Digital Mediation in Practice: Results of the Course on Digital Tools for ADR

The online course “Digital Tools for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)”, implemented as part of the international project “Digital Innovations for Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Visegrad Countries and Ukraine” (DIGARD V4U) with the support of the International Visegrad Fund (IVF), has successfully concluded. Over 600 mediators, facilitators, and other ADR professionals from Ukraine and the Visegrad countries participated in the course.

The program was delivered entirely online and combined 5 interactive webinars with 12 asynchronous micro-lessons, available in both English and Ukrainian. This structure allowed participants to thoroughly engage with the material while adapting the learning process to their professional schedules.

Throughout the course, participants worked with real-life cases and gained hands-on experience using digital tools such as Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Padlet, ChatGPT, Calendly, and others, considering their features, limitations, and security requirements.

The course program focused on practical challenges of digitalizing ADR and enabled participants to acquire key skills for working in an online environment. They learned to select and apply digital tools at different stages of mediation, manage online communication and facilitation effectively, handle the challenges of missing non-verbal cues, and establish clear interaction protocols. 

Particular attention was paid to cybersecurity and data protection, including party verification, data backup, and secure use of electronic signatures. A dedicated module guided participants on ethical and safe use of artificial intelligence for document analysis, decision preparation, and role-play simulations, combining advanced technologies with practical mediation experience.

Each webinar session was organized by project partners from different countries and focused on specialized topics: Slovakia covered “Fundamentals of Digital Mediation: Law, Identification, and Tools”, Hungary focused on “Managing Online Meeting Dynamics: Communication, Confidentiality, and Rules”, Ukraine led the session on “Digital Security and Data Protection in ADR”, Poland addressed “Advanced Digital Strategies and Workflow Optimization”, and the Czech Republic presented “Artificial Intelligence in Mediation: Tools, Ethics, and Practice”.

Preparation for the Study Tour

The final stage of the project will be a Study Tour to Košice, Slovakia. Based on the course results, a group of nearly 80 participants, including representatives from Ukraine and the Visegrad countries, has been selected to take part in the fully funded training visit. The project team is currently organizing the trip.

The study visit is being organized by the project partner, the European Institute of Information Society (EISi) (https://adr.eisionline.org/en/), which hosts an arbitration center for resolving domain disputes according to the ADR Rules for the .sk domain.

Broader Context of the Initiative

The course is an integral part of a larger initiative supporting judicial reform in Ukraine and promoting expertise from the Visegrad countries at the international level.

This DIGARD V4U initiative is co-financed by the governments of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from the International Visegrad Fund, and supports Ukraine’s efforts to reform its justice system while promoting best practices from the Visegrad region.