RGU team create toolkit to boost student digital skills

Professor Konstantina Martzoukou, Dr Errol Luders, and Emma Hay-Higgins made up the multidisciplinary team from RGU who are working with nursing students to gain a better understanding of their digital competencies, and the digital literacy barriers that affect their learning and future professional practice in Scotland.

A survey of more than 500 learners highlighted their skill levels were at an intermediate level although younger students felt they were operating at a higher level. The result of that work is the Digital Competencies Toolkit which is explicitly co-created with students to bridge digital literacy skills gap for those attending university.

Professor Martzoukou, School of Law and Social Sciences, said: “Our interprofessional team has worked closely with nursing students, embedding co-creation and the student voice into the Digital Competencies Toolkit as a meaningful step toward closing digital literacy gaps in higher education. The students’ insights and perspectives demonstrated that participatory approaches could engage learners in ways that are both relevant and impactful for their academic development and future professional practice."

Dr Luders, from RGU’s School of Health, said: “The project reflects a broader commitment to inclusive and increasingly digitalised healthcare education, aligning with national strategies to improve digital capabilities for learning and professional practice across the sector in Scotland."

The team is now working to adopt and translate these digital learning resources for use in Portugal and Greece, ensuring that the content is socio-culturally appropriate and relevant to local nursing education systems. This phase of the project runs from September 2025 to February 2026, focusing on linguistic and contextual adjustments to both the toolkit and the survey.

From March to June 2026, the project will engage key stakeholders including researchers, nursing students, lecturers, digital learning technologists, and policy makers in applying the adapted tools in international research and practice. This collaborative approach aims to strengthen digital competencies among nursing students across Europe.

Looking ahead, the project team is committed to ensuring the sustainability and future relevance of the initiative. Between May and July 2026, the team will explore opportunities to expand the toolkit to include artificial intelligence (AI) skills development, while inviting additional researchers and practitioners to contribute to the next phase of innovation.

The RGU team had previously created a  Digital Competencies Toolkit  for nursing students, and following this success funding has been provided through the RGU Impact Accelerator Fund for a new project (Digital Co-Creation with Nursing Students: Enhancing Digital Competencies - DigiCONS) to expand the reach of this work that also involves a Digital Competencies Self-Assessment Survey into international nursing education contexts in 2025.

As part of this project RGU academics joined partners from Ionian University (Greece), Lisbon Nursing School (Portugal), and the Hellenic Mediterranean University (Greece) at a three-day international workshop at Ionian University.

They explored the evolving role of digital and AI skills in nursing education through collaborative sessions and strategic planning for further collaborative research. Themes across the three days focused on showcasing progress and establishing a shared vision, designing and implementing future-focused digital strategies and planning for impact and long-term roadmap development.