This note provides an overview of Austria’s digital education ecosystem, including the digital tools for system and institutional management and digital resources for teaching and learning that are publicly provided to schools and educational stakeholders. The note outlines how public responsibilities for the governance of digital education are divided and examines how Austria supports the equitable and effective access to and use of digital technology and data in education. This includes through practices and policies on procurement, interoperability, data privacy and regulation, and digital competencies. Finally, the note discusses how Austria engages in any initiatives, including with the EdTech sector, to drive innovation and research and development towards an effective digital ecosystem.
Country Digital Education Ecosystems and Governance
1. Austria
Abstract
Key features
Austria’s education system is intricate, featuring federal and provincial school systems, with differing responsibilities. The 2017 Education Reform Act aimed to streamline governance by introducing Boards of Education, responsible to both federal and local governments. Both levels of government publicly procure digital tools to assist their schools with information and education management. Digital resources for teaching and learning are also publicly provided, notably digital textbooks and online platforms.
The "Digital Austria" initiative, launched in 2020, outlines an 8-Point Plan focusing on improving digital infrastructure, providing devices to students, and enhancing digital competences. An investment of EUR 200 million supports measures such as providing digital devices, launching teacher training programmes, and upgrading school infrastructure.
Austria emphasises equitable access to digital tools, providing devices to students, supporting socio-economically challenged learners, and offering guidelines and certifications for digital tools. Together with the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), federal laws ensure data protection and privacy while fostering interoperability, with guidelines on data transfers and the use of technical standards. Guidance and certification services on school procurement as well as measures to advance teachers (and students) digital competencies further support the effective use of digital tools and resources in schools.
General policy context
The education landscape in Austria is complex, with two different school systems operating side-by-side: one that is governed by the federal government (schools in this system are hereafter referred to as “federal schools” [Bundesschulen]), and the other that is governed by the provincial governments (schools in this system are hereafter referred to as “provincial schools” (Landesschulen]).1 Regardless of the ISCED level, all federal schools are funded and maintained by the federal government. By contrast, provincial schools are co-financed by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, and provincial governments have devolved responsibility for the administration and maintenance of most provincial schools (except for part-time vocational schools) to the municipal level. For instance, teacher salaries at provincial schools are financed directly by the federal government, while the construction and maintenance of the same schools are generally financed by municipalities.2
The Education Reform Act (Bildungsreformgesetz) in 2017 aimed to streamline this complex arrangement of responsibilities by creating the Boards of Education (Bildungsdirektionen), a new education authority in each province (Länder), merging several of the previously dispersed duties for schools of the federal and provincial governments. The Boards of Education are therefore responsible to both the federal and provincial governments. They are in charge of, inter alia, implementing the ministry’s guidelines, evaluating schools, reviewing whether educational goals and measures are met, and enforcing quality assurance, as well as executing teacher employment law and staff representation rights in provincial schools and other federal employees at provincial schools (BMBWF, 2019). However, the responsibility for financing, administration and maintenance of the Boards of Education remains divided among the federal, provincial, and municipal governments. This division of responsibilities has a profound consequence for how the digital education infrastructure in Austria has been developed and maintained.
Division of responsibility
In Austria, the responsibility for the digital education infrastructure depends on whether a school is a federal school or a provincial school. Providing schools with access to digital tools and resources for system and school management falls within the remit of the level of government that is responsible for maintaining the schools. For instance, the federal government mandates federal schools to use certain digital tools for school management. Conversely, both federal and provincial schools decide autonomously as to which digital resources for teaching and learning they wish to procure and use, including the use of resources provided by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Forschung; hereafter BMBWF). The ministry may overrule schools’ decisions regarding the use of resources, however, where expenses for the resources are provided federally.
There are several private schools in Austria, most of which are religious schools maintained by churches. Hence, the responsibility to secure for these schools access to the digital tools for system and school management falls upon each church (as well as schools themselves). But sometimes they may receive financial support from the federal government (mostly to fund teacher salaries). They can also freely access some of the publicly provided digital teaching and learning resources, e.g. digital textbooks.
