Digitalization in education has brought great challenges for teachers. Digital competence in teaching has become a key and necessary competence in the educational systems of the world (European Commission, 2020). European Union Council (2018) defines digital competence as "the safe, critical and responsible use of digital technologies for learning, work and participation in society, as well as their interaction with them" (p. 9). 

Nevertheless, currently, the concept of teacher digital competency (TDC) has come out (Falloon, 2020). According to Krumsvik (2012), it is defined as: “'proficiency in using ICT (information and communication technology) in a professional context with good pedagogic-didactic judgment and his or her awareness of its implications for learning strategies and the digital “Bildung” (training) of pupils and students” (p.44-45). Despite the fact that it is a very widespread concept at the pre-university level, there are increasing studies that address it at the university level (Uerz et al., 2021).

In recent years, different frameworks have emerged to promote and manage it. At the European level, the European Commission has proposed the common framework DigCompEdu, which has quickly become a reference framework, as in the case of Spain, adopted by the Conference of Rectors of Spanish Universities (CRUE, 2022).

As for institutions, they have implemented digitization actions and plans, with different approaches. Looking at the examples of some European universities, we see various approaches, such as Bergen promoting the culture of change, improving the technological infrastructure of the campus and the use of digital services; the University of Leuven, which through its digital plan focused on the creation of free educational resources, support services for training and digital learning. Something along the lines of that, the University of Geneva have developed digital training processes for their teaching staff through automated strategies, online courses, or evaluation systems (Viñoles et al., 2021).

Nonetheless, when COVID-19 arrived, it became clear that there were still shortcomings, especially in the pedagogical use of digital technology (Viñoles et al., 2022). In this sense, and with regard to future university teachers, it is necessary to generate initial training strategies that promote the development of this competence in all its aspects (technical, pedagogical, and student competencies’ facilitator aspects) (Buils et al., 2022).

When it comes down to ensuring quality teaching in the educational system, it is essential to take care of the training of beginning university faculty. During the first teaching stage, novice teachers develop and consolidate habits and knowledge. These are the most complex and critical years, in which the teaching identity and its socialization are built (Kelchtermans, 2019).

This communication is part of a project that aims to design a training proposal for new faculty staff in a digital environment. The aim of this work is to identify the characteristics of the training offered to novice teachers in Spanish universities in relation to digital competence in teaching.

In order to identify those digital characteristics in induction programs, we shed some light on the competencies framework we adopt in our study: DigCompEdu. Through the Digital Education Action Plan: 2021-2027, the European Commission (2020) aims to enhance the capacity of teachers to use digital technology with skill, equity, and efficiency, thus improving educational quality. The importance of taking a competencies framework into account lies in the justification of decisions in the initial and permanent training of university teachers (Castañeda et al. 2018).

This research is on the basis of an exploratory-descriptive method and it has been used the documental and content analysis technique (Krippendorff, 2018) through primary sources from the official web pages of the institutions (between November and December 2022). In order to study the descriptive statistics, it has been carried out a quantitative thematic content analysis, in which the registration unit has been concepts (ideas or sets of ideas). The collected sample is based on the total universe of Spanish universities, a total of 84 universities: 50 public and 34 private. In order to analyze the digital perspective of induction programs, first we have made a selection of those universities that offer it. Novice teacher training has been chosen based on certain inclusion criteria: current programs; accessible through the official websites of the universities; and aimed mainly at early-career university teachers. Then, we obtained a sample of 40 universities with induction programs, of which 45 different novice plans have been detected. In this paper, the DigCompEdu areas have been adopted as categories in order to analyze the training contents of induction programs. DigCompEdu is the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators of the European Commission (Redecker and Punie, 2017). It includes 22 digital competencies divided into six areas: (1) “Professional Engagement”; (2) “Digital Resources”; (3) “Teaching and Learning”; (4) “Assessment”; (5) “Empowering Learners”; along with (6) “Facilitating Learners’ Digital Competence”. It has been used because of its international implication.

On the whole, they include the area (1) “Professional Engagement”, especially referring to “Organisational communication”. For example, the management of virtual institutional platforms for teaching, communication, and management. However, there is barely any training in “Professional collaboration”, “Reflective practice”, and “Digital continuous professional development”. Area (2) “Digital Resources” tends to be predominant, focusing on “Selecting digital resources”. Some universities are also moving towards the transformation and digitalization of teaching, emphasizing competence in “Creating and modifying” digital technology (DT) resources. As it happens, they include innovative and active teaching methodologies enriched by digital technologies, referring to competence “Teaching related” to area (3) “Teaching and Learning”. Be that as it may, the contents analysed are bound to leave out Collaborative learning and Self-regulated learning. Area (4) “Assessment” is especially relevant in some programs, which work on “Assessment strategies”, by learning or creating assessment strategies through digital resources. However, the competence of “Analyzing evidence” along with “Feedback and planning” are not found. Hardly any training focuses on (5) “Empowering learners” and the (6) “Facilitating Learners’ Digital Competence”. As it has been proven beforehand (Buils et al. 2022), a general instrumentalist and partial vision of TDC is acquired, focusing on the use of technological resources for teaching management and the process of teaching-learning in addition to learning assessment. In a nutshell, should we want to promote a reflective pedagogy in the use and integration of DT in Higher Education, we ought to reorient induction training in terms of digital teaching competencies (Vykhrushch et al., 2020).

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