Within the framework of the project lasting more than a year six Latvian higher education institutions have implemented various digitalization initiatives in higher education, which will contribute to a significant increase of the education quality and the competitiveness of graduates in the labour market. In the future students will have access to various digitalized study courses, an assessment tool for digital competences, as well as the opportunity to acquire knowledge in hybrid audiences. Project “Digitalization Initiatives for Improving the Quality of Studies in the field of Strategic Specialization of Higher Education Institutions” is coming to an end, in which the leading partner of the consortium Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU) has united the other higher education institutions: Rezekne Academy of Technologies (RTA), Daugavpils University (DU), University of Latvia (UL), Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) and "Turība" University. As part of the project strengthening of digital capacity has been carried out in 83 new and existing study courses which will be available for LBTU, UL, DU, RTA, VUAS and Turība. These activities were implemented together with SIA "WeAreDots" and SIA "Baltijas Datoru Akademija" (BDA). Project manager Ilze Beitāne informs that BDA has developed a tool for assessing students’ digital competences, which was integrated in all higher education institutions involved in the project. An assessment of students' digital competences has been carried out, which showed that areas such as communication and collaboration are at a good level while safety is a competence that needs to be improved. "We are especially pleased that the digitisation solutions have been able to strengthen the study process of the Faculties of Economics and Management and Translation Studies. We have updated the content of several study courses so that they also contribute to the development of digital skills. A language technology terminology platform www.termini.venta.lv has been created, which will collect terms explained by VUAS students and faculty. The purchase of newer simultaneous translation software and technical equipment and the renewal of the VUAS e-learning environment Moodle are also long-awaited results. The project has been very dynamic and fast-paced, working as a team, I think we have been able to explore VUAS strengths and weaknesses in the use of current digital solutions, to look at global best practices to adopt and implement in the methods and objectives used at VUAS, and to learn from each other, making sure that students are not only given knowledge in a specific area, but also the opportunity to grow more digitally competent," says K.Balode, the project coordinator at Ventspils University of Applied Sciences. Project’s implementation will be finalized on 31 st December, within the framework of which all planned results have been achieved. Results achieved will also ensure the further digital transformation for higher education institutions, promoting digital competences of students and teaching staff. REACT-EU funding for mitigating of the consequences of the pandemic crisis has been attracted to the European Social Fund's project “Digitalization Initiatives for Improving the Quality of Studies in the field of Strategic Specialization of Higher Education Institutions" (No. 8.2.3.0/22/A/005). The total funding of the project is 2,052,269.47 EUR. Its implementation started on November 1, 2022 and will end on December 31, 2023. 

In September, the first DIG.IT Day took place at Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) for the first time, where several industry professionals spoke about automation of everyday processes, misinformation, internet safety, personal development using various digital tools, as well as showed practical demonstrations of creating various content with artificial intelligence tools. Kristiāna Balode, Course and Skills Development Manager of the project, explains that the most important difference between this kind of event day and a separate professional development seminar is that at such an event people gain not only knowledge, but also inspiration, enthusiasm and curiosity to continue discussing and inquiring how to make their everyday lives more digitally skilled. Such an event covers a range of topics, so it creates a more colorful understanding and ideas are constantly looking for better solutions. To address digital literacy, the project has developed a digital literacy measurement tool for the e-learning platform Moodle. The digital literacy levels are based on the European Commission's DigComp framework of 5 competence blocks and 8 levels of learning. The digital skills measurement tool is integrated in all project partner universities, including VUAS. The first students to complete the test at VUC were 66 students who are studying the courses developed in the project this semester. One of the project courses is the study course "Introduction to Artificial Intelligence" developed by the University of Latvia. This course of study can be chosen as a free elective course of study by VUAS students and can be studied by self-study. This semester, 36 students from bachelor and master level programmes chose to study it. At the end of the semester, these 66 students will be asked to take the test again to judge whether they have managed to improve not only their knowledge of the course content, but also their digital skills. At the end of October, a professional development seminar for lecturers was organized with the aim of improving the DigComp competence area "communication and collaboration", highlighting the fragmented communication between face-to-face and online communication nowadays. The seminar was led by Līga Ozoliņa, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Communication at Riga Stradiņš University. 103 lecturers from the VUC and other partner universities participated in the seminar. In addition to these activities, the VUC and other partner universities continue to work on the development of various study courses and the setting up of hybrid classrooms. Ilmārs Dukulis, Professor at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (IITF) of the Latvian University of Biosciences and Technology, says: "We have to realize that education will never be the same again, as it is affected not only by pandemic-related restrictions, but also by geopolitical factors. By implementing a hybrid education approach, LBTU aims to provide learners with more opportunities for flexible and personalized learning, to increase the quality of teaching and to strengthen the link between academia and industry. Using virtual reality solutions, developing modern teaching materials, etc., it is possible to achieve an effect as close as possible to "live" classes, thus creating an opportunity to study also for those who cannot be in the classroom due to health, distance or other reasons," The activity is part of the European Social Fund project "Digitalization initiatives for improving the quality of studies in areas of strategic specialization of universities" (No 8.2.3.0/22/A/005), which has received REACT-EU funding to mitigate the effects of the pandemic crisis. The total cost of the project is EUR 2 052 269.47. Implementation started on 1 November 2022 and will end on 31 December 2023.