CONCEPTUAL MODEL FOR QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF DIGITAL COMPETENCIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION SYSTEMS - A CASE STUDY OF THE RESEARCH PROCESS

Digitalization is undoubtedly of high significance after three years. As professional logisticians and supply chain experts, who are mainly involved with IT and related digitalization, trends and challenges in aforementioned fields are researched frequently. Despite constant progress and development, determining the quality of digital competencies poses a significant challenge. The literature offers a variety of frameworks, guidelines and standards for teaching, selection, and use of technologies for educational purposes, as well as provisions on quality education. Due to the burning topic, the purpose of this paper is to present ongoing research, which was produced on the basis of the European Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu) and the document Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area (ESG). The DigCompEdu framework ensures that quality objectives are set and achieved by promoting improvement, while the ESG document provides a set of standards and guidelines for internal and external quality assurance in higher education. Based on the latter, questionnaires were prepared for both educators and students, who were interviewed on digital competencies quality provision in higher education. The objective of this research is conceptual model development, from which questionnaires were derived for the comprehensive assessment of provision and quality of educators' and students' digital competencies in the international higher education systems. This paper presents foundation for further research on digitalization within aforementioned fields, as it provides insight into the perception of the digital competencies' quality and the identification of the existing gap between perception of educators and students. Logistics is the foundation of a well-designed supply chain and its smooth operations. This research topics' significance is heightened through its advantages and challenges. The latter should be thoroughly examined to obtain comprehension about errors' elimination and higher education optimization.