The digital transformation of a university does not simply consist of bringing more technology into classrooms or moving processes that were once face-to-face onto the Internet. The study by Marc Romero Carbonell, Teresa Romeu Fontanillas, Montse Guitert Catasús, and Pablo Baztán Quemada examines the case of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), an institution created and developed entirely online, in order to identify what other universities seeking to move toward hybrid or digital models can learn from its experience.
The study is built around a central idea: technology only acquires real value when it forms part of a broader institutional strategy that transforms teaching, research, management, organizational culture, and people’s competencies.
The research combines in-depth interviews with academic leaders, focus groups with faculty members, tutors, and administrative staff, and a questionnaire completed by 520 students. This diversity of perspectives makes it possible to observe both the advantages and the tensions of a highly digitalized university.
Among the main benefits are flexibility, online collaborative work, improvements in certain processes, and the possibility of continuous innovation; in fact, flexibility emerges as the main reason why students choose to study online. However, digitalization can also multiply procedures, increase bureaucracy, and create time-management problems if it is not accompanied by a thorough review of working practices and institutional structures.
The lessons drawn from the study therefore go far beyond choosing platforms or tools. Sustainable digital transformation requires leadership, planning, structures that foster innovation, continuous professional development, and space for faculty members to experiment, share practices, and take an active role in the process of change.
It also requires competencies such as flexibility, adaptability, teamwork, planning, and leadership, in addition to digital proficiency itself. The UOC case thus shows that a digital university is defined not so much by the amount of technology it uses as by its capacity to learn, innovate, and continuously adapt to the needs of its students and society.
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How to Cite: Romero, M., Romeu, T., Guitert, M., & Baztán, P. (2023). Digital Transformation in Higher Education: The UOC Case. RIED-Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia, 26(1), 163–179. https://doi.org/10.5944/ried.26.1.33998