Whereas the public responsibility to provide digital education infrastructure is divided at the federal and provincial (and municipal) levels, establishing and enforcing regulatory measures is mainly the responsibility of the Boards of Education and BMBWF. School quality managers (Schulqualitätsmanager) in the Boards of Education are federally appointed to implement quality assurance and oversee school development, maintenance, and inspection (OECD, 2019[1]). In addition, there are various federal ordinances, decrees, directives, and guidelines covering technical and organisational measures for the supply and maintenance of digital infrastructure in schools. The access to and use of data and digital technologies in education are regulated strictly by the law set at the EU and federal levels.
Digital education strategy
Against the backdrop of Digital Austria, a national initiative for a successful digitalisation of the country, the federal government has made efforts to develop state-of-the-art e-government, support the digital economy and innovate society, including education.3 Digital Austria sets out the 8-Point Plan for Digital Learning (8-Punkte-Plan für den digitalen Unterricht), an initiative launched by the federal government in June 2020.4 Taking into account the consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak, the 8-Point Plan aims to improve the digital infrastructure for teaching and learning, provide students with access to IT-supported education on a level-playing field, develop digital competences of students, and promote interest in the development of education technologies.
Consequently, the federal government has made changes to their digital education policy and expenditure. They have invested EUR 200 million to execute this plan, specifying a variety of developmental steps and sustainable implementation of digital strategies in education. Specific measures enacted include providing 5th grade students with a digital device (laptop or tablet) to use in schools and at home and offering a digital device to teachers at lower secondary schools.5 The types of digital devices provided for students and teachers are decided by schools themselves. While students pay around 25% of the price of the device they receive, those from lower socio-economic background may be exempted from this payment.
Other measures include launching a range of online training courses for teachers (with a focus on blended and remote learning), aligning digital resources in the Open Educational Resources (OER) repository with the school curriculum, and developing the Digital School Portal (Portal Digitale Schule), which serves as a single point of entry (single sign-on) for several education and administrative platforms.6 In terms of hardware upgrade, the 8-Point Plan also aims to expand all schools’ basic infrastructure, such as the fibre-optic broadband connection.7
The public digital education infrastructure
Digital ecosystem for system and school management
Student information system and learning management systems
Based on the Education Documentation Act (Bildungsdokumentationsgesetz, BilDokG), the BMBWF owns and maintains BilDok, a central educational database with some student information system functionalities, which is used for calculating educational statistics, resource planning, and school funding. To facilitate the collection and transfer of data for BilDok, federal schools must use Sokrates Bund, a digital tool that combines several features of a learning management system and a school administrative function system.8 Conversely, provincial schools can choose which tools and resources to use for collecting and transferring data to BilDok; Sokrates Web is used in six provinces, while different systems are used in three (i.e. Burgenland, Upper Austria, and Vienna). All system and school management tools are procured publicly. Both Sokrates Bund and Web are developed by a private company called Bit Media and procured publicly for schools – either by federal or local government, depending on the school type – and schools use them to manage various information about their students (e.g. address, attendance, grade) and teachers (e.g. timetable, subject distribution). The collected information is then automatically transferred to BilDok annually, upon school principals’ approval.
Sokrates also tags a unique and longitudinal identifier to students’ personal information, such as their real name and individual exam records, and teachers and school principals can see and use the identifier to find the information about associated students. However, against the backdrop of high-level data protection rules in Austria, a pseudonymised identifier is assigned to students when the information is transferred to BilDok, and personal-level student information is not accessible to government officials (whether they are from federal, provincial, or municipal government), even though this granular information has been pseudonymised and has unique identifiers. By the same token, government officials are not permitted to directly access the information stored in Sokrates.
While Sokrates contains some functionality to manage the academic progress and attainment of students (e.g. recording attendance and grade, organising class activities, storing certificates in digital format), access to further digital tools are provided by the federal government to help schools manage students’ learning. Two learning management systems, Eduvidual and LMS.at, can be used on an opt-in basis.9 The former is a Moodle-based platform developed in 2019 by the Centre for Learning Management (Zentrum für Lernmanagement) – a shared initiative of the BMBWF and University of Education Upper Austria – and the latter is developed by Knowledge Markets GmbH, a private company, and procured publicly.10 Albeit different in terms of the specific functions, both learning management systems are designed to help schools and teachers organise classes, provide learning resources and exercises for students, and offer communication facility with students and parents.
