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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Digital Learning Innovations
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1534104
This article is part of the Research Topic Leveraging Technology to Improve Livelihood, Education, and Health Outcomes for Forced Migrants View all articles

Empowering Marginalized Communities through the Digital Transformation Course

Provisionally accepted
  • University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    This article examines a project dedicated to comprehensively addressing the social impact of digital transformation. The project also emphasizes the effects of digital transformation on marginalized populations, especially forced migrants and individuals with special needs. The project involves the development of open-access course materials titled "Digital Life 1-2-3-4," which are shared as openaccess resources through four MOOCs on the iMooX platform. The primary goal is to increase awareness of the effects of digital transformation in daily life, such as algorithmic bias, inaccessibility, robots and digital divide, digital inclusion, and digital discrimination. By integrating ethical considerations, promoting digital literacy, and considering bringing users into the design process, the course mitigates the impact of digital transformation and promotes an equitable and empowering digital environment for the everyday use of technology, particularly for marginalized communities. In this article, we discuss specific course content, including digital inclusion, algorithmic bias, and emerging inequalities. The key goals are to understand and mitigate the risks of algorithmic bias, inaccessibility, and digital discrimination in educational technologies affecting diverse and vulnerable populations, and to promote digital literacy, access, and motivational design to encourage forced migrants' active and safe participation in technology-enabled education. We conclude that it is essential to prioritize ethical principles in their design and application, elevate underrepresented voices, and foster a more equitable and inclusive digital landscape.

    Keywords: Algorithmic bias, Digital Inclusion, technology policies, human computer interaction, Participation & Inclusion

    Received: 25 Nov 2024; Accepted: 08 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Yuksel Arslan, Plant and Kayali. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Pelin Yuksel Arslan, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.