Institutional Architecture for Credible Online and Blended Provision in African Higher Education: A University-Wide Framework for Digital Transition

Background: Online and blended provision has expanded rapidly in higher education, yet much of the literature still treats digital transition as a pedagogical or technological adjustment rather than an institutional transformation problem. Problem: Conventional universities, especially in African higher education, often face pressure to move online under conditions of constrained infrastructure, uneven digital access, evolving regulation, and heightened concern about academic standards. Existing scholarship is rich on course design, faculty attitudes, and learner satisfaction, but comparatively weak on the full institutional architecture required for credible transition. Objective: This article develops a university-wide framework for bringing conventional institutions online in ways that are regulatorily legitimate, academically credible, operationally resilient, socially inclusive, and financially sustainable. Research question: What institutional architecture is required to move a university from conventional face-to-face delivery to credible, quality-assured online or blended provision in African higher education? Design: A systematized integrative review combined with comparative policy analysis was conducted across peer-reviewed higher education literature and authoritative framework and regulatory documents. The synthesis drew together institutional adoption studies, quality assurance guidance, digital transformation frameworks, and policy texts, with Rwanda used as a policy-reference environment rather than a single-country case. Findings: Credible digital transition depends on the alignment of five layers: contextual boundary conditions, a steering layer of governance and policy, seven operational domains, phased implementation sequencing, and outcome-focused feedback loops. The review shows that digital provision fails when institutions treat the learning management system as the reform, underinvest in staff and student support, delay policy redesign, or reduce assessment integrity to surveillance alone. It succeeds when governance, curriculum, quality assurance, infrastructure, data governance, and financing are intentionally coupled. Principal contribution: The article contributes an original Institutional Architecture for Credible Digital Transition framework and a companion University Online Readiness and Transition Toolkit comprising a readiness rubric, phased roadmap, and policy checklist. Implications: The framework offers an actionable basis for institutional leaders, regulators, and scholars seeking to design, evaluate, and sequence digital transition in African higher education without reproducing techno-solutionist assumptions.