Other management support systems
The federal government provides a number of other applications that schools can choose to use for further management purposes. A customer relationship management system, an administrative function system and a library management system (for schools with a library) are provided for schools at all educational levels. As with Sokrates Bund and Web, these tools and resources are procured publicly by each school maintainer (federal or provincial governments). Access to the customer relationship management system is provided via WebUntis, which is procured publicly for all federal schools in the course of implementing the Digital School Portal.11 Other tools used for communication between schools and parents, such as SchoolFox, SchoolUpdate, and edu.FOW, are also procured by each school maintainer.
The federal government also provides Digital Professions (Digitale Berufe), a career and study guidance platform for students at all educational levels (though mainly targeting secondary students) that specifically aims to arouse interests in the digital world of work.12 This platform provides students with recommendations for their future studies and professions adaptively based on each student’s declared interests and experience. Meanwhile, in the pipeline are a digital matriculation exam (Digitale Reifeprüfung) and a digital degree system. The former is currently being piloted in some federal schools at upper secondary and vocational education and training (VET) levels, while the latter is planned for launch in June 2023.
In the summer of 2023, an initiative was launched to equip pupils in upper secondary school with digital school ID cards that function as students’ digital credentials. This digital ID system is used for giving access to systems in schools, printing of certificates, for issuing school attendance certificates.
Digital ecosystem for teaching and learning
The BMBWF provides a range of digital resources for teaching and learning that both federal and provincial schools as well as teachers may choose to use. Many of those resources are made openly available. For instance, the University College of Virtual Teacher Education (Virtuelle Pädagogische Hochschule), a national centre maintained by the BMBWF, serves as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform providing materials for teacher training.13 The MOOC platform, called imoox.at, offers lifelong training courses for teachers on a wide range of subjects, including digital subject didactics. There is also Eduthek, an OER repository, which provides links to a variety of learning resources covering a different subjects following a taxonomy inspired by the national curriculum by grades, subjects, and competences.14 The resources on Eduthek include apps, games, and other digital materials for teaching practices, and students can find the resources for themselves, while teachers or parents may assign resources to their students/children. The BMBWF also offers Student Radio (Schüler/innenradio), a radio channel on which students broadcast about diverse topics, in co-operation with the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (Österreichischer Rundfunk).15
Some digital teaching and learning resources are available only to those who are enrolled in formal education. Examples include educational video clips that are offered via the EduTube platform, to provide educational institutions daily with reliable researched documentaries and movies in high quality for teaching purposes.16 Digi.folio is an online platform for teacher development, also provided at the system level, mapping training measures in the area of digital competences for teachers.17
Other static resources, such as digital textbook and e-book, are delivered via Digi4School, an online platform part of the Textbook Initiative (Schulbuchaktion).18 This is a federal initiative that, since 1972, has been curating and providing digital and non-digital textbooks and educational media (e.g. web-based interactive contents) coordinated with the curriculum requirement, supplying to both federal and provincial schools. This initiative is funded by the Federal Chancellery, and contracts with publishers and booksellers are signed by the Austrian Economic Chambers’ Association for Book Trade and Media Management. Then the BMBWF conducts quality assurance for those resources contracted, against the framework and processes set out in the Ordinance on Expert Commissions for the Declaration of Suitability of Teaching Materials. Then, before the beginning of every new school year, it compiles a list of resources approved for purchase by schools.19
Access, use and governance of digital technologies and data in education
Providing a public digital education infrastructure or funding to use digital resources does not necessarily mean that schools and teachers will use them. Different rules and guidelines are thus in place to support access to, and use of, digital technologies in education.
Ensuring access and supporting use
Equity of access
In Austria, there is no binding rule that applies universally to all educational levels to govern the equitable access to, and use of, digital technologies in education. However, the federal government has undertaken a range of efforts to enhance digital equity. The public provision of several digital tools for system and school management enables students, teachers, and schools to access the digital education ecosystem in a sustained and equitable way across all education levels. Some of those tools (e.g. Sokrates) are mandated for use, meaning that all schools have a minimal digital system for student management and data transfer to the government.
