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European Education Area

Quality education and training for all

Digital Education Action Plan – Action 3

European Digital Education Content Framework

Supply and demand of digital content for education purposes have significantly increased in the recent years, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Significant changes include:

  • Habits have changed greatly among digital content suppliers (industry and the public sector) and consumers (teachers, students and pupils)
  • Digital education content is more engaging, interactive and embedded in diverse formats and platforms
  • New technological developments, such as mobile learning, immersive reality and artificial intelligence (AI / generative AI), are driving the adoption of new types of digital education content
  • New teaching and learning practices (blended learning, microlearning, adaptive and personalised learning) require constant content updates and continuous professional development for educators

With these changes in mind, the objective of the European Digital Education Content Framework is to address the current challenges of digital transformation in education.

Challenges of the digital transition

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

  • analysis of supply and demand
  • proposal for an up-to-date definition, developed on the basis of in-depth research and consultations with digital education content users, facilitators and creators
  • technological, legal and other contextual 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.

Working group on higher education interoperability framework

The Digital Education Hub runs a working group of over 130 professionals and experts to develop the framework for higher education interoperability.

The framework seeks to enhance collaboration and efficiency within European universities by establishing common standards and protocols for data exchange in teaching and learning systems.

The working group plans to release the framework by February 2025.

Timeline

  • 2022-2023
    • Preparatory study contributing to a European Digital Education Content Framework
    • Preparatory phase toward the launch of a European exchange platform for Higher Education
  • 2024-2025

    Set-up of the Digital Education Content Expert Group to provide guidelines, quality requirements and criteria

  • June 2024

    Presentation of the framework design, collaboratively created by the Higher Education Interoperability Working Group

  • February 2025

    Release of the Higher Education Interoperability Framework