The Greek philosopher Aristotle considered curiosity as the driving principle of the search for knowledge (Maza and Maza, 2002). The curiosity that started this research process was the interest of the researcher in the field of study of distance education and instructional design. According to statistics from different private and public institutions such as the regional level OECD and IDB, and the Ministry of National Education at a national level, the distance modality presents an exponential growth in supply and demand. This condition creates an immediate challenge for researchers in education, who are called to understand this scenario from its complexity, to debate about quality and to strengthen it with critical views of it. This document, composed of 5 chapters, synthesizes the stages of the research process entitled Use of Digital Educational Resources and autonomous learning of university students in a context of virtual education , which was developed within the framework of the Master's Degree in Education ICT line. This study explored the relationship between Digital Educational Resources and an ability declared as fundamental to succeed in distance education processes: autonomous learning. This study with an exploratory scope and a mixed approach was developed using the question: How does the use of Digital Educational Resources affects the autonomous learning of university students in a virtual education context? Its aim is to make a contribution to long-distance and virtual higher education