In addition, the 8-Point Plan stated above stipulates that the federal government supplies a digital device (laptop or tablet) to all students at lower secondary schools – including the students at provincial lower secondary schools (e.g. Mittelschule) – with a view to creating the pedagogical and technical conditions for IT-supported teaching, as well as giving all students access to digital education on equal terms. In terms of learning resources, digital textbooks and some complementary learning resources are provided for free to schools as part of the Textbook Initiative. The BMBWF also implements projects like 100 Schools, 1 000 Opportunities, which seeks to identify digital (and non-digital) resources needed by the chosen schools facing socio-economic challenges.20
Students with special educational needs, and from lower socio-economic backgrounds, are granted extra monetary support. For instance, via the Continue Learning (Weiterlernen) initiative, those students are offered free remote or in person learning assistance, and sometimes free digital devices.21 Students and schools from rural areas are excluded from device distribution, however. This may be attributed to the findings that, in Austria, rural schools’ information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure tend to be better than urban schools’, as opposed to most other OECD countries (OECD, 2022).
Besides these initiatives, the federal government’s education strategies do not target a particular group, since the responsibility to provide access to tools and resources for system and school management is devolved to the respective maintainer of schools. Provincial and independent private schools are therefore relatively out-of-scope of the federal government’s strategies and responsibility, with the exception of requirements on the curriculum and on digital textbooks (and devices) for students.
Supporting the use of digital tools and resources
The BMBWF seeks to facilitate the uptake of the publicly provided digital tools by providing guidelines and professional learning opportunities.22 In addition, access to the publicly procured digital tools and resources – including Sokrates, the two publicly provided learning management systems, and several resources for teaching and learning (e.g. Eduthek) – has recently become facilitated through a single sign-on (SSO) service enabled by the Digital School Portal. Users are no longer required to create separate credentials to access and use these different applications.
The BMBWF also supports schools in acquiring digital tools as well as teaching and learning resources through the Learning Apps seal of approval (“Gütesiegel Lern-Apps”). This is a quality certificate awarded by the federal ministry of education, science and research for digital mobile learning apps (and their web versions). Obtaining the certificate requires the fulfilment of set quality criteria and positive evaluation by teachers according to pedagogical, functional, and student-oriented aspects. With the certification comes an authorisation for companies to use the Learning-Apps quality seal on their website. The certificate is intended to provide teachers, students and parents with guidance and assistance in selecting innovative products from the market.23 The federal government also pays for recruiting educational IT custodians (IT-Kustodiat) at each school, who is responsible for the pedagogical support regarding the use of digital technologies.24
Finally, the BMBWF supplements the publicly provided digital tools and resources with several publicly procured commercial licensed software, such as Google Classroom and Microsoft Office 365 (including Teams) which are made available for schools that choose to use these tools.25 The Austrian Federal Procurement Agency (Bundesbeschaffungs GmbH), an agency in charge of procurements for the federal government departments, also supports the tendering processes for schools, by offering provincial and municipal governments with the guidelines on the procurement of educational tools and resources.
On November 14, 2023, the BMBWF launched a six-point package of measures for schools to help integrate the use of AI in order to prepare students for a world influenced by AI. Part of the package includes the establishment of 100 schools as AI pilot schools that will integrate the use of AI in educational media and textbooks as well as teacher training. Furthermore, assistance will be provided for schools and teachers with regard to the use of AI in written work, such as school homework, final examinations, etc. A more specific research focus on “AI in everyday school life” is set by the government to promote active engagement in the subject matter.26
Cultivating the digital competence of education stakeholders
Cultivating the digital skills and competences of education stakeholders constitutes a vital part of education in Austria. Based on the European DigComp reference framework, the federal government has developed the Digital Competence Model for Austria, whose latest version DigComp 2.3 AT was published in late 2022, covering various aspects of digital competence – from data literacy to safe use of digital resources.27 Any Austrian citizen above the age of 15 can obtain Dig-CERT and DigComp-CERT, digital knowledge and competence certificates, by taking an online exam based on the DigComp 2.3 AT.
For those enrolled in formal education, the digi.komp initiative is a long-standing tradition of the BMBWF to define digital competencies at various levels of education.28 This initiative outlines digital competences and implementation examples for teachers (digi.kompP), and for students at different stages of education (digi.komp4, digi.komp8, and digi.komp12 for primary, lower, and upper secondary levels, respectively).29 It is designed to ensure that the competences signalled by the BMBWF are integrated into the curriculum and pedagogical approaches, thereby leading students to acquire the age-appropriate digital competences and teachers to develop digital competences for teaching, including those related to the pedagogical use of digital technologies.30 Students and teachers can also voluntarily use digi.check, an online questionnaire on digital competence specified in the digi.komp models, to self-assess their digital skills and knowledge.31
The digi.komp initiative remained non-binding – except for digi.komp8 that lower secondary students must pass. The former has recently been replaced by the Digital Basic Education (Digitale Grundbildung) – a new, graded course that has been made compulsory for all students at lower secondary schools (both federal and provincial). The course contents encompass digital competences, media literacy, and political literacy within digitalisation, and it is taught throughout the entire four years of lower secondary education, either as an independent subject or in the form of integrative teaching.
