Integrating Rapid Application Development Courses into Higher Education Curricula

As the development of technology and business improvement is rapidly advancing these days, higher education (HE) should continually provide and develop up-to-date knowledge and skills for students. This is crucial for training competitive specialists, addressing digital transformation and enhancing digital readiness of HE institutions, as well as increasing students’ employment opportunities. Therefore, this paper explores the development and implementation of the new courses for teaching Rapid Application Development (RAD) on the Oracle Application Express platform at five European universities. Consequently, a new and flexible methodology for the integration of developed courses into existing study programs with different integration strategies is proposed and implemented. The effectiveness of the courses’ integration, implementation and students’ satisfaction were evaluated using Kirkpatrick’s model. The results reveal that students’ knowledge of RAD increased after completing the courses, which can improve students’ employment opportunities and promote digital transformation in HE institutions and studies. In addition, a majority of the students expressed positive feedback for both modules, finding the courses relevant, well delivered and motivating for future study. This study and its results are expected to inspire researchers, teachers and practitioners for further work towards the digital transformation of HE and offer valuable insights for future HE digitalization and research.