Future Vision, Digital Divide and the Urgent Need for Digital Universities: Higher Education Quality Challenges in Thailand
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55164/ecbajournal.v18i2.279054Keywords:
Future Vision, Digital Divide, Urgent Need, Digitality, Digital UniversityAbstract
This research aims to study the future scenario, the digital gap, and the urgent need to develop into a digital university. This research uses an exploratory sequential design, which is a mixed methods research. The first step starts with a qualitative research using the future ethnographic research method to project the future of the digital university in the next 10 years and develops research tools. Data were collected from 6 experts who play important roles in becoming a digital university. The second step uses a quantitative survey research to analyze the digital gap and urgent need from 200 university personnel. The research results found that the university is comprised of 3 dimensions: 1) Digital dimensions for teaching and learning management, 2) Digital infrastructure, and 3) Digital competencies of personnel in the organization. It was developed into a 21-item digital university questionnaire with a 5-level rating scale for answering two dimensions: the current state and the future expectation. The research results in the second phase found that Humanoid and Cobot, digital ecosystems, Internet of things, blockchain platform, and Artistic Intelligence are issues with gaps. and there is an urgent need at the forefront of developing into a digital university. The development is driven by strategic planning, policy setting, and budget allocation for digital infrastructure, aligned with the categorization of university groups.
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