Forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning

eLene4work – Developing a Framework for Soft Skills and Digital Soft Skills for Employability
Deborah Arnold et al.
Business representatives and HE teachers pointed out a lot of gaps concerning soft skills in
students. The most important of them we could divide into 4 groups:
1. social skills: teamwork, communication (online but also face-to-face “traditional”
communication; all levels: speaking, listening, formal and informal writing), flexibility,
openness for constructive feedback and humility (in social contacts students are too
self-confident and convinced they know everything);
2. personal skills: empathy (and other competences appropriate for emotional
intelligence), honesty, commitment and motivation, openness for new things to learn,
curiosity, patience, perseverance, capacity to learn from one’s failure;
3. self-skills: self-evaluation, self-regulation of the learning process and, as a consequence,
capacity to make a conscious career choice;
4. learning skills: synthesis, skills of numeracy, ability to absorb in and deeply familiarize
the topic, presentation skills.
The soft skills framework
Based on the outcomes of both the comparative analysis and the focus groups, we created a
table summarising the main soft skills and digital soft skills to include in the framework.
During this process, it emerged that digital soft skills were clearly lacking, in particular from
the focus groups, where the concept was not dealt with in sufficient detail, partly due to lack of
time, but also due to a weaker understanding of digital soft skills on the part of students but
also of employers. Further research was undertaken and discussions initiated with the
Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) around the DIGCOMP framework
(https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/digcomp). This enabled us to select the digital competencies in
line with our own definition for inclusion in the eLene4work framework, benefitting from and
aligning with work already done at EU level.
Reaching from the roots – 9 th EDEN Research Workshop Proceedings, 2016, Oldenburg 349
ISBN 978-615-5511-12-7