Development of an online teaching competence framework for University lecturers in Vietnam

Abstract The strong development of information and communication technology and the in-depth impact of the COVID-19 pandemic promote faster digital transformation and provoke online teaching modes at Vietnamese universities. To flexibly adapt to the above changes, university lecturers need to be in-service trained in online teaching competence. The aim of this study is to develop an Online Teaching Competence Framework for University Lecturers in Vietnam that will serve as a scientific basis for building an online teaching competence training program for both lecturers and teacher education. The Online Teaching Competence Framework for University Lecturers was created through (1) a systematic literature review on the online teaching competence of lecturers and (2) exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of its component competencies and items based on data from 311 lecturers at two public universities of technology and education in Vietnam. The Online Teaching Competence Framework for Lecturers was established with 25 items under five component competencies, namely “Technology”, “Understanding Student Learning”, “Digital Content Development and Learning Facilitation”, “Online Learning Outcomes Assessment” and “Online Session Administration”. The limitations and practical recommendations for further research are also addressed in this study.


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
The rapid advancement of information and communication technology, as well as the widespread influence of the COVID-19 pandemic, have accelerated digital transformation and increased non-traditional teaching modes such as online, blended, and hybrid teaching.University lecturers should be in-service trained in online teaching competence (OTC) to effectively implement these non-traditional teaching modes.The development of OTC for university lecturers (OTCFUL) in Vietnamese universities needs to be based on the OTCFUL.This article presents the development of a reliable and valid OTCFUL through a systematic literature review on lecturers' OTC and exploratory factor analysis, and Cronbach's alpha coefficient based on data from 311 lecturers at two public universities of technology and education in Vietnam.The OTCFUL will serve as (1) a scientific foundation for developing an OTC training program for university lecturers and teacher education, (2) a practice guide for online teaching, (3) a reference framework for assessing online teaching quality.

Introduction
Along with the rapid expansion of information and communication technology, the COVID-19 pandemic that occurred in Vietnam on 23 January 2020 has been viewed as a major impetus for the execution of a comprehensive digital transformation in the education sector.Non-traditional teaching modes such as blended teaching, online teaching, and hybrid teaching have been promoted throughout the education system, including higher education, to safely, flexibly adapt, and effectively control the COVID-19 pandemic while maintaining teaching and learning activities (Le et al., 2021;Vu et al., 2019Vu et al., -2020)).There were 92/240 universities (38.3%) that switched from face-to-face to online teaching.79 universities implemented entirely online teaching, whereas 13 used combined online and face-to-face instruction (Bui & Ha, 2022).
Online teaching is defined as education that occurs over the Internet (Sadiku et al., 2018) or as a form of distance education in which learning and teaching activities are carried out partially or entirely via the Internet (Baran et al., 2011;Bolliger & Wasilik, 2009;Ko & Rossen, 2017).Online teaching requires teachers to have technological knowledge, abilities, and attitudes in addition to those related to the pedagogy and content of in-person teaching.Therefore, key components of online teaching competence comprise knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding "pedagogy", "content" and "technology".
To effectively teach online, lecturers should be trained in Online Teaching Competence (OTC), a new type of pedagogical competence that has emerged as a result of the digital transformation and the COVID-19 pandemic.Because a competence framework is a critical foundation for the process of pre-training and in-service training of professional and pedagogical competence for lecturers (Bui, 2017;Bui et al., 2022;Doan & Le, 2019), the development of an online teaching competence framework is of great significance for the process of training online teaching competencies for lecturers.However, the question of "Which are specific component competencies and items of an online teaching competence framework?"remains unanswered in the context of higher education in Vietnam.
While the authors are interested in studies on pedagogical competence in general and pedagogical competence frameworks for lecturers in particular (Bui, 2017;Do, 2021;Doan, 2011), online teaching competence and a specific online teaching competence framework for lecturers are currently a big gap in Vietnam.We did not directly find any studies on the online teaching competence of lecturers or online teaching competence frameworks for lecturers when using search engines with the Vietnamese keywords "năng lực dạy học trực tuyến của giảng viên" and "khung năng lực dạy học trực tuyến cho giảng viên" or in English as "online teaching competence of lecturers" and "online teaching competence framework for lecturers" on March 1-16, 2023.There were only indirect studies on online teaching competence, online teaching competence frameworks for lecturers in particular (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2021;Pham & Nghiem, 2022;Tuong et al., 2022) in the above time period.In light of the foregoing, the aim of this study is to develop an Online Teaching Competence for Lecturers in Vietnam through seeking answers to the following questions: (1) What is the online teaching competence of the lecturer?
(2) What are the component competencies and their corresponding items of an online teaching competence framework for lecturers in Vietnam?
(3) How does this study develop an online teaching competence framework for lecturers in Vietnam?

