Digital technologies in higher education: Sweeping expectations and actual effects

Nowadays, technology affects practically all activities in our life. The new digital technologies have permeated economy markets, politics, our workplaces, the ways we communicate with each other, our home activities, as well as operation of all levels of education from kindergarten to doctoral studies. The new technologies challenge higher education institutions worldwide to redefine their student constituencies, their partners and competitors and to redesign their research infrastructures and teaching practices. These multiple contrasting trends, and the visible gap between some sweeping expectations echoed in the 1990s as to the immense impacts of digital technologies on higher education environments and the actual reality, are discussed in this book.