Developing Digital Higher Education in the Pandemic

This work-in-progress paper presents a project with focus on the role of digital strategies on higher education development in the context of the pandemic situation. During the pandemic, higher education institutions had to switch to distance learning at very short notice. Motivated by the urgency of the external circumstances, digital media were used to a great extent. Numerous empirical studies have examined the experiences of lecturers and students and pointed to potentials and challenges. The steering efforts of higher education management and strategic implications though, have so far been less in focus. This project will contribute to the discourse on how the systematic further development of digitization efforts can take place in a forward-looking manner and what role digitization strategies play in the further development of studies and teaching in the context of the pandemic.