The objective of this bibliometric study was to provide a basis for analysing the development and evolution of scientific literature related to digital transformation in higher education institutions, it contributes to establishing an overview of trends in scientific production worldwide. In the development of the article, bibliometric studies have been found with some coincidences and in other cases with differences. With the studies by the authors González-Zamar et al. [52] and Abad-Segura et al. [53], there is a coincidence in a growing interest in knowing the phenomenon of digitization, either from the skills necessary for the transformation digital and digitization processes in educational organizations. The studies by González-Zamar et al. [52] with their article: "ICT Management for Sustainable Education: Research analysis in the context of higher education", focus on the use of ICTs as a medium that favors the development of sustainable education, forming more responsible and conscientious students.
Likewise, the studies by Adad-Segura et al. [53] with their article: "Sustainable Management of Digital Transformation in Higher Education: Global Research Trends", show the importance of "sustainable management" to adapt to the changes imposed by new technologies in the educational sector. Both studies had "Scopus" as their database. The first analyzed information from the years 2000 to 2019, while the second did so between the period 1986–2019. In relation to the topics investigated, the studies by González-Zamar et al. [52] are like our article in relation to the topics in "education", "information technologies" and "higher education". In relation to the differences, there is the Source of information extraction since our work was based on information from the "Web on Science (WoS)".
In addition, the countries that present the greatest scientific production in the articles mentioned are the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, China, and Italy, while in our article Spain, Russia, Portugal, and Germany stand out as countries with the greatest scientific production related to Transformation. Digital in Higher Education. In addition, our article takes more up-to-date information, considering information between the years 2014 and 2022, incorporating the Covid-19 pandemic, which accelerated the digital transformation in the analyzed institutions. Regarding the main authors, in the article by González-Zamar et al. [52] the authors are Mulder, Cappellaro, Cotana, Cumo, Eisenmenger and Ferrer-Balas. Similarly, in the article by Abad-Segura et al. [53], the main author is Mulder, from The Hague University of Applied Sciences. In this, there are differences with our article, since the main author is Moreira, from the University of Aveiro, Portugal. There are also differences in the topics studied in relation to the article by Abad-Segura et al. [53], since the latter focuses on issues of social sciences and environmental sciences.
There is another article by the authors Reis-Marques, et al. [54], entitled: "Applications of blockchain technology to the field of higher education: a bibliometric analysis" whose purpose is to safeguard the security of information in higher education, which also points to an information technology in support of the transformation processes of higher education, for which, there are also similarities in terms of the promotion of digital transformation in this sector and the period of years in which it was based. Research, which focused on pandemic periods (2016–2021). On the contrary, there are differences since again the database is Scopus and the countries that produce the most are the US, China, India, and Portugal.
When carrying out an exhaustive analysis of the scientific production related to the "Digital Transformation" it is evident that there are several bibliometric studies on this subject, however, most of said investigations are related to the digital transformation, but in commercial or service organizations and not in higher education, and especially in universities.
With the purpose of publicizing the research findings, a review of the fundamental bibliometric laws was carried out, beginning with Price's Law, which showed an exponential growth in the number of publications (R2 = 92%) between the years 2014 to 2021, within a universe of 384 documents analyzed. At the same time, a marked increase in scientific production is inferred from the year 2019. Coinciding precisely with the presence of Covid-19, which was a variable that motivated the generation of articles, proceedings, and reviews, related to digital transformation. in organizational processes, accelerating this transformation to levels never seen before. Link the above finding to the reference research question described as:
As for the Bradford Law, which shows us the level of concentration of publications by journals, on DT2HE, between the years 2014–2022, a limited number of journals (14 journals) is evident, the most prominent being: "Sustainability”, "Science Education" and "Education and Information Technology", concentrating a total of 38 documents with an accumulated frequency of 11% compared to the total sources analyzed. A low production of DT2HE by the journals is evident.
Regarding the countries that carry out scientific production related to DT2HE, the Heat Map evidenced a global community of knowledge, and a strong relationship on this topic, made up of 50 countries, of which stand out within the area of greatest heat: Russia, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Mexico, forming a cluster of high scientific production. Related to the above, with the level of collaboration between countries in terms of co-authorship, the US, as a country outside the European and Asian zone, is among the leading countries in terms of international collaboration, with a total of 20 links of strength, together with Spain. England and Germany, not so, Portugal (8 links) and Russia (7 links) that have links of low strength or collaboration.
Referring to Lotka's Law, which reveals the concentration of publications by author, it shows a low collaboration among the top prolific authors in terms of co-authorship, since there are only 16 authors who publish more than three intelligent articles. Within these 16 there is no relationship between them, but groupings into dyads, triads, and tetrads, and, in addition, there is an isolated author. Regarding the co-authorship networks, the main ones are in clusters of 4 and 3 authors and affiliated to Portugal at the same time.
Complementing the above but considering Hirsch's Law ("h" index, or how relevant an article is in terms of citations), the authors with the most citations are: Abad-Segura, and González-Zamar; both with 115 citations each, in WoS, and representing Spain through the University of Almería, followed by Moreira, F. with 20 citations, from Portugal from the Universidad Portucalense; Aveiro from Portugal.
It is important to highlight the high concentration of documents in the "h" index belonging to the "Sustainability" magazine, which reaches 33.3% of the publications together with a concentration of 44.4% at the editorial level. The authors: Emilio Abad-Segura and Mariana Daniela González-Zamar are the most prominent authors in the "h" index.
Regarding According to Zipf's Law, three clusters of groups of most prominent words (used) are observed, with force in the words: Model (red), Students (green), Technology (blue) linked to: "modernization in the Pandemic higher education”, “the effects of DT2HE on students” and the “DT2HE process”, respectively.
Given the above, this work reveals the low scientific production in the field of digital transformation in universities, and at the same time, raises the concern of making proposals for constructs that serve to implement and control digital transformation processes in universities. leading these institutions. in levels of digital maturity that directly impact the satisfaction of their students.
One of the main conclusions of this study is the little research carried out on digitalization in higher education institutions, however, from 2019 onwards there was an exponential increase in scientific production on digital transformation issues. but in different areas. Where the main driver was probably the covid-19 pandemic. Many public and private organizations, with and without profit, saw the need to digitize their different Value Chain processes. The idea that the search vector was limited to "higher education institutions" has to do with generating basic information to develop a proposal for a digital maturity model that allows measuring the degree of digital transformation of a university.