THE WAY TO VIRTUALIZATION: THE INTRODUCTION OF E-LEARNING IN A FACE-TO-FACE MASTER'S DEGREE

After the entry into force of the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), one of the main challenges posed in the university context is attracting students, especially master students.

Nowadays the use of ICT has been generalized and, because of that, it is possible to consider other more attractive methods to teach, which allow us to maintain quality. And this is what we have done in the Master in Business and Contract Law (MUDEC) of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV).
MUDEC has been a face-to-face master since its entry into force. Nevertheless, the tendency of recent academic courses has revealed a significant change in the profile of the potential access students, which increasingly demand to follow it in a virtual way.

This is essentially due to the considerable number of students who cannot attend in-presence our master. We can distinguish two different student’s profile in this situation: on one hand, international students attracted by our study plan, which gives access to the PhD; and, on the other hand, legal professionals interested in Business and Contract Law specialization.

To satisfy this demand, the MUDEC’s coordination has decided to activate the virtual modality, together with the current face-to-face one.
This paper aims to explain the MUDEC’s experience resulting from the virtualization process, with special attention to its transition problems and solutions.