Digital Education Action Plan – Action 3

On this page:

• EU guidelines for teachers and educators
• Higher education interoperability framework
• Policy background and timeline
• Get in touch

Making informed choices on digital education content: EU guidelines for teachers and educators

If you teach or work in education, you regularly choose, create or adapt the digital materials you use for teaching, learning and assessment. These resources – such as online lessons, structured digital textbook, videos, interactive maps, quizzes or materials generated by artificial intelligence (AI) – are known as "digital education content".

The EU guidelines on digital education content help you do this with confidence. Developed by an expert group as part of the Digital Education Action Plan, they support you in selecting, creating and using digital resources that are safe, reliable and effective for learning.

The guidelines respond to the challenges of the digital transformation and help you navigate a fast-growing and complex digital education landscape.

What the guidelines offer you

The guidelines give you a practical and flexible framework you can use in your own context. They support you at every stage, from choosing content to reviewing its impact in the classroom.

You will find:

• a clear EU definition of digital education content and a glossary of key terms
• step-by-step guidance to select, create, adapt and evaluate digital materials
• practical examples based on real school situations
• support to strengthen your digital competences and professional development

Quality criteria you can apply

The guidelines provide tips and advice to help you assess digital resources:

• curriculum alignment and pedagogical relevance
• learning impact and assessment
• learner engagement
• accessibility and inclusion
• legal compliance and copyright
• reliability and security
• technical compatibility
• financial sustainability

Who the guidelines are for

The guidelines are designed mainly for:

• teachers
• educators, including school leaders

They can also support education authorities, policymakers, researchers and education technology providers.

Higher education interoperability framework

The framework supports better cooperation between European higher education institutions, especially European Universities Alliances, by making their digital teaching and learning systems work together more seamlessly. By improving compatibility between systems, the framework helps institutions share information more efficiently and support smoother learning experiences.

Developed by a Digital Education Hub working group of more than 280 experts and professionals, it sets common standards and protocols for exchanging data across teaching and learning platforms.

The working group released the framework in February 2025.

Policy background

Challenges of the digital transition

A study from September 2023 evaluated the state of play for digital education content. The study presented the following:

• analysis of supply and demand
• proposal for a shared definition, developed on the basis of in-depth research about numerous terms used in different contexts, and consultations with digital education content users, facilitators and creators
• identification of pedagogical, technological, legal and organisational bottlenecks
• key challenges in developing a digital education content framework at EU level

Addressing these challenges

Since 2022, the European Commission put in place an intensive stakeholder dialogue process. This included bilateral meetings and a community of practice, to ensure that all actors have ownership of the proposed solutions and that their full implementation is achievable.

In November 2023, the Council recommended that EU countries, stakeholders and the European Commission work together to provide quality requirements and create guidelines for better digital education content. This aims to help countries assess and improve the quality, safety, trustworthiness, and inclusiveness of digital education materials.

Timeline