In addition to the digi.komp initiatives, other public initiatives also exist to support teachers and students in developing digital competences. For educators, the eEducation Network allows teachers to network for exchanging knowledge about schools’ digital development, digital teacher training, and the pedagogical use of technologies. Ö1 Goes to School (Ö1 macht Schule) delivers podcasts on teachers’ digital skills and digital education, in co-operation with the public radio station Ö1 and the University College of Teacher Education Vienna.32 For students, Learning to Think, Solving Problems (Denken lernen, Probleme lösen) is a pilot project mainly for primary school students to promote their computational thinking and the didactic use of digital media.33 Finally, to communicate about responsible use of digital technology in school with students and parents, the ministry cooperates with the national co-ordination office Saferinternet.at, which supports schools with dedicated materials and workshops.
Governance of data and digital technologies in education
Supporting the use of digital technology in education and the data it generates works more easily if stakeholders recognise that this use will not work to their detriment. Thus, the federal government occasionally provides students and parents (or legal guardians) with information about the use of data and digital technologies in education. The government also involves them in consultations; for instance, by regularly engaging in exchanges with informal interest groups of parents (via the Parent Council [Elternbeirat]) and students (via the Federal Student Council [Bundesschülervertretung]).
There are also policies to govern the access to and use of data and digital technologies in schools. Digital technologies are used in the classroom as part of the curriculum given that developing students’ digital competences is a key component of the Austrian education system, as noted in the previous section. For instance, using digital technologies is recommended to teachers as a teaching method in every curriculum, and there are specific cross-cutting subjects encouraging the use of digital technologies, such as computer literacy. In addition, since schools are increasingly allowing the use of digital devices in their own exams, the BMBWF offers some relevant guidelines, for instance, regarding the use of certain applications (e.g. using spell checker in language exams). The use of digital devices is only for in-person exams, however, and no remote exam is organised at present (except for the pilot of an online exam administration system).34
To improve the interoperability of education technologies and data, the BMBWF enforces the use of specific technical standards, providing a framework for ensuring the data transfer between schools and BilDok, so the data can be exchanged seamlessly whether they are manually imported (e.g. in CSV format via Excel) or synchronously and automatically transmitted (e.g. in XML format via REST API connected to database systems). They also offer relevant guidelines to promote the use of open standards to enhance the interoperability of technologies and data in education, and seek to consolidate the existing manual data interfaces with automated and synchronous data services, through an upcoming central data hub.
In Austria, there are data protection and privacy rules in place – both in general (under the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, EU GDPR), which has been ratified as national legislation within the Austrian Data Protection Act, and specifically regarding students, teachers and school staff’s data and privacy at all educational levels (under the Education Documentation Act [BilDokG]).35,36 These rules regulate the collection, storage and use of education data, including the processing of the data for calculating educational statistics and attainment of students. When the data leaves a school in which it is generated – for instance, transferred to BilDok or other statistical agencies – it becomes pseudonymised and thus linked to a different identifier than those used for students elsewhere. While the data can be transferred for statistical or research purposes, however, it is not transferred between schools, e.g. when a student moves to another school.