Online teaching competence of lecturers
Digital transformation has been the most researched topic in "information systems and organizational science literature in over the past two decades" (Mikalef & Parmiggiani, 2022).Digital transformation is defined by Vial (2019) as "a process that aims to improve an entity by triggering significant changes to its properties through combinations of information, computing, communication, and connectivity technologies".In Vietnam, the digital transformation in the education sector focuses on using technology to digitalize materials and textbooks, establish platforms for face-to-face and online sharing of teaching and learning activities and resources, and gear toward individualized training according to student-centered education (Nguyen, The Vietnamese Prime Minister, 2020).
To successfully implement digital transformation in higher education, the pedagogical digital competence of lecturers plays a very crucial role.Pedagogical digital competence is a combination of pedagogical competence and digital literacy to support students' learning in the best possible way (From, 2017) or to plan, organize, and evaluate a student-centered and inclusive learning process (Purina-Bieza, 2021).Pedagogical digital competence consists of component competencies, of which online teaching competence (OTC) is a core component.For this article, a systematic review of the OTC of lecturers reveals that it is not a solitary competence.This competence includes component competencies related to key elements of technology-assisted teaching in the classroom, namely technology, pedagogy, and content mentioned in Mishra and Koehler's work (Mishra & Koehler, 2008).It is more clearly proven in-depth studies of OTC of lecturers as below.
To effectively improve online learning, lecturers must be capable of not just transmitting knowledge but also interacting with students (Queiroz & Mustaro, 2003).According to Queiroz and Mustaro (2003), the OTC of lecturers is the ability to use technology, design and implement courses, moderate, organize, and archive asynchronous discussions, establish ground rules, guide, and animate synchronous discussions, integrate different teaching and learning styles into the course, interact actively with students and provide constant feedback, make students aware of cultural differences among members of a group, and practice Internet ethics.Abdous (2011) proposed a comprehensive framework for competence in online teaching based on the belief that online teaching is the interaction of three major components: content, pedagogy, and technology.According to Abdous (2011), competence in online teaching regards three nonlinear phases of the online teaching experience: before, during, and after.Lecturers are capable of preparation, planning, and design throughout the pre-online teaching period.During the teaching phase, lecturers can motivate, communicate with, and provide feedback to students.At the end of online instruction, lecturers are capable of reflecting on and recognizing the lessons learned.Sapien-Aguilar et al. (2017) defined the OTC of lecturers based on three research stages: defining lecturers' characteristics, identifying teaching skills, and evaluating teaching skill profiles transformed in an online learning environment.According to Sapien-Aguilar et al. (2017), the OTC of lecturers includes three pedagogical skills (pedagogical, educational interaction, and instructional design), a digital skill, a research skill, and lecturer qualities such as professional, ethical, and legal responsibilities.Roddy et al. (2017) defined online teaching competence as the capacity to communicate, provide feedback, administrate, reply, monitor learning, and provide support.These above-mentioned online teaching competence component competencies fully represent the three key components of technology-assisted teaching taking over the Internet and contribute to improve the efficacy of lecturers' online teaching and students' active engagement.
The OTC of educators is defined as "having the necessary knowledge and skills to teach via online platforms" by İ ̇zmirli and Kirmaci (2017).The authors also proposed component competencies of the OTC, including "pedagogy" (engagement, facilitation, contact with students, instructional guidelines, identification of individual differences, content and material preparation) and "technology" (having technological competence).Albrahim (2020) proposed six component competencies of the OTC based on a comprehensive document analysis on online learning and teaching, skills and competencies that lecturers need to acquire to teach effectively in the online environment: pedagogy, content, design, technology, management and institution, society and communication.
The OTC of agriculture lecturers at universities in Northeast India, according to Borah and Devarani (2022), includes component competencies such as technology, content facilitation, teaching facilitation, teaching ethics, and session management.These component competencies play a very important role in successful online teaching.Borah and Devarani (2022) also believe that providing proper infrastructure and facilities, as well as training on the use of e-teaching materials and technologies, can increase lecturers' online teaching competence.
In the context of the strong development of information and communication technology, digital competence fosters every student's confidence, criticality, responsibility, and creativity in their use of and engagement with digital technologies for learning, at work, and for participation in society (Official Journal of the European Union, 2018).Digital competence helps lecturers use digital technologies for communication, collaboration, and continuous professional development, as well as establish a technology-assisted learning environment and integrate technology in teaching and learning effectively.Some components of online teaching competence are mentioned in the Digital Competence Framework for Educators: DigCompEdu such as "Teaching and Learning" and "Assessment".These components of digital competence enhance lecturers' ability to design, plan, and implement the use of digital technologies in the different stages of the learning process, including instruction, collaborative learning, and self-regulated learning, as well as develop assessment strategies, analyze evidence, and give prompt feedback (Redecker, 2017).So, the above studies reveal that the OTC is not a solitary competence.This competence consists of component competencies that are compatible with three key elements of technology-assisted teaching in class, namely "technology", "pedagogy", and "content" as mentioned in Mishra and Koehler's work (Mishra & Koehler, 2008).Although component competencies in the OTC may have different names, their meaning stays similar.Common component competencies of OTC are identified, including pedagogy, technology, course administration, communication, and assessment.The literature review on the OTC provides this study with a definition of the OTC of lecturers as follows: "Online teaching competence of lecturers refers to the capability of using knowledge, skills, and attitudes of pedagogy, content, and technology to understand student learning, develop materials and instructional guides, facilitate learning activities, assess learning outcomes, and administrate online synchronous and asynchronous courses achieving good results".

