Teaching Strategies and Virtual Campus Uses in Higher Education after the COVID-19 Digital Transformation

COVID-19 accelerated the digital transformation of Spanish universities, turning the virtual campus into the backbone of learning; this comparative qualitative study explores how 57 lecturers and 32 students from the Universities of Extremadura (UEx), Valladolid (UVa) and La Laguna (ULL) perceive post-pandemic changes in virtual-campus uses and online instructional designs and converts that evidence into actionable strategies. Four focus groups and ten semi-structured group interviews were transcribed and coded in Atlas.ti, mapped onto a consensual scheme of 14 categories and 42 codes, and the coding was triangulated across institutions to ensure reliability. Results show that the campus is indispensable yet causes an excessive workload, its interactive features remain underutilized, and redesigned teaching blends multimedia resources, automated quizzes and oral defenses, while participation rises when forums are well moderated and synchronous tutoring is offered. Seven recommendations emerge—weekly ECTS workload map, minimum multimodal resource kit, three-step assessment cycle, hybrid tutoring calendar, flipped learning with micro-projects, mixed quiz–oral test and gamified participation—designed to balance flexibility, workload and learning depth and to strengthen student engagement in post-pandemic hybrid education.