Designing for Openness, Critical Digital Competence and Agency: The Development of the CoDiCri ACAD Toolkit

As artificial intelligence and digital technologies increasingly shape higher education, educators are required to deliberate about designing learning experiences that are both technologically enhanced and pedagogically grounded in openness, critical engagement and student agency. This article presents the CoDiCri ACAD Toolkit, an adaptation of the Activity-Centred Analysis and Design (ACAD) framework, developed within the Spanish project Critical Digital Competence: Towards Agency for Learning through Open Educational Practices. Through a qualitative, collaborative and design-based process, the toolkit integrates theoretical insights from critical digital competence (CDC), open educational practices (OEP) and learning design. It comprises a set of cards and a design canvas to support analysis and (re)design of learning activities. We report the toolkit’s development and structure, and illustrate its use for analysis and (re)design of learning activities oriented to openness, agency and CDC. The CoDiCri ACAD toolkit offers an open, adaptable resource for promoting critical and participatory digital pedagogy.