When the Raqmyat project came into being, when it was conceptualized and advocated for by the teams from the universities of Manouba and Paris I, and when it took shape through the combined efforts of partner universities and institutions, supported by the European Community, the term “urgency” appeared in several documents: the urgency to digitize, to digitalize the university space, to sustain, to disseminate resources and experiences, to automate tasks, etc. No one imagined that the term “urgency” could encompass the magnitude and intensity that the COVID-19 crisis has brought about.

After the pandemic, the resumption (assuming a rupture) of activities and meetings around the project occurred through a webinar, the first in a series of meetings under the title “Hadîth Raqmyat,” a virtual space where researchers, educators, and students from both shores of the Mediterranean are invited to discuss the digital revolution affecting our methods of teaching and conducting research in the field of humanities and social sciences.
During the meeting on June 22, 2020, the first after the COVID-19 crisis, speakers from 4 partner universities of the project were invited to address the question of whether digitalization brings opportunities or rather entails risks for the university.

Three axes were proposed for collective reflection:

• • What has the global COVID-19 health crisis revealed about the digital divide?

• • How do digital technologies and digital humanities alter our practices in teaching and research?

• • What is the main challenge today regarding digitalization for universities? What is the urgency?

Kmar Bendana, the webinar moderator, declared herself a novice in this type of exercise. She is probably not alone, as more than ever, border closures and “social distancing” have imposed new norms, new practices, just as they have prompted action in the field of digital communication to maintain pedagogical relationships.

When the pandemic reveals digital divide and various vulnerabilities

To answer the first question, and without going into the details of the experiences, the four speakers seem unanimous in stating how everything was done in haste. Urgency presupposes goodwill, responsiveness, and support, but also confusion and disorder. Institutions, educators, and students, caught off guard, found themselves compelled to intervene immediately without real planning. Thus, the degree of digitalization of each institution, the training of teams, the pre-existence or absence of a tradition of communication and distance education, decided the responsiveness of each structure. Beyond the illusion that northern universities would be “by far” better equipped to confront such situations, it becomes apparent that many nuances need to be considered. No one can claim to be 100% ready for digitalization because the response is not solely material. Equipment and the state of connectivity—whether it be “non-equipped,” “under-equipped,” or “ill-equipped,” as Eric Vallet puts it—are certainly crucial questions, but the training of educators, the commitment and responsiveness of teams, the specificity of teachings, and the reflection on the legitimacy and feasibility of distance education remain equally decisive issues during the transition to an all-digital format. This transition has sparked various forms of resistance to distancing, change, and institutionalization. The rejection of digitalization by student and teacher unions in Tunisia, according to Samiha Khalifa and Chafik Sarsar, has prompted a debate on the choice between pedagogical continuity or distance learning (DL). This transition was already underway at the University of Granada, according to Lidia Bocanegra, but was accelerated due to (or thanks to) the pandemic, which exposed the shortcomings and limits of the system in place.

The digital divide observed during this crisis highlights a pre-existing fracture, which was perhaps unseen or little acknowledged, possibly because it was mitigated by other forms of interaction. Many French, Spanish, or Tunisian students found themselves excluded from educational support. Crisis units, the diversity of platforms, the support offered to those less equipped have certainly helped fill some gaps, reduce distances and disparities, but have not been able to bridge a gap that has been growing for a long time.

A significant step towards digital humanities

As an amplifier of existing inequalities and a revealer of overlooked pedagogical realities, according to Eric Vallet, COVID-19 has, on the other hand, altered practices by forcing a forced transition to digital. At the onset of the crisis, slogans about the primacy of face-to-face interactions and the irreplaceability of human contact were heard. Educators were the first to worry about the risk of disengagement, to oppose a possible remote evaluation that could favor or disadvantage some. Between the official discourse urging a rapid transition to digital and DL and the real difficulties that marked the beginning, there is a gap.

The most resistant have discovered that DL is neither a gimmick nor a robotization of teaching: changing media and interfaces implies a change of paradigm, but above all, a reflection on the role of each: the role of the educator, that of the student, and the status of transmitted knowledge.

The most motivated have managed to circumvent the system, to overcome difficulties by providing innovative technical solutions, to introduce new tools by experimenting with new media, to establish technological vigilance that has responded, quickly and efficiently, to the expectations and concerns of teacher-researchers and students.

Pedagogical teams, forced by the urgency of the situation, have worked more than ever in network, a coordination that has made it possible to put a maximum of resources at the disposal of students. The solidarity between those who master computer tools and novices has further welded the pedagogical teams.

At the research level, the posting of a considerable mass of data online, the development of a sharing policy, and the provision of free resources to researchers from both shores have been a windfall because, without traveling, they have been able to access documents scattered around the world.

Beyond the real but punctual achievements, the pandemic has served to bring new practices to light; it should thus help, according to Chafik Sarsar, to break down research barriers and to better disseminate its results. Lidia Bocanegra thus proposes the opening of virtual classes to the public, thus allowing for a broader dissemination of knowledge.

The humanities, being mainly the subject of this realm of knowledge and research, have demonstrated their adaptability to change but also their specificity. Indeed, it is often in interaction that the researcher-student-teacher in humanities works and produces.

What new challenges?

“Capitalizing on achievements” and “anticipating” would be the watchwords of this stage. The confrontation of these examples and the solutions proposed by each of the speakers once again show the complexity of the issue of digitalization and that it should be placed at the center of the priorities of each institution as well as at the heart of a broader reflection on the relationship between humanities and the digital.

Lidia Bocanegra thus calls for further democratization of research with the aim of what she calls the “perspective of citizen science.”

Decloaking should also favor multidisciplinary research. We will thus be able to use methods from other disciplines to facilitate communication and to boost research in humanities. Using digital to unlock knowledge, rather than for ultra-specialization, would be the starting point for new research objects such as artificial intelligence and social networks, examples cited among many others by Eric Vallet.

Chafik Sarsar insists on the urgent need for upgrading human resources as well as infrastructure in order to review the legal framework to allow for remote defenses. Another challenge is to

reduce inequalities among students to enable access to digital resources. Also crucial would be considering security guarantees, according to Samiha Khalifa, who also warns against the risks of falling into technicalities.

A little over 90 minutes of exchanges and debates certainly could not suffice to assess this forced transition to digital, but the chosen format and the questions posed have at least served to restart the Raqmyat program, which, unlike several other projects, has leveraged the global crisis as an opportunity for action. The second Hadith Raqmyat will take place this Monday, July 6, 2020. We will be there.

Dorra Bassi

University of Tunis