Introduction: The Disruptive Power of Online Education: Challenges, Opportunities, Responses

By the end of this decade, more than half of the world’s population will be digitally connected (Kraft & Jung, 2016). The internet and technology are changing social norms and societal structures as well as corporate values (Holladay, 2017) bringing about transformations that are hard to discern in their overall global impact at this point in time (McAfee & Brynjolfsson, 2015).

Worldwide, the higher education sector is seriously being disrupted through the effect technological innovations have on markets and the way they work (Christensen & Eyring, 2011). Traditional, on-site education is enhanced, supplemented or even replaced by teaching and learning in the digital space. As digital technologies are spreading rapidly, higher education institutions must embrace these developments to meet the needs of their learners (Delich, 2005), who are deeply embedded in the digital world, and to adapt their programmes to increase the impact regarding the curriculum taught, in terms of teaching formats and design and in relation to the overall impact of their business model.