Virtual Campuses, Groupware and University Evolution

The paper first discusses the need for the change of today's universities, called to a reorganization of their teaching and process management, due to the pressure they are submitted to by internal and external modifications. In any university these problems are faced and solved in a different way, but always digital technologies play a relevant role in the transformation. This is the main reason for the discussion of the results from the research project “Promoting Best Practices in Virtual Campuses” (PBP-VC), and of the framework which emerged from it. Furthermore the analysis of the main features of Computer Supported Collaborative Work, and Groupware, and their application to the special case of the experience the author made inside his Faculty are reported. The discussion of this last issue serves as a useful instrument for the confirmation of the first hypothesis on the possible use of strategic instruments helping the positive evolution of universities. It is straightforward to remark here that the proposal of the framework used in the PBP-VC project is accompanied by the analysis of some changes in its structure, so that the results from groupware and socio-technologies application can be considered.