Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) participated in the DISCERN-DSS kickoff meeting held in Belgium in February 2025. The meeting brought together Indonesian and European partner institutions to officially begin a collaborative project focused on strengthening digital soft skills education in health higher education.

UGM was represented by Prof. Lutfan Lazuardi and Wika Hartanti. Their participation demonstrated UGM’s active commitment to international collaboration, particularly in advancing digital health education and developing innovative learning approaches for future health professionals.

For Wika Hartanti, attending the kickoff meeting was an important opportunity to engage directly with project partners from Indonesia and Europe. The forum provided space to discuss the project’s vision, implementation strategy, institutional roles, training agenda, and the expected contribution of each partner institution.

DISCERN-DSS, or Digitally enhanced Scenario-Based Learning for Digital Soft Skills, is an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project. The project aims to support Indonesian health higher education institutions in developing digital soft skills through co-creative learning, digital scenarios, and Digital Scenario-Based Learning (D-SBL).

During the meeting, partners exchanged perspectives on how digital soft skills can be integrated into health education. These skills are increasingly important as healthcare systems continue to adopt digital technologies, telemedicine, electronic health records, and technology-supported service delivery.

From UGM’s perspective, the project is closely aligned with the university’s effort to prepare health graduates who are not only digitally competent, but also able to communicate, collaborate, make ethical decisions, adapt to change, and respond professionally in digital health environments.

The kickoff meeting also allowed UGM to learn from European partners with experience in medical education, digital learning, scenario-based learning, and professional development. At the same time, Indonesian partner universities, including UGM, Universitas Sebelas Maret, and Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta, contributed insights from local curriculum needs and the Indonesian health education context.

Wika Hartanti’s participation reflected the importance of building bridges between global knowledge and local implementation. Through discussions with consortium members, UGM gained valuable input for the next stages of the project, including curriculum mapping, training preparation, local coordination, and the co-creation of digital learning resources.

The DISCERN-DSS project will continue with a series of capacity-building and development activities. These include training workshops, local training, scenario co-creation, review, and the development of Digital Scenario-Based Learning resources that are relevant to digital medicine, telemedicine, and digital soft skills education.

Through its participation in the kickoff meeting, UGM reaffirmed its role in supporting health education transformation in Indonesia. Wika Hartanti’s involvement in the Belgium meeting represents part of UGM’s broader commitment to developing future health professionals who are ethical, adaptive, collaborative, and ready to contribute to digitally enabled healthcare systems.

Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) continued its active role in the DISCERN-DSS project through a collaborative process to refine Digital Scenario-Based Learning (D-SBL) scenarios for health professions education. This activity involved Indonesian and European partner institutions working together to strengthen the quality, relevance, and educational value of digital soft skills learning resources.

The refinement process formed part of DISCERN-DSS, or Digitally enhanced Scenario-Based Learning for Digital Soft Skills, an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education project. The project aims to support health higher education institutions in Indonesia in developing digital soft skills through co-creative, scenario-based, and technology-supported learning.

For UGM, the refinement stage was an important continuation of previous project activities, including international training, local capacity building, and scenario co-creation. After developing initial D-SBL resources, partners moved forward by reviewing and improving scenario narratives, decision points, branching pathways, feedback, and learning alignment.

The scenarios were designed to help students engage with realistic digital health situations. These may include challenges related to telemedicine, electronic health records, digital professionalism, patient safety, ethical decision-making, interprofessional communication, and the responsible use of digital technologies in healthcare.

Through the collaborative review process, project partners examined whether each scenario reflected the intended digital soft skills. These skills include communication, collaboration, adaptability, ethical reasoning, professionalism, evidence-informed decision-making, and leadership in digital health contexts.

UGM contributed to the process by bringing its academic experience in health professions education, curriculum development, and digital health transformation. Working together with Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS), Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), and European partners, UGM helped ensure that the scenarios were both pedagogically sound and relevant to the Indonesian healthcare education context.

The refinement process also emphasized the importance of learner experience. Each scenario was reviewed to ensure that students would be guided through meaningful choices, receive constructive feedback, and reflect on the consequences of their decisions in a safe digital learning environment.

This collaborative work demonstrates that D-SBL development is not only a technical process, but also a pedagogical and institutional effort. Strong scenarios require clear learning outcomes, realistic cases, coherent decision pathways, appropriate assessment design, and alignment with the competencies expected from future health professionals.

Through DISCERN-DSS, UGM continues to support the development of innovative learning resources that prepare students for healthcare practice in the digital era. The refined scenarios are expected to support future implementation and piloting, while contributing to the broader transformation of health professions education in Indonesia.

UGM’s involvement in this process reaffirms its commitment to international collaboration, educational innovation, and digital health capacity building. The DISCERN-DSS project is expected to help prepare health graduates who are digitally competent, ethical, adaptive, collaborative, and ready to respond to the evolving needs of modern healthcare systems.

Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) participated in the DISCERN-DSS Training Workshop held in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 27–30 January 2026. The workshop brought together Indonesian and European partner institutions to strengthen capacity in the assessment and implementation of Digital Scenario-Based Learning (D-SBL) for health professions education.

The activity was part of the DISCERN-DSS project, or Digitally enhanced Scenario-Based Learning for Digital Soft Skills, an Erasmus+ Capacity Building in Higher Education initiative. The project aims to support Indonesian health higher education institutions in developing digital soft skills through co-creative learning, digital learning resources, and scenario-based educational approaches.

For UGM, the Thessaloniki workshop represented an important continuation of previous capacity-building activities conducted at the international and local levels. After earlier training and local preparation in Indonesia, the workshop provided an opportunity for partners to deepen their understanding of how D-SBL can be assessed, implemented, and sustained within institutional learning systems.

During the workshop, participants discussed key components of D-SBL implementation, including scenario design, facilitation strategies, learner engagement, feedback mechanisms, assessment planning, and quality assurance. These components are essential to ensure that digital learning scenarios are not only interactive, but also aligned with learning outcomes and educational standards.

The workshop also emphasized the importance of assessment in measuring digital soft skills. Participants explored how competencies such as communication, collaboration, ethical reasoning, adaptability, professionalism, evidence-informed decision-making, and responsible use of digital technologies can be observed and evaluated through scenario-based learning activities.

UGM views this assessment-focused training as highly relevant to the transformation of health professions education. As digital technologies increasingly shape healthcare delivery, future health professionals need learning experiences that allow them to practice professional judgment, make decisions, and reflect on their actions in realistic digital health situations.

The activity in Thessaloniki also strengthened collaboration among project partners. Indonesian partner universities, including UGM, Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS), and Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY), exchanged insights with European partners on how D-SBL can be developed and adapted to different educational contexts.

Through this workshop, UGM gained further input for the next phases of DISCERN-DSS, particularly in scenario co-creation, peer review, implementation planning, and evaluation of digital learning resources. These stages will support the development of D-SBL materials that are pedagogically strong, contextually relevant, and suitable for use in Indonesian health education.

UGM’s participation in the Thessaloniki Training Workshop reflects its continued commitment to educational innovation and international collaboration. Through DISCERN-DSS, UGM aims to contribute to the preparation of future health professionals who are digitally competent, ethical, adaptive, collaborative, and ready to respond to the challenges of modern healthcare.