Digital services

For students, services such as access to the course catalogue, registration for programmes, courses or extracurricular activities have long been digitalised. These solutions can be for the whole institution, but at times within several institutions (regionally or in university alliances) or even at the national level. One example from the European University Initiative would be inter-university campuses, where students and academic staff can log in to a common set of services, including access to the course catalogue of the nine member universities, a registration app and a common learning management system. At the national level, the Norwegian Sikt (Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research) provides a very large number of services at the national level, including research data management, administrative services and exams.

Services for learning and teaching require solution at scale because they have to work for a large number of students. This leads to considerations about the balance between developing and hosting solutions by institutions themselves or outsourcing these solutions to private companies. The demand for big and complex systems favours using external, commercial providers that have stable and efficient solutions, but the downside is a risk of lock-in to these providers as well as issues around ownership and use of data (see also digital sovereignty). Some institutions and networks have developed their own solutions, but others favour commercial products for their reliability and ability to work at scale. Most institutions work with a mixed model where core services, for example those related to student data, are kept within the university, using solutions that the institution controls and hosts, while other services are done by external providers. For services where institutions are not in competition, economies of scale can be achieved through shared service arrangements, such as a company owned by several universities. For example, AMUE in France provides a wide range of common administrative services to French universities. In this way, control and ownership remain within the sector.

For services that require identification of the institution and the user, security and data privacy becomes an issue. Digital identity will become an important element here. As the European Union looks to implement new regulations on digital identity, universities will have a common European framework to manage student identification. Such a framework can, for example, manage mobility between institutions and, importantly, deliver secure, digital credentials in a digital wallet. This could take over present systems such as Erasmus Without Paper (EWP) or the European Student Card, as the wallet would have all the information available (see European Regulation).

All such solutions hold the promise of giving quick access, providing an overview and handling administrative tasks automatically and immediately. However, the gain in efficiency can clash with institutional culture and procedures. There are examples of how digitalisation was seen as a threat to administrative staff whose tasks had been to manage paper-based solutions with the need to collect, file and send on documents. Also, for academic staff, the ability to manage tasks with one click could lead to a situation where many functions that had previously been done by administrative staff now are done by them. In this situation, academic members of staff could find themselves with many more tasks to fulfil. While the individual tasks can be accomplished by ‘one click’, bundled together, they become an administrative burden. In this context, it is important for the university leadership to implement new tools prioritising ease of transitioning and availability for all staff. A holistic approach to digitalisation yields better results than a project-specific approach as it allows organisations to consider the totality of the impact on individual employees. To ensure that the results of the digital transformation project are long-lasting, permanent changes are required in the way the organisation works. Digital transition should be a project to make things better and easier, perhaps best expressed in the institutional vision and strategy for digital transformation.

Regarding research, there is often more flexibility. Different research teams can implement diverse solutions. If the university is managing services that require large, centralised infrastructure such as high-performance computers, this must be managed in a fairly centralised manner, but individual researchers can and do use various services in their own networks. Open Science has increased the need for institutional policies: In the 2020-2021 EUA Open Science Survey Report, 51% of respondents indicated that they had dedicated research data support services at the institutional level.

In digital transition, training for digital competences for academic and administrative staff can itself become a service. Under the DIGI-HE Project, EUA has published a report on Digitally competent teachers, outlining challenges and recommendations for learning and teaching. As another example, a large amount of the resources used on research data support is dedicated to training of researchers in data management. In addition, training of administrative staff is central to a successful digital transition.

The longer-term consequences of digitalising services may vary. It is no doubt more efficient for a student to search a digital course catalogue and register online than to flip through a printed copy and register in person, but there is little disruptive change beyond efficiency if this is done for the individual institution. However, there may be wider implications if courses and content become widely available across institutions. Other services, such as research data management are key elements in making Open Science a reality with many more disruptive consequences for the scientific process. Likewise, digital credentials are much more efficient and secure than paper diplomas, but they also open the door for new ways of recognising different kinds of learning that are potentially disruptive.