Digital Transformations in Higher Education in Result of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Findings from a Scoping Review

Abstract

Understood as one of the most important disruptive events in recent history, the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated and accelerated initiatives to ensure the provision of higher education (HE) in digital-mode, partly accompanied by research. While scholars have studied single dimensions of digital transformation (DT) in HE, to our knowledge digital transformation in higher education (DTHE) has not been investigated in a holistic way. A literature search for the first period of the pandemic revealed that a dynamic research field has already developed, spread across several disciplines. To get an overview over this dynamic and fragmented research field and to describe knowledge gaps, we have undertaken a scoping review of international literature on DTHE published during the first year of the pandemic. To capture the complexities and dynamics related with transformation processes we use the concept of “digital transformations” in plural (Laterza et al., Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy 15:225-233, 2020). Drawing on the assumption of a rapidly developing research field, we aim to examine the extent, range, and nature of research activity, identify knowledge gaps and synthesize the literature on DTHE from the perspective of COVID-19 as a driver for DTHE.