Supporting our digital skills and literacy: Where are we now and what’s next?
This update from Jane Mooney, Academic Theme Lead for Digital Skills and Literacy shares progress, signposts available support and outlines the next steps for the Flexible Learning Digital Skills agenda.
As the new academic year begins, I wanted to update you on how support for digital skills and literacy has progressed over the last 12 months and what lies ahead. For my first year with the Flexible Learning Programme, my priorities were to enable conversations and raise awareness around digital skills across the University; to understand the different ways we work and explore opportunities to effectively embed support for students and staff.
The introduction of the Jisc Discovery tool was a key first step towards understanding and augmenting our digital capability as individuals and as a University. The tool, which is based on Jisc’s Building Digital Capability Framework, gives us a shared language around digital skills, helps us understand our digital practice and provide resources to support further development. This fantastic two minute video, created by our Student Partners and former Graduate Intern for this year’s Welcome, shares what students can get out of the Discovery tool and can be embedded within Blackboard as an introduction to the tool.
I’m greatly enjoying the opportunities to talk and collaborate with colleagues from across the University that are so integral to this role. The student-facing and staff-facing resources that scaffold our use of the Discovery tool were created in partnership with the Library’s My Learning Essentials and Student Teams, and the Learning and Organisational Development (L&OD) team, respectively.
Working with the Institute for Teaching and Learning (ITL) team we published this ‘supporting student digital capabilities’ guide for staff involved in curriculum design and delivery and this resource to support Academic Advisors. The ‘embedding digital capabilities in the curriculum’ workshop held in May was offered through the ITL open workshop programme. During this we discussed digital skills in HE, worked through a taster of embedding in curriculum design and heard from colleagues who shared their experiences of integrating digital capabilities within programmes. We’ll continue to offer digital capabilities themed workshops, sharing practice from across the University and the proposed focus for the next event is employability.
While providing resources that can help is important, we know that these alone are not enough. Staff need time for development and would value recognition, as highlighted within the Recommendations from the Flexible Learning Training and Skills Network Group; findings which resonate with Professional Service and Teaching staff feedback from the Sector. As a member of the Network Group, I found being part of the discussions with colleagues and students from across the University invaluable. My sincere thanks to Daniella Ryding and Linda Irish for their leadership as chairs of the Training and Skills Group and to all who contributed to the engagement events. The feedback you provided has informed and validated the approaches proposed within the forthcoming Flexible Learning Strategy which will go for endorsement to Senate in October.
The strategy will address providing the support needed to enable our digital development as individuals and as an institution by combining personalised opportunities, so the capabilities developed are relevant for individuals - students and staff - and for programmes of study, with the oversight and development of an embedded, institutional approach.
Attending different committees within the Faculties to promote embedding the Discovery tool, and digital capabilities more generally, in the curriculum has been really supportive and helpