The COVID-19 pandemic caused changes in higher education institutions, mainly due to the temporary closure of face-to-face activities in universities worldwide. The transformation from face-to-face to online education was one of the emerging solutions to this crisis. This research aims to analyse and describe the adaptation process from face-to-face to online education and the perceptions of faculty and students during the pandemic in a literature review study. We developed this study following the methodology supported by the PRISMA statement and the PICoS strategy, retrieving scientific literature from Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC and PsycINFO. Of the 241 studies that the search yielded, 29 have been included. The results showed that online education was an enabling alternative for the development of higher education, but numerous weaknesses in the transition to online education were identified. The study concludes that online learning is a future direction in higher education. Therefore, institutions should invest more in online education platforms and improve faculty training plans.