Online teaching competence scale for lecturers
Researchers have been motivated to not only identify component competencies of the OTC but also develop an OTC scale for lecturers.The OTC scale for lecturers refers to specific items pertaining to each component competence and the levels based on the Likert scale, which is a point of agreement based on the literature review on the OTC of lecturers.
A valuable and reliable OTC scale for university lecturers was developed using data from 392 teachers at Istanbul University, Cerrahpasa (Turkey).Participants in this study taught online synchronous or asynchronous courses during the COVID-19 pandemic.This OTC scale for university lecturers has 15 items divided into four components: pedagogy, facilitation, technology, and course administration (Simsek et al., 2021).With the four above components, this scale is compatible with key elements of technology-assisted teaching, such as "technology" and "pedagogy".The "content" element of technology-assisted teaching is not included in this scale.
An OTC scale for agricultural lecturers at universities in Northeast India consists of 23 items classified into five component competencies: technology, teaching facilitation, teaching ethics, session management, and content facilitation (Borah & Devarani, 2022) expressed.Although this scale covers three key elements of technology-assisted teaching, basic aspects of the "pedagogy" element, such as assessment or instructional design in an online learning environment, are not addressed.Tang et al. (2022) developed a reliable and valid teachers' digital competence evaluation framework for online teaching by incorporating the interplay and intersection of four types of basic knowledge: learner Knowledge (LK), Technical Knowledge (TK), pedagogical Knowledge (PK), and Ethical Knowledge (EK) based on an analysis of the limitations of existing models such as TPACK and DigCompEdu.These types of knowledge are located at six key intersections: Learner Technical Knowledge (LTK), Learner Pedagogical Knowledge (LPK), Learner Ethical Knowledge (LEK), Technical Pedagogical Knowledge (TPK), Technical Ethical Knowledge (TEK), and Pedagogical Ethical Knowledge (PEK).The evaluation framework includes 44 items corresponding to 10 dimensions, namely LK (5 items), TK (4 items), PK (7 items), EK (4 items), LTK (4 items), LPK (4 items), LEK (4 items), TPK (4 items), TEK (4 items), and PEK (4 items).These items are measured using a 5-point Likert scale (Tang et al., 2022).
In conclusion, the literature review on the OTC and the OTC scale for lecturers reveals that the OTC of lecturers includes component competencies and their items related to understanding student learning, designing materials and instructional guides, organizing active and interactive learning activities, and assessing learning outcomes in online synchronous or asynchronous courses.The OTC of lecturers links closely with component competencies of face-to-face teaching competence, such as instructional design, learning activity performance, and assessment.Items of the lecturers' OTC express characteristics of component competencies of face-to-face teaching competence as well as teaching and learning activities in the online environment.The literature review also indicates that while studies on online teaching in general have been published by some Vietnamese authors, in-depth studies on the OTC of lecturers and an online teaching competence framework for lecturers are still lacking.Therefore, if a valid and reliable OTC framework for lecturers is developed, it will help Vietnamese universities construct an online teaching competence training program for lecturers to improve their online teaching competence for adaptation to the digital transformation context.

Propose an online teaching competence framework for University Lecturers in Vietnam
A competence framework is an inventory of expected knowledge, skills, and attitudes that individuals should have in order to perform tasks or activities within an organization with good results.An online teaching competence framework for lecturers is an inventory of expected knowledge, skills, and attitudes that lecturers need to be in-service trained to achieve good results in online teaching.The Online Teaching Competence Framework for University Lecturers (OTCFUL) offers particular recommendations for general perceptions and online teaching practice instructions for the development of professional competence and increasing the quality of online education.The OTCFUL will serve as (1) a scientific foundation for creating a program to train lecturers in online teaching competency, (2) a reference framework for evaluating the effectiveness of online teaching in Vietnamese universities.
The above literature review on the OTC of lecturers and the OTC scale for lecturers provide this study with scientific basics of component competencies and corresponding items of OTCFUL.Component competencies and items of OTCFUL are compatible with key elements of technology-assisted teaching and characteristics of teaching-learning on online environment.With these scientific basics, this study identifies the OTCFUL with 37 items organized into six component competencies: technology (6 items), understanding student learning (5 items), online instructional design (5 items), digital content development and learning facilitation (11 items), online learning outcomes assessment (6 items) and online session administration (4 items) (see Table 1).

Research objectives
The research objectives are to investigate the validity of the OTCFUL's six component competencies (factors) and 37 items using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), as well as the reliability of the OTCFUL's factors and items using Cronbach's alpha coefficient analysis once the validity is established.

Research sample and participants
To identify the research sample, this study uses the formula n ¼ N 1þNxe 2 (Yamane, 1967): n is the sample size to be determined, N is the population size, and e is the allowable error with the most common being ± 0.05.This study was conducted from November, 2022 to January, 2023 at two universities of technology and education in Vietnam, namely University of Technology and Education (HMCUTE) and Hung Yen University of Technology and Education (UTEHY).The total number of lecturers at HCMUT (585 lecturers) and UTEHY (387 lecturers) = 972 in November, 2022.
Applying the Yamane's formula, the overall research sample is ¼ 972 1þ972x0:05 2 ¼ 283:4: ¼ 283: So the minimum required sample of the study is 283 lecturers.There were 311 lecturers taking part in the survey, including 172 from HCMUTE and 139 from UTEHY.Before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic around from 2019 to 2022, all participants taught online synchronous and asynchronous courses for at least one to more than four semesters.Table 2 shows the demographic characteristics of the 311 lecturers from HCMUTE and UTEHY.

Instrument
The instrument for this study is a questionnaire with six component competencies of lecturers' OTC and its items (see Table 1).The questionnaire uses a 5-point Likert scale, with responses ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, and severely disagree.

