A Case Study on the Development of Digital Competences of Teachers at the University of Ljubljana

Abstract

Abstract The renewed 2017 EU Higher Education Agenda expresses the intention to “develop and implement a digital readiness model” to assist higher education institutions, their staff, and students in implementing digital learning strategies and maximising the potential of cutting‐edge technologies such as learning analytics. The anticipated digital transformation will only be successful if higher education institutions and teachers strengthen their digital competences and skills and “become” digitally competent. Many of the incentives for these processes were prompted by the unexpected Covid‐19 crisis, which highlighted the importance of higher education teachers’ digital skills in the need to digitise the higher education environment. The Covid‐19 crisis experience and the accelerating development of digitalisation are changing both the conditions for education and education itself, which is why higher education teachers face the challenging task of lifelong development of digital competences. To complete this task, they must learn about information and communication technology (ICT)/digital technologies and how they can be integrated into the pedagogical process. The challenge for higher education teachers is to develop ICT‐based teaching. This is not about how higher education teachers (and students) master ICT, but about how to make ICT one of the tools for carrying out pedagogical activities in general. The article addresses the development of digital competences among higher education teachers as a critical issue in the renovation of higher education didactics. To that end, various digital competence models and concepts are presented. Among other things, the European Digital Competence Framework for Teachers is highlighted. The case study of activities aimed at developing digital competences of higher education teachers at the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), and thus higher education teachers working in the field of education for public administration. Based on the analysis of activities, we discover an increased interest in the development of digital competences, which is reflected in various forms of institutional (university) support for educators (e.g. training), as well as an increased interest in the development of digital competences among higher education teachers.