Legal aspects of the content of digital competence: a systematic review of literature
Authors: Shmatkov Daniil 
Published: July 2021

Problem setting. In March 2021, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Concept for the Development of Digital Competences and approval of an action plan for its implementation, one of which is the development and approval of a description of digital competence (digital competence framework) and relevant digital competence frameworks for major professional groups. The Ministry of Education and Science reported on the development and implementation of the relevant digital competences framework, and on March, 30 published a document containing 4 dimensions, 6 areas, 30 competences and 6 levels of digital skills. Legal aspects are relevant in terms of adapting the laws to the challenges of the Digital Age. Therefore, the issue of the need to reflect legal aspects in the content of the digital competence framework is important and requires more detailed analysis.

Analysis of recent researches and publications. Methods of systematic review of international research on the presentation of certain issues of referencing to digital literacy and digital competence were analyzed in the works of scientists such as A. Algers, S. S. Hashemi, M. Lundin, F. Pettersson, M. Spante.

The aim of the study is to establish the frequency and quality of referencing to digital competence from a legal standpoint.

The main body of the article. The presented study is based on a systematic search and analysis of the literature with the keyword “digital competence” using ERIC database. The search was conducted in June 2021 and included an analysis of the title, abstract, keywords, and main text to improve the efficiency of the process and the adequacy of the results. The systematic literature review included the following steps: identification, filtering, sorting, descriptive statistics, and meta-analysis.

Using the search term “digital competence” we revealed 80 full-text peer-reviewed works. After excluding articles that did not contain the concept of digital competence legal aspects, 31 works were analyzed (39% of the initial number). In 49% of cases, scholars limited themselves to quoting certain legal aspects in the context of the formation of digital competence, in 51% of cases they performed analysis.

Over the past five years, there has been a growing interest in general legal issues, general intellectual property issues, and specific intellectual property rights. At the same time, general legal issues (mostly legislation in the field of education) were approached in 54% of identified cases, general issues of intellectual property issues – in 8% of cases, specific intellectual property rights (mostly – copyright) – in 38% of cases. Only one work was dedicated to the development didactic improvements aimed at the legal aspects of the content of digital competence. Only one author thoroughly analyzes copyright in the context of the digital competence formation.

Conclusions. The frequency and scale of referencing to digital competence from a legal standpoint in international educational research is low. This lack of research interest is reflected in the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens DigComp 2.1. To expand the analysis of interdisciplinarity and the reliability of the results, the prospect of further research is to study the level of development of the problem in related sciences and other databases.