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State of ICTs as Support for the Educational Process in the Andean Region

Abstract:

Higher education institutions in the Andean region have shown their progress in the adoption of ICTs for education. The objective of this study is to understand how this adoption has been carried out, and what shortcomings can be identified in order to correct them. The proliferation of information and communication technologies in the field of education has posed great challenges to HEIs, so that adopting and reducing the ICT access gap, as well as its correct use among the different actors of the educational community, has become a pending task for the institutional authorities of HEIs and for local and national governments. The work focused on the use of mixed paradigm as a reference. As part of a broader study, the present work focused on determining the ICT use gap between teachers and students in this group of HEIs. To analyze the gap in ICT use, the study was based on the information resulting from a survey of professors and students, as well as on a documentary review of the public information of the HEIs under study. The results show a generalized use of LMS systems by the region's HEIs, however, there is a lack of use of the capabilities of these platforms, especially due to the lack of training and support of their professors and students. Likewise, the use of various tools and social networks has been spreading in the IES. On the other hand, academic-administrative management support systems (SIS) are mostly developed in-house or commercially but without a holistic vision of integration and process management; only a few HEIs have decided to adopt academic ERPs as a definitive and integrated solution to institutional educational processes.