In addition to the Education Documentation Act, the ICT School Ordinance (IKT-Schulverordnung) entered into force as of September 2021.37 This ordinance governs the use of digital devices within schools and defines the technical and organisational measures for ICT-supported teaching and learning, with a view to ensuring privacy and security in schools. For instance, it specifies that, for security reasons, a Mobile Device Management system, a government-operated device management software must be installed on digital devices publicly provided to students .38 By the same token, IT systems used for data processing (such as cloud services) must have data stored in centres in the European Economic Area region or in countries where the EU GDPR applies; otherwise, a service provider from outside those regions (e.g. Google, Microsoft) is obliged to draw up a contract with the federal government before they can provide their tools to schools.39 Such (cloud) services can also be used only for pedagogical purposes, not for school administration or student information management purposes, and companies are not allowed to use the data of students who use their tools and resources, including for advertising.40
Strong data and privacy policies being in place, however, does not mean that education data cannot be accessed by third parties. The Research Organisation Act (Forschungsorganisationsgesetz) governs the access to and use of data held by public bodies and authorities (thus, including education data from public schools).41 This Act specifies that, subject to certain conditions, data can be shared upon request with third parties, such as research institutions and professional statistical agencies that conduct research, expand knowledge, calculate statistics, and contribute to solving social, economic, cultural and scientific issues.42
In principle, the school management is responsible for the processing of student data, and therefore data protection officers (including at least one IT expert) sit on the school committee, proactively inspecting the schools’ digital infrastructure and IT security. However, with respect to publicly managed applications, such as Sokrates and WebUntis, the responsibility lies also with the government. Albeit not specific to education, the Official Liability Act (Amtshaftungsgesetz) states broadly that the government is responsible for all government-operated technologies, thus including publicly provided educational technologies. Defining the varying grades of responsibility of education stakeholders for IT errors (e.g. data breaches) is currently an important issue in Austrian education regulatory landscape.
The use of automated decision-making, AI-powered algorithmic model, and digital proctoring in education currently remains limited. Little policy effort or regulation governs these aspects. However, albeit not education-specific, the federal government adopted in 2021, as part of the strategies for the Artificial Intelligence Mission Austria 2030, a guideline addressing the development and use of AI applications across diverse sectors (including education).43 Part of the guideline outlines a responsible and pedagogically meaningful use of AI in education – from smart content and intelligent tutoring system, to virtual learning companion and learning analytics – as well as developing students’ AI-specific competences, such as knowledge of the basic functionality and societal implications of AI, as well as associated risks and opportunities. In late 2023, Austria adopted a six-point package of measures on artificial intelligence in schools. A group of experts from universities and university colleges of teacher education was assembled to help design this package of measures, which it will continue to refine and monitor. To that end, a hundred of schools were selected to pilot the use of AI learning tools for individual learning needs.
Supporting innovation and research and development (R&D) in digital education
In the last five years, the federal government has supported innovation in digital education in various ways. The BMBWF among other public institutions commissions universities and research institutions to conduct evaluation of educational policy measures. For instance, the University of Graz was commissioned to conduct research on a pilot project about the use of tablets in inter-school peer learning.
The BMBWF also provides financial incentives to organisations, individuals, and teachers for developing educational software and digital learning resources – some of which include the resources contracted for the Textbook Initiative. Another example of supporting educational innovation is the Mobile Learning project, a cross-school peer learning programme by the BMBWF (in co-operation with the Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology).44 Leveraging the experience from the eEducation Network of teachers, this project aimed to connect schools with little use of digital technology in classroom with a more digitally experienced school for mentoring and know-how transfer, and examine the pedagogical potential of digital devices for teaching and learning. Until 2019, it served as a preliminary project preparing for the Digital Learning (Digitales Lernen) initiative.45
Public-private partnerships are common in the education sector and the federal government supports these partnerships. For instance, albeit not education-specific, several federal ministries implement programmes to fund start-ups and promote innovation through their agencies, such as the Austrian Federal Development and Financing Bank (Austria Wirtschaftsservice Gesellschaft) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft). In terms of non-monetary supports, the Innovation Foundation for Education provided EdTech companies cooperating with schools with funding for developing learning resources and educational technologies.46
References
[1] OECD (2019), Working and Learning Together: Rethinking Human Resource Policies for Schools, OECD Reviews of School Resources, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/b7aaf050-en.
Notes
← 1. Federal schools are (1) academic schools (Allgemeinbildende höhere Schule, AHS), which span both lower and secondary education and account for 20% of general education schools as of the 2021/22 school year, and (2) vocational schools and colleges at the upper secondary level (Berufsbildende höhere Schulen and Berufsbildende mittlere Schulen, BHS and BMS), accounting for 60% of all vocational schools in the same school year. Provincial schools are (1) all primary schools (Volksschule, VS); (2) middle schools at the lower secondary level (Mittelschule, MS); (3) pre-vocational schools (Polytechnische Schule, PTS) and part-time vocational schools (Berufsschule, BS) at the upper-secondary level, and (4) special needs schools (Sonderschule). Provincial schools in Austria are often addressed as “state schools”, as the German term Land means state. However, to avoid confusion with the word “state” and “state-funded schools” in other OECD countries, the term “provincial schools” is used in this country note.
