Utilization of Digital Tools in the Indian Higher Education System During Health Crises

Introduction

This chapter introduces the study's history, motivation, and scope, as well as its structure. Globalization, the knowledge explosion, the communication revolution, and digital technology have all changed our lives, with digital communication, the internet, and e-learning replacing conventional means. AI, automation, Big Data, Cloud Computing, Virtual and Augmented reality are the most recent advancements in digital technology. Our lives have been altered by the digital revolution. The Information Age began with the digital revolution, which resulted in the global adoption of the Internet, cell phones, and digital communication technologies, transforming it into a powerful instrument for communication and information sharing. Information and technology co-create a technological ecology in which we live. The digital revolution has changed the way we live, the process of contact and communication, sharing, learning, work-culture, and leisure, and it has directly or indirectly influenced users' ideas, attitudes, behaviour, and ideologies. India has 462 million active internet users, with 430.3 million of them accessing the internet via mobile phones. The digital revolution has had a huge influence on our lives, enabling us to quickly access information from anywhere in the globe. This has resulted in the current civilization being a knowledge society(Aziz et al., 2020; Logemann et al., 2022; Zina & Ahlem, 2021).

The digital revolution is vital in developing nations because it allows liberalization, privatization, globalization, and simple access, resulting in knowledge explosion and freely available information. Digital technology have transformed education by delivering cost-effective and time-saving solutions to fulfil rising educational demands. India's goal is to become a developed country by 2020. The integration of ICT and associated technologies into the higher education system can empower governing bodies to manage educational and managerial goals and changes, offering better service to all stakeholders. In order to work and communicate in a digitalized environment, it is necessary to acquire technical abilities, which is leading to a paradigm change in education from teacher-cantered to learner-cantered instruction. Higher education is being transformed by digitalization by giving novel teaching tools, access to information, global cooperation chances, and alternative approaches to professional growth, all of which contribute to greater educational development. Technology has facilitated the creation of creative teaching methodologies in higher education, opening up a world of possibilities for teachers. Individual variances may be catered for using digital technology to customise learning experiences. Learning with digital technology allows students who are unable to attend conventional classrooms to participate and enables lifetime learning(Barone et al., 2021; Rani et al., 2021; Salem et al., 2020).

E-learning, blended learning, MOOCs, virtual universities, OERs, blogs, online platforms for sharing knowledge and resources, discussion forums, interactive boards, videoconferencing, webinars, smart classrooms, cloud computing, online research tools, and Web Based Learning are all examples of how technology has changed education (WBL). To stay up with quickly changing technology, it is critical to integrate technology into the educational system.