Challenges and Opportunities in the Digital Transformation of the Higher Education Institutions: The Case of Mexico

In this chapter, we describe the challenge and experience to spread out information and communication technologies (ICT) and how to implement them progressively, in order to improve administrative, academic, and pedagogical issues. As a case study, institutional strategies to tackle these issues in the higher education institutions (HEI) that belong to the Instituto Politécnico Nacional of Mexico (IPN) are described. The main challenge of HEI to incorporate cutting-edge technology in order to form professionals according to educational models and needs of the worldwide is pointed out. Thus, the intended focus of this work is to elevate the discourse and generate awareness about information and communication technologies to translate the language for being legible and understandable to deans, directors, and general authorities of HEI so that they can clearly make decisions with respect to the benefits that current technologies bring to the education institutions, and thus they can keep in mind investing important economic resources in future and mature technologies. Nowadays, HEI of the IPN are facing problems regarding the allocation of budgetary resources, so the strategies and analytical discussion of how ICT can envision the growth of HEI is a very timely issue to be presented to the Mexican government.