How to Integrate Data Culture in HE: A Teaching Experience in a Digital Competence Course

In 2006, the European Commission defined digital competence as a key competence for the citizens of the twenty-first century. Over the years, the concept of digital competence has evolved into a less tool-orientated vision. As a consequence, elements such as attitude when using digital technologies (digital attitude) and data literacy are considered in the actual frameworks such as DigComp 2.1. These elements of digital competence gain special relevance in a higher education scenario, where professionals from all disciplines are trained. Taking this into account, this work presents a concrete experience in the Open University of Catalonia, which is a fully online university with 25 years of experience training students in digital competence through a course taken by undergraduate students during their first semester. As this course has been evolving over the past years, it integrates data culture into its online activities. The integrated elements are as follows: data protection and data safety, data visualisation, search and select information, critical skills, open data, social media and open educational resources. When all of these elements are applied in an educational context, the mentioned digital attitude is present, because it enriches the use of data in several activities. Experience gathered demonstrates that the elements of data culture developed during the course are based on several activities which are easily transferable in any educational institution that seeks to integrate the elements of data culture in its training proposal from both the students’ and teachers’ point of view.