Why and How Digital Technology Empowers the High-Quality Development of Postgraduate Education

• In Event: Innovation in the Digital Era: Comparative and International Perspectives on Curriculum and Student Engagement

Proposal

Purpose of this study:
During the current transformative development of postgraduate education, empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education with digital technology is a critical, popular, and difficult challenge. It is also an inevitable trend for its future transformative development.
In the era of “Internet Plus,” postgraduate education has been deeply integrated with modern information technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and virtual reality. Driving educational transformation and upgrade with digital technologies and methods has become a worldwide concern, with digital technology empowerment serving as a crucial driving force for the high-quality development of postgraduate education in the New Era. The COVID-19 pandemic, internationalization trends, and global competition have greatly accelerated the adoption of digitalization in postgraduate education in various countries. As a result, many countries worldwide are vying to introduce strategic plans for digital transformation in education. For instance, the European Union issued the Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027) and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation launched the Digital Transformation Strategy for Higher Education and the Science and Technology Industry (Du & Tang, 2022). Australia also proposed strengthening the development and application of digital technology in its Australian Strategy for International Education (2021-2030). In February 2022, China released the Key Priorities of the Ministry of Education in 2022, outlining the need to implement the strategic action of education digitization using the advantages of networking, digitalization and AI advantages, which will enrich digital education and service resources, innovate education and learning methods, and accelerate balanced, personalized and lifelong education (Editorial Board of the Chinese Journal of ICT in Education, 2022). Evidently, the digital revolution has emerged as a critical driving force and a preliminary project for high-quality postgraduate education.
In November 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) published “Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education,” proposing that “There is tremendous transformative potential in digital technologies, but we have not yet figured out how to deliver on these many promises.” (UNESCO, 2021) Therefore, the central concern of postgraduate education reform and development in the New Era is how to harness the potential of digital technology as the driving force and impetus for postgraduate education. That requires further identifying the fundamental aspects such as the realistic basis, logical reasoning, key features, and practical path of digital technology empowering high-quality postgraduate education.  
Theoretical background:
The TOE framework was proposed by Tomatzky and Fleischer in the book "The Process of Technological Innovation" in 1990 . It is developed basing on the relevant theories of information technology innovation. It categorizes the factors that affect an organization's implementation of technological innovation into three categories: technical level, organizational level, and environmental level.
The constant evolution of digital technology and high-quality development scenarios have driven the continuous innovation in development concepts, methods and models of postgraduate education, leading to a systematic transformation of its development strategies, organizational management, personnel training, scientific research, social services, international exchanges, among others. Such a transformation provides decision-making support for the high-quality and ICT development of postgraduate education in the New Era. Digital technology empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education not only aligns with the complex international and domestic environments in the New Era, but also serves as a driving force for technological innovation and organizational change. Based on this, this paper constructs the theoretical framework drawing on the TOE framework.
Research design, methodology:
On the basis of  practical basis, this paper employs the TOE framework to examine the logic reasoning of digital technology empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education through technology, organization, and environment. Further more, this paper explores the key features of digital technology empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education. Based on this, this paper proposes the practical path of digital technology empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education.
Findings:
1.The development and widespread application of digital technology has brought significant changes to the efficiency and quality of postgraduate education, enabling its high-quality, efficient, and ecologically-sound development.
2.Empowered and propelled by digital technology, the high-quality development of postgraduate education is experiencing a triple organizational change in team, university, and society.
3.With the empowerment of digital technology, the high-quality development of postgraduate education is committed to evolving from a simple ecology of technology transplantation to a new one of man-machine collaboration, innovation and openness driven by innovation. This new ecology features the integration of virtual and real-world combined teaching, co-governance by multiple parties, and intelligent supervision and evaluation of the high-quality development of postgraduate education by third parties such as the government and industry enterprises.
4.The key features of digital technology empowering the high-quality development of postgraduate education include a shift in postgraduate education organization from “bounded” to “unbounded,” a move from uniform curriculum standards to personalized customization of teaching, a transition from following the industry to leading it in discipline construction, and a change in governance from a “vertical” to “grid” approach.
Practical/social implications:
This study provides suggestions for policy makers, educators, and managers to improve the high-quality development of postgraduate education. With the empowerment of digital technology, it is essential to build a consensus on digital philosophy, train digital talent, implement digital governance, and innovate digital evaluuation for the high-quality development of postgraduate education.

Authors

• Yan Yu, Beihang University

• Yue Qu, Beihang University