Data collection and analysis
350 questionnaires were handed in person to HCMUTE and UTEHY lecturers.343 answer sheets were gathered.After removing 32 invalid answer sheets, the valid sample was determined to be 311.IBM SPSS 22.0 software was used to analyze the data.The formula for calculating the value of 5 points is: value of points = (maximum value-minimum value)/number of points = (5-1)/5 = 0.8.6 Solve problems that arise when using online teaching platforms or unexpected situations (e.g., disconnection from the network).

Understanding Student Learning 1
Identify psychological changes in students when learning online through their facial expressions, behaviors, gestures, and language.
2 Determine the cognitive levels of students based on their written or oral answers and interactive learning activities with lecturers and classmates.
3 Identify the knowledge and skills that students can find difficult when learning online.

4
Identify the preferred learning styles of students (visual, aural, read/write, and kinesthetic) when learning online.

5
Use teaching methods that are compatible with students' preferred learning styles and online learning conditions.
Online Instructional Design 1 Design the learning outcomes of the subject and lessons using SMART principles (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely).
2 Design academic content that ensures scientific, modern, pedagogical logic, and consistency in students' cognitive levels as well as online learning conditions.
3 Select teaching forms and methods that match learning outcomes and academic content.

4
Design learning activities, tasks and assessment criteria.

5
Select online teaching tools that match academic content, teaching methods, and students' online learning conditions.

Findings
This study verified the validity of six component competencies (factors) and 37 items of the OTCFUL by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA).Because there were no hypotheses about the nature of the underlying structure of the OTCFUL, EFA was used to explore factors (component competencies) of the OTCFUL and remove items that did not belong to any factors or belong to two or more factors, as well as determine the convergent and discriminant values.Three basic points of EFA were carefully considered in this study: the number of factors, the extraction method selection, and the rotation method choice.
Items selected to represent the respective groups of factors must satisfy the minimum requirements of each test coefficient, including KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin), Bartlett's Test of Sphericity, Factor Loading, Eigenvalues, and total explained variance.The KMO coefficient was found to be 0.939 and the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity indicated a value of 4924.523(Sig = 0.000).Therefore, the adequacy of the sample was determined to be statistically significant.With KMO = 0.939, the factor analysis results indicated that the data used for factor analysis was completely appropriate.A hypothesis that the correlation matrix between variables is a homogenous matrix was rejected; the variables were correlated with each other and satisfied the factor analysis conditions when the Bartlett's Test of Sphericity value was 4924.523 with Sig = 0.000 < .05.There were relationships among items when examining the correlation matrix.With the sample of 311, the absolute value was determined to be 0.37.In the first factor analysis, 37 items were collected under six factors.The analysis was repeated by checking the items and removing those that did not go under any factor or went under two factors.The items that needed to be removed were removed sequentially as well as checked for significance in the scale by controlling the communalities and factor load values each time.Out of the 37 items under the six factors, five items under the "Online instructional design" factor were not uploaded to any of the factors in the OTCFUL.Therefore, the "Online instructional design" factor and its five items were removed from the OCTFL.

