Digital Transformation in Higher Education: A Case Study on Strategic Plans

Abstract

Digital transformation is considered as an inevitable process for higher education systems like all socio-economic institutions and systems. The digital transformation, which paradoxically incorporates both challenges and conveniences, has to become the focus of corporations’ strategies. The aim of this study is to determine the status of digital transformation in universities’ strategies. For this purpose, the strategic plans of 18 Turkish universities, which ranked at the top 1000 most often in the world rankings, were evaluated with the content analysis method. Findings indicate that expressions about the components of digital transformation in the strategic plans of the universities were gathered under 4 themes, 14 categories and 35 codes. The expressions of the universities about digital transformation are coded under the category of diversity and flexibility of learning technologies, especially education theme and distance/open learning. It is observed that universities have the least digital transformation strategies concerning research and social service missions. In this sense, it was concluded that universities could not perform digital transformation beyond technological infrastructure renewal into an integrated transformation model and strategic vision. The results of the study were compared with empirical and theoretical studies in the literature. For universities and future studies, it was proposed that Turkish universities are compareable with the universities abroad, which show the successful examples of the digital transformation, and that the quantitative and/or qualitative methods related to the subject can be applied by internal and external stakeholders, especially in the sector’s evaluations.

Professional formation of the teachers under the conditions of digital transformation of higher education

“…According to Meskhi B., Fedotova O., Platonova E., Belovitskaya S., B. Cornu, E. Yu. Levina, Ogaylo Kuzu, D. Evalt, the intensive development of information and digital technologies causes a huge need for their application, including in the field of education [3,4,5,6,7]. The present-day system of higher pedagogical education implies scientific and applied trends connected with the use of digital technologies in the vocational training.…”

Training Of Research Staff At The Humanitarian Academic Institute: Tradition, Reforms, Prospects

“…At the same time, the postgraduate school was reformed. It became a stage of higher education, and the thesis defense became optional (Krasinskaya & Klimova, 2020;Kuzu, 2020). The number of budget-funded places was reduced.…”

Media Education In The Era Of Fake News

“…Digital transformation is considered as an inevitable process for higher education systems like all socio-economic institutions and systems (Kuzu, 2020). The fact that new generations get access to the Internet earlier and earlier (among children 5-7 years old, 89 % are Internet users, and by 11 years old this indicator rises to 97 %) (Loseva, 2019), and, accordingly, to media information -as a rule, in full and without any moderation -indicates the need for the planned formation of media literacy already at the initial stages of education.…”