Brussels, 28 December 2021

ECSWE contributes to European Commission’s DigComp 2.2 revision
european commission
The focus of our contributions to the revision of the EU’s Digital Competence Framework for Citizens was on health-oriented, conscious and well-being-centred use of digital technologies.

The Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Frame­work for Cit­i­zens (Dig­Comp) was first pub­lished by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion in 2013 to pro­vide a list of com­pe­tences that cit­i­zens need to acquire in order to make mean­ing­ful use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies in their every­day lives. Today, it is often used by the mem­ber states and/or indi­vid­ual schools as a basis for devel­op­ing their dig­i­tal media curricula.

In ear­ly 2021, the Com­mis­sion’s Joint Research Cen­tre (JRC) start­ed revis­ing the Dig­Comp by defin­ing more pre­cise­ly the 21 dig­i­tal com­pe­tences list­ed in ver­sion 2.1 of the frame­work. To this end, the JRC joined forces with ALL DIGITAL, a pan-Euro­pean dig­i­tal skills asso­ci­a­tion, to form an online Com­mu­ni­ty of Prac­tice (CoP) for all stake­hold­ers who could sup­port the revi­sion process.

On behalf of ECSWE, input was pro­vid­ed to sev­er­al work­ing groups of the CoP, such as data lit­er­a­cy and pro­gram­ming. How­ev­er, the biggest focus was on con­tribut­ing to and enrich­ing the work of the work­ing group on safe­ty and secu­ri­ty and its sub-group on health and well-being. The more than 20 work­ing group ses­sions led by Ani­cia Trinidade from Aveiro Uni­ver­si­ty and Paula Bleck­mann from Alanus Uni­ver­si­ty result­ed in an exten­sive list of exam­ples of knowl­edge, skills and atti­tudes describ­ing what a per­son should know and be able to do in order to have a healthy rela­tion­ship with dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy and keep their own well­be­ing in check.

The main points brought to the group by Dora Šimunović on behalf of ECSWE were to empha­sise the impor­tance of bal­anced per­son­al use of dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies, includ­ing non-use as an option, to high­light the need for dig­i­tal lim­i­ta­tion strate­gies for one­self and the chil­dren entrust­ed to one’s care. Exam­ples include delay­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of devices to chil­dren or set­ting screen-free times, and rais­ing aware­ness that many forms of online behav­iour and inter­ac­tion with dig­i­tal devices can have neg­a­tive effects on one’s health and well-being.

The con­sul­ta­tion process for the revi­sion end­ed in Decem­ber 2021 with a pub­lic val­i­da­tion sur­vey con­duct­ed by the JRC, which con­tributed to the selec­tion of the final exam­ples for the revised Dig­Comp 2.2 frame­work to be pub­lished in ear­ly 2022.

Further reading

Dig­Comp 2.2: The Dig­i­tal Com­pe­tence Frame­work for Citizens

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Georg Jürgens