DIGITAL ERA FOR UNIVERSITIES: SOON OR FAR

Purpose- Over the Covid-19 crises, most universities keep increasing the use of hybrid model at various levels in all disciplines in their education system forced by the market demand. This paper reviews the evolution of university generations from university 1.0 to university 4.0 using a historical point of view. This paper intends to clarify whether digital era for universities, namely University 5.0, is soon or far advocating that a large number of completely digital universities may breakout and reach everywhere in the world with no barriers of language, time and locations, and competing with local and traditional universities in all sense after year 2030. Methodology- The study employs an online survey via convenience sampling based on quantitative research method. Employers/Managers, Academics and formal University Students were selected as three target population group located all around Turkiye. The aim was to test the 5 hypotheses of this study to clarify the time of digital era for universities. Findings- The analysis reveals that the 5 hypotheses are accepted and seen as valid. The empirical results show a significant difference between the gender variable and the importance given to digital education. Moreover, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of the significance of digitalization and the importance given to digital education based on education level variable. Then, there were differences in the significance of digitalization and the importance given to digital education concerning the social status variable in the collected data. Notably, a linear and significant relationship was revealed between the importance given to digital education by participants and the importance they attributed to digitalization. Furthermore, a linear and significant relationship was found between the importance given to digital education and the importance given to university education. Under these circumstances, the results reveal that digital education is concerned as a fact of digital era and higher education institutions are not immune of this transformation. Conclusion- Based upon the analysis, it can be concluded that the traditional university system will be evolved into a digital university system in a not-too-distant future. In other words, traditional prestigious universities are expected to continue whereas digital universities appear as destructive competitors. For this reason, it may be argued that universities will increase to provide hybrid model education depending on the market demand until 2030, whereby it will be applied at different rates in education disciplines, such as of medicine, engineering, social sciences and many others. After 2030 traditional universities will continue to use blended learning whereas digital higher education institutions will start their inevitable growth. Keywords: Digital era, digital universities, hybrid education, university 5.0, virtual education. JEL Codes: A20, I23, I29