Digital competencies and digital transformation in light of the corona pandemic: Obstacles and challenges at Northern Border University

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the level of digital competencies among faculty members and students at the Northern Border University and to identify the obstacles and challenges imposed by the Corona pandemic. A mixture of survey and qualitative approaches was adopted. The study sample consisted of (86) faculty members and (406) students. The study’s questionnaire is to measure digital efficiency at the Northern Border University consisting of seven dimensions of (57) paragraphs, in addition to two open questions about the obstacles and challenges of digital transformation. The results showed that the skills possessed by faculty members and students were of a high degree, and also showed a lack of statistically significant differences in the average digital competencies of university students, whereas there are statistically significant differences due to the impact of the achievement level in favor of the achievement level “excellent” versus “good”. The obstacles to digital transformation were concentrated in four main axes: infrastructure, the lack of interest in digital transformation, resistance to change, and the lack of appropriate competencies for digital transformation. The challenges facing digital transformation were summarized in four main axes: providing infrastructure, developing the quality of communication between the educational process participants, controlling the quality of educational outputs, and raising the digital efficiency of the educational process.