Evaluation of the workshops within the framework of the “Digital Skills for All” initiative

The “Digital Skills for
All” initiative is part of the “Digital Skills Offensive for
Austria”, which is supported by four ministries (BMF, BMBWF, BMAW,
BMKOES). The starting point of the initiative are, among other things, EU-wide
analyses which come to the conclusion that basic digital competences are not
universally available among considerable parts of the population. The digital
skills offensive aims to ensure that by 2030 as many people as possible in
Austria possess basic digital skills. The “Digital Skills for All” programme is a first step. In a pilot phase, workshops with three main content
areas are being offered throughout Austria:

• Supporting young people and parents
  in safely handling digital media,
• Teaching basic digital skills to
  senior citizens and
• Introducing eGovernement, i.e. the
  use of digital tools for dealing with official matters etc., whereby this track
  is not limited to a specific target group.

L&R Social Research was
commissioned by the OeAD to evaluate the initiative. The main objectives of the
evaluation are to shed light on the extent to which the workshops are able to
reach the intended target groups in their diversity as well as on the
contribution that these workshops made towards increasing basic digital skills
in Austria. Based on these findings from the pilot phase, further development
possibilities are to be identified and approaches for the broad roll-out of the
initiative are to be derived and reflected upon.

To this end, a mix of methods will
be used, consisting of own quantitative inquiries (online surveys of workshop
participants and representatives of the implementing organisations) and
qualitative inquiries (individual interviews with workshop participants and
representatives of the supporting organisations, focus groups with trainers).