planifican sus programas virtuales.

Virtual education has been associated, on some occasions, with economic models of scale that strengthen the mercantilist vision of teaching, thereby raising questions on the quality of the service. Some studies on educational costs associated with this modality simplify the analysis based on individual elements, such as the production of courses or the technological infrastructure, offering an incomplete and biased perspective. This study proposes to carry out a complete analysis of the costs of a virtual university using an Activity-Based Costing (ABC) model to determine the percentage of the budget consumed by each of the activities involved in the training process. The results show the significant influence that instructional design and teaching activities have on virtual modalities (62.5% of the set of activities), thus highlighting the importance of human resources in maintaining educational modalities mediated by technology. Understanding the importance of human capital and its contribution to offering a quality and innovative educational service is fundamental to consolidate a model that can improve access to education for populations with major difficulties.

En países como Colombia la falta de cobertura, la dispersión geográfica y el conflicto armado se han posicionado como obstáculos que impiden que una parte de la población pueda acceder a la universidad, perpetuando las desigualdades y la vulnerabilidad. Los resultados de este estudio apuntan a que la educación superior virtual puede convertirse en una alternativa útil para ofrecer oportunidades de formación a estas poblaciones si se ofrecen las condiciones adecuadas en cuanto a un contenido útil y actual, atención personalizada e infraestructura accesible. Las conclusiones alcanzadas pueden orientar a las Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES) en el diseño de estrategias virtuales de calidad.