Interdisciplinary Trends of Digital Education in the COVID-19 Paradigm: Global Event Horizon

Abstract

Transformative shifts in the knowledge economy of the XXI century, Industry 4.0 and Web 4.0 development and elaboration of networked society, emergency digitization of all social communicative spheres due to pandemic measures have imposed pressing revisions onto interdisciplinary and cross-sectorial job market demands of university level education, curriculum design and learning outcomes. The COVID-19 pandemic induced amplified digitalization measures in the higher education sphere, informed by the need to take quick comprehensive action in order to achieve the overarching result to transform educational and communicative scenarios into interdisciplinary digital, remote, and hybrid formats. The consequent functional tasks to meet this challenge in the educational sphere worldwide are estimated as 1) to adapt the existent educational scenarios to digital, remote and hybrid formats; 2) to upgrade e-competence and digital literacy of all stakeholders of the educational process and industry; 3) to activate complex interdisciplinary skillsets, otherwise latent or underutilized in the professional interaction; 4) to introduce functional technical solutions for facilitation of formal and informal educational workflow and communication. The findings of the comprehensive framework research project 'TRANSITION' disclose a wide scope of generalized theoretical and applied issues, permeating the social and educational context worldwide: global event horizon and paradigm shifts in the interdisciplinary trends of digital education in the Covid-19 timeframe and beyond; transformative changes and avenues of development of the network society and education as an interdisciplinary socio-cultural institution and industry in the digital age; global experiences, universal/generic challenges, technical advances and specific national gains in quality assurance of online and hybrid learning in the Covid-19 paradigm.