Abstract:

The Digital Competence Framework for Citizens, commonly known as DigComp, plays a pivotal role in guiding adult learners towards digital proficiency. This framework is essential for adult education as it outlines key competences needed to navigate and excel in today's digitally-driven world. Its importance extends beyond learners to include adult education providers, educators, and instructional designers. These professionals play a vital role in utilizing the DigComp framework to design, assess, and enhance educational programs. By incorporating DigComp, they can ensure that adult education is aligned with the essential competences needed in a digital era, thus enabling a more effective and relevant learning experience.

This paper explores the DigCompHub training methodology, a specialized approach for designing and developing short training courses and mentoring schemes for adult education provides and tutors. This dual approach involves the design of a short training course in the form of a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) using collaborative development methodologies and establishing a comprehensive mentoring scheme based on a sequence of mentoring cycles. This method is particularly designed to assist adult education providers, educators, and instructional designers in effectively employing the DigComp framework within their programs. The paper also emphasizes the importance of evaluation at every stage - from development through to implementation.

Further, this paper describes the collaborative process that unites subject matter experts, instructional designers, and technicians. It outlines how their synergy is essential for the development of a curriculum that is not only grounded in the DigComp framework but is also technically sound and pedagogically solid. This tripartite collaboration ensures that the courses are relevant, high-quality, and accessible, thereby maximizing the impact of digital education on adult learners. Additionally, the paper emphasizes the critical role of continuous evaluation at each stage of the educational design process, from conception to delivery, guaranteeing that the educational interventions are effective and yield tangible benefits for all stakeholders involved.

Keywords:

DigComp, MOOC, Mentoring, Competence Development, Digital Skills, professional development.