← 2. Technically, the funds for school construction and maintenance come from the federal government, too. However, it is local governments that make specific decisions about using the funds for such purposes.
← 4. https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/en/Topics/school/krp/8_p_p.html. It replaces the former initiative in this field: Masterplan for Digitalisation of Education (Masterplan für die Digitalisierung im Bildungswesen), which could not be fully implemented due to the pandemic.
← 5. In Austria, 5th grade is the first year in lower secondary education. In the first year of the plan (2021/22), 6th grade students were also entitled to receive a digital device; however, only 5th grade students benefit from the initiative since the second year. For students at the upper secondary level, there is currently no provision of digital device, and they are asked to bring their own device.
← 7. The federal government offers funding opportunity for fibre connectivity, which school owners must apply for. It does not fund build-out or ongoing operations. The Federal Ministry of Finance is responsible for this funding, and BMBWF offers a guide for building an IT environment in schools. See below links for further details:
← 13. While anybody can access Virtuelle PH contents, only teachers and teacher trainees may obtain certification.
← 14. https://eduthek.at/. Sometimes agreements are established between learning resource providers and the BMBWF, such as when the entire content repository of resource providers have been integrated in the Eduthek.
← 16. EduTube: https://edutube.at/
← 18. Digi4School: https://digi4school.at/; Textbook Initiative: https://www.schulbuchaktion.at/
← 22. Examples of the guidelines and professional learning opportunities: Recommendations for the use of digital technology in schools (https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/Themen/schule/zrp/dibi/itinf/ndts.html) and MiniMOOCs (massive open online courses) for digitally supported teaching (https://www.virtuelle-ph.at/minimooc/).
← 25. For legal requirements regarding the use of the commercial software, see the below section on the governance of data and digital technologies in education.
← 27. The digital competence classifies six fields are: foundations, access and digital understanding; information and data literacy; communication, interaction and collaboration; digital content creation, production and publication; safety and sustainable use of resources; problem solving, innovation and continuous learning. For a more comprehensive account of DigComp AT, see https://www.bmdw.gv.at/dam/jcr:54bbe103-7164-494e-bb30-cd152d9e9b33/DigComp2.2_V33-barrierefrei, which addresses the previous version (2.2 AT).
← 29. Digi.kompP is coordinated by the University College of Virtual Teacher Education. The model covers teachers’ digital competence training from before entry into initial teacher education, and continues until the end of the fifth year of the profession. The ones for students are coordinated by the eEducation network.
← 34. There is no general use of digital devices in official exams yet, though various pilot projects are ongoing.
← 35. Datenschutzgesetz, DSG, available at https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/GeltendeFassung.wxe?Abfrage=bundesnormen&Gesetzesnummer=10001597
← 38. The type of this device management system differs according to the device used (e.g. iOS, Windows, Chromebook).
← 39. See the following link for the detailed account (in German) of the General conditions for the use of private Cloud service provider in IT-supported teaching: https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/dam/jcr:609b6a2a-ce4d-455f-906e-dac14452461b/clouddienste_rahmenbedingungen.pdf
← 40. This follows the Schrems II Judgment made in July 2020 by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). See: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2020/652073/EPRS_ATA(2020)652073_EN.pdf
← 42. The Act also defines who qualifies as a research institution or researcher, and delineates the conditions for accessing the data. For instance, data must be anonymised and no personal data can be disclosed. A researcher can access and process the data only within a designated premise and cannot “take away” the data.
← 43. https://www.bmf.gv.at/dam/jcr:c1312d0a-6209-4e92-8631-aea93130e392/2021-AIM_AT_2030_UA-bf.pdf; https://www.bmf.gv.at/dam/jcr:26d2ade5-6768-4e00-9cb0-dc99b560353c/2021-AIM_AT_2030_Annex_UA-bf.pdf
← 44. Mobile Learning project: https://www.bmbwf.gv.at/Themen/schule/zrp/dibi/inipro/mobilelearning.html. The Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology has now been renamed as the Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.