From Technical Literacy to AI-Integrated Pedagogy: A Scoping Review of Digital Competence Frameworks for Higher Education (2000–2026)

ABSTRACT

Digital competence frameworks have multiplied over the past quarter century, and researchers in higher education must select among them with little comparative guidance. This scoping review, reported with the PRISMA-ScR checklist, charts a purposive corpus of 43 frameworks, standards, certification schemes and self-reflection tools in use between 2000 and 2026. Each entry was verified against its primary source in October 2026, and a search of ERIC, OpenAlex, Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar (6,598 records) then tested the coverage of the corpus. Explicit decision rules assign every entry to one of five clusters, which are general digital literacy, pedagogical integration, teacher-specific competence, national and regional policy, and the European Commission ecosystem with its derivatives. Five overlapping waves describe the movement from operational skills through pedagogical integration, structured progression and expanded professional dimensions towards AI competence. Only two entries were designed for higher education, 10 are accompanied by an assessment instrument, and peer-reviewed psychometric evidence was located for two, both from the DigCompEdu family. AI became the organising subject of corpus entries from 2023, although no issuing body has released an AI self-assessment instrument. The taxonomy gives researchers a transparent basis for selecting and justifying frameworks.