IT Integration in Higher Education Institutions

Higher education institutions must be flexible and develop ways of integrating information technology and communication into the training process. Alongside this is a need for a new conception of the student-users, role changes in the teachers, and administrative changes in relation to communication systems and the design and distribution of teaching. This implies, in turn, changes in the canons of teaching and learning towards something more flexible. To understand these processes of change, their effects, and the potential for systems of teaching and learning, we must view changes and technological advances in the context of innovation processes.

Keywords: Flexible education, computer mediated communication, virtual environment, higher education, learning networks

Jesus Salinas

Introduction

Higher education institutions have experienced a change of some importance in the overall education system. Today's society is moving formation processes from conventional environments to other areas. This demands the generation of a network where students receive the skills necessary for lifelong learning, and the creation of knowledge that simultaneously generates opportunities for new markets and competencies in the sector. The learning environment is changing dizzily. Traditional educational institutions, whether in-person or distance, have to readjust their distribution and communication systems. They switch from being the center of educational communication to simple nodes of a network of networks between which the student-user moves around more flexible coordinates, which we have called cyberspace. Moreover, changes in these space-time coordinates bring about the emergence of new educational organizations that are constituted as partnerships or networks of institutions and whose education systems are characterized by modularity and interconnection.

It also requires institutions of higher education to have flexibility in their procedures and their administrative structure to adapt to conditions of alternative training that are more responsive to the needs that this new company would produce. The existence of online and Internet courses, or experimental projects by some teachers and/or departments, do not presuppose a more flexible university.