No Items
Online  The OTCFUL in Vietnam was formed with a structure of 25 items under five factors, including "understanding student learning" (5 items), "online session administration" (4 items), "digital content development and learning facilitation" (7 items), "technology" (5 items), and "online learning outcomes assessment" (5 items).
Not only did the EFA reduce the number of factors in the proposed OTCFUL for establishing the OTCFUL in Vietnam, but also Cronbach's alpha analysis was also applied to evaluate the reliability of the factors of this OTCFUL.The total explained variance gathered under five factors is 59.457%, or these five factors explained 59.457% of the variability of the data.The eigenvalues of the factors were all high (>1), and the 5th factor had the lowest eigenvalue of 1.048.Therefore, the convergence and discriminant validity of five factors were proven to be valid.The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of all five factors was found to be 0.950.The reliability of the five component competencies took values between 0.901 and 0.824.So, the reliability of all five component competencies was good.Table 3 shows the item communalities, standardized factors loads, eigenvalues, explained total variance of the factors and reliability values.
Not only did this study evaluate the validity and reliability of five factors and 25 items but also determined a linear relationship among the five factors.Pearson correlation analysis indicated that there was a linear relationship with statistical significance among all factors (p = 0.000).The direction of this relationship was identified as positive or all factors tend to increase together.Therefore, the OTCFUL-3 has internal consistency.Although "Understanding student learning" plays the most important role in the OTCFUL-3 but it had the lowest average score (Mean = 3.75, Std = 0.72)."Technology" has the highest average value (Mean = 4.34, Std = 0.56).The remaining factors have average values ranked in order of "Online Session Administration" (Mean = 4.12, Std = 0.75), "Online Learning Outcomes Assessment" (Mean = 4.07, Std = 0.69) and "Digital Content Development and Learning Facilitation" (Mean = 4.04, Std = 0.59) respectively.Standard Deviations and Inter-Correlations among the Component Competencies of the Online Teaching Competence for Lecturers in Vietnam are presented in Table 4.
Findings of the EFA and Cronbach's alpha coefficient mentioned above indicated the five component competencies and 25 relevant items of the OTCFUL in Vietnam are reliable and valid.

Discussion
The explained variance of "Understanding student learning" is 44.213%, which means "Understand student learning" plays the most importance role and is the "nuclear" component competence of the OTCFUL.Understanding student learning in an online learning environment refers to the ability to observe students' psychological expressions and learning activities to adjust teaching strategies in cohesion with their needs, interests, characteristics and learning styles of students.Understanding student learning helps lecturers (1) identify the existing cognitive level and the difficulties that students are facing in acquiring knowledge, practicing new skills, using components of learning management systems, online learning platforms, online learning tools, online learning interaction, etc.; (2) select types of learning activities, online teaching methods, online interaction tools that are suitable to students' cognitive levels and online learning conditions; and (3) use technology to identify and support student learning in a timely and effective manner.Personality, motivation, attitude toward learning, learning strategies, learning styles, learning approaches, and intellectual development levels differ among students.The better lecturers understand student heterogeneity, the better they can meet students' diverse learning demands (Felder & Brent, 2005).Based on an awareness of student diversity, lecturers create learning materials that are more engaging and effective for students (Mehta et al., 2022).Identifying students' cognitive levels and personalities also assists lecturers in applying appropriate teaching strategies to students of various personalities (Risan, 2022).
Online sessions have been deployed in Vietnam via Learning Management Systems (LMSs) (Blackboard, Moodle, Canvas, Edmodo, e-learning) and online teaching platforms (Zoom, Google Meet, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams).While LMSs include primary functions such as assignments, forums, feedback, lessons, surveys, quizzes, Scorm packages, workshops, pages, and so on, online teaching platforms have additional qualities such as breakout rooms, recording meetings, polls, whiteboards, and so on.They allow students to communicate with lecturers and peers through both synchronous and asynchronous online learning.As a result, in order to become inspired tutors on these platforms, lecturers must be able to administer various elements of LMSs as well as online teaching platforms, including (1) upload digital learning materials on LMSs; (2) organize lessons on LMSs and online learning platforms according to modular structure; (3) use and manage components of LMSs and online learning platforms in teaching and assessing learning outcomes; and (4) effectively set up time and organize learning activities on LMSs and online teaching platforms.With an explained variance of 5.289%, this component competence ranks second in the OTCFUL in Vietnam.
"Digital content development and learning facilitation" is the ability to combine knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to technology, content, and pedagogy to develop digital learning materials (slides, spreadsheets, audio files, text files, images, videos, teaching software, virtual experiments, links, websites, etc.) for instructional and learning activities.This component competence also helps lecturers have the ability to organize diverse learning activities such as discussions, debates, critiques, presentations, design, or real-world problem solving to encourage students to study on LMSs and online teaching platforms actively and interactively."Digital content development and learning facilitation" needs to be in cohesion with academic content to support students in achieving learning outcomes during the learning process.This component competence plays the third role in the OTCFUL in Vietnam, with an explained variance of 4.244 %.The importance of component competence in terms of "facilitation" to enhance the learning process was examined in the scale of online teaching competence for instructors in Turkey (Simsek et al., 2021)."Technology" is the ability to combine knowledge, skills, and attitudes related to technology to understand students and their learning activities, design online teaching, develop digital learning materials, facilitate learning activities, assess online learning outcomes, and manage online sessions with good results.Lecturers are capable of using technology when they have the basic knowledge and skills of MS Office, search engines, email, etc., and online teaching platforms to interact with students and promote their learning.In addition, using IA in online teaching was also identified as a manifestation of the online teaching competence of lecturers in this study.Although there are certain drawbacks to employing ChatGPT, such as generating inaccurate or fake information and plagiarism (Khan et al., 2023;King & chatGPT, 2023;Lo, 2023), recent research has highlighted the benefits of ChatGPT or other open AI for education.Using AI tools or performing AI-related learning tasks enhances students' creativity, critical thinking skills, and real-world problem-solving skills (Zhai, 2022).AI is also applied in four areas of higher education, including adaptive and personalization systems, assessment and evaluation, profiling and prediction, and intelligent tutoring systems (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2019).OpenAI invented ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot (Lo, 2023;Taecharungroj, 2023).ChatGPT can serve not only as a lecturer assistant by developing course materials, giving suggestions, and providing feedback (Anders, 2023;Lo, 2023) but also as a virtual tutor for students by answering questions or facilitating collaboration (Lo, 2023).Chat GPT can (1) help lecturers prepare teaching materials by designing quizzes to assess learning outcomes; (2) improve academic success by providing lecturers and students with basic knowledge on various topics; and (3) provide a holistic understanding of various topics in an easy-to-understand language (Tlili et al., 2023).With the explained variance of "Technology" being 3.037%, this component competence plays the fourth role in the OTCFUL.
Although assessment is the final phase of the teaching process, it is a vital link in the entire process.Assessment is linked to and directly tied to the change in teaching and learning methods.Assessment not only identifies levels of attainment of learning outcomes, but it also provides lecturers with information on the suitability of teaching methods for learning outcomes and academic content (Duong, 2022).Assessment, in the aforementioned sense, is an essential component of both face-to-face and online teaching.Lecturers are capable of "online learning outcomes assessment" if they (1) give prompt and encouraging feedback on students' performance and learning outcomes; (2) monitor and mentor students to improve their achievement based on learning outcomes throughout the learning process; (3) analyze students' learning outcomes to more promptly and appropriately adjust teaching strategies; and (4) use online assessment software in conjunction with assessment tasks.With an explained variance of 2.675, "online learning outcomes assessment" fills the fifth position in the OTCFUL in Vietnam.
The online teaching competence for lecturers in Vietnam with 25 items under five component competencies that met requirements in terms of validity and reliability, is structured in order in Table 5.

Conclusion, limitations and practical recommendations for further research
This study developed a reliable and valid OTCFUL in Vietnam with five component competencies, namely understanding student learning, online session administration, digital content development and learning facilitation, technology, online learning outcomes assessment, and its 25 corresponding items.The OTCFUL was established through a systematic literature review on the OTC of lecturers and the examination of the reliability and validity of its component competencies and items based on data from 311 lecturers at HCMUTE and UTEHY in Vietnam.
The OTC of lecturers is not only compatible with three key elements of technology-assisted teaching but also comprises component competencies of face-to-face teaching competence such as learning facilitation, assessment, and instructional design.On the other hand, 25 items under the five component competencies of the OTCFUL in Vietnam are polished in the direction of cohesion with the basic characteristics of teaching and learning activities in the online environment.
Some certain limitations in this study are addressed as follows: • Firstly, even though best efforts were made to find documents on the online teaching competence of lecturers in general and specific majors, the OTCFUL in Vietnam is developed mainly based on *. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).