Involved in the engine room of the development of digital understanding

From September 2026 new bachelor students will be exposed to the course, which forms the foundation for acquiring knowledge about other digital perspectives in the various social science programmes.  

The development of this cross-disciplinary 2 ECTS-module addressing digital competences is a key strategic investment at our Faculty.  This has also been written about in an op-ad in Fynsk Erhverv.   

The development is making good progress, and to highlight this, we have asked Per Andersen from the Department of Law and Curd Knüpfler from Digital Democracy Centre (DDC), to answer some questions about the development of their module, which deals with the competence area: "Communication and Collaboration" within the EU's Framework DigComp 2.2. 

Why is a course addressing digital competences at SDU BSS a good idea?  

The future job market is going to change extensively compared to the way we work today. This is largely due to the digitalization taking place, especially concerning the rapidly increasing development and use of artificial intelligence.  

As an educational institution, we prepare people to go out and have the professional job for which we have trained them. Therefore, we must also lay down at least a fundamental understanding of what digitalization is. Our students cannot avoid becoming a part of the change, and hopefully, they are even part of the segment of employees or innovators who set the direction and drive development. Therefore, it is, as we see it, a natural thing for our education to prepare them for this by providing them with both some fundamental competencies and understanding about digitalization.  

And instead of developing teaching activities concerning the fundamental competences within every single educational track, it is more meaningful to develop it together, as part of a faculty-wide initiative.  

What is your module about? (competence area and specific topic)  

The module that we are developing lies within the competence area of communication and collaboration. The focus of the area is to provide the students with a fundamental understanding of how to interact, communicate, and collaborate through digital technologies while being aware of possible cultural and generational diversity between themselves and those who they are communicating and collaborating with. The overall goal here is to make them aware of and provide them with the skills of how to participate in society through public and private digital services and participatory citizenship by taking responsibility for and managing their own digital presence, identity, and reputation.  

Our module – which is one out of four within that competence area – functions as the introduction to digital communication, raising the questions of what the risks, opportunities, and best practices of communicating in different digital environments are, and how these are dependent on different communication objectives. By introducing them to theories about communication and how communication has developed over time due to technological development, we aim to provide them with an understanding of which communication tools are appropriate in specific circumstances, depending on the audience, context, and purpose of the communication.  

How has the cooperation across academic disciplines been in the process? Any benefits and/or challenges worth mentioning?  

It has both been inspiring and necessary. Both concerning the professional parts and the pedagogical setup, because we have different experiences from different student perspectives and from where we are in our professional careers, respectively.  

Inspiring as it always is, when you get together with colleagues from some professional milieus, learning things that you did not know in advance. Necessary, because you cannot know everything yourself, and it would probably take too long a time to learn it, if you were to manage it yourself.  

What the process of reflection and development has shown: all of us working here at SDU BSS are also affected by the rapid changes associated with digitalization. This clearly presents a core challenge to all of us individually, as well as a team. It helps us all to learn with and from one another in keeping up with the pace of change.