INSTRUCTOR’S VIEWS ON DIGITALIZATION OF CAMPUS; ROLES AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Constructing digital campuses in such a modern and technology rich world to support education has become popular trend among many higher education institutions. In order to determine; the faculty members' opinions on digitalization, contribution of digitalization to teaching and learning, and to obtain suggestions for progress, researchers directed a few semi-structured interviews with ten volunteer instructors. As a qualitative case study research, semi-structured interviews were carried with participants. The participants were purposively selected. All interview sessions were type recorded and the data was transcribed verbatim. The lack of funding to support digital tools, lack of training for faculty and lack of motivation are perceived as obstacles to fully adopt ICT so that digitalization. Surprisingly, teaching learning center records indicates that very few faculty members had sought help. The respondents consider that lessons should be designed in more attractive ways through innovative teaching methods, such as gaming and flipped classroom. They think that when such efforts are adopted into appropriate digital tools, effective course materials or courses will be designed. When ICT tools are effectively designed and tested, students learning will be positively affected by these efforts. Specifically faculties using more digital tools believe that their teaching is improved so that their students’ learning is enhanced. One faculty member mentioned that when technological tools are customized based on students' needs, teaching and learning activities will be strengthened and it will contribute to learning. Additionally, one stated that the instructors should organize the course contents and make them accessible to students in order to contribute to student learning.

Our work-in-progress attempts will address many other issues and direct valuable recommendations for further studies.