The process of digitalization of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) has the main purpose to improve their organizational, administrative, and didactic power through the exploitation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The Covid-19 pandemic has heavily encouraged this process, giving the opportunity to speed up the technological progress of HEI’s services to deal with the altered conditions established. In this regard, it is fundamental to monitor how the digital and technological development of HEIs’ primary and administrative services has evolved during these recent years of emergency, with particular attention on the latter, essential for the smooth running of the primary ones.

This descriptive analysis reveals that the evolutionary trends of technological progress for administrative services increased significantly during the emergency. On the other hand, the forecasts for the future digital evolution of this kind of services follow two different paths: for what concerns the specific software and dedicated apps (i.e., any software/application specifically designed for a service) their usage level is expected to carry on their improvement also in the near future after the pandemic, even if at a lower rate if compared to the emergency period. This appears to be reasonable: when the original conditions would be re-established, most of the activities would return to be held in person, and the need for communication tools would be reduced.

Download the Report