Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities for Developing Countries

Technology has become an unavoidable pillar for sustaining the progression of students and delivering a high-quality teaching and learning experience across universities worldwide, regardless of ranking, size, or domain. Various patterns of digital transformation have been studied in higher education since the digital era began to expand rapidly following the fourth industrial revolution. These patterns represent the use of technology for current practices to support strategic responses and implement structural changes to improve teaching, learning, and administrative processes. Developing countries have struggled to investigate how emerging digital services can change university-wide processes and managerial practices to sustain future success and compete with rival institutions. Adopting digital transformation in higher education in developing countries has faced several challenges regarding infrastructure, cost, digital literacy, content, language, legal issues, and equity and access. This chapter provides a review of digital transformation for higher education in developing countries with particular emphasis on the Syrian system of higher education. The chapter also presents a capability model to support universities to identify optimal services that could be implemented to achieve the desired teaching, learning and managerial objectives through a seamless and effective digital transformation process. This is particularly addressed for processes that directly interact with students, academics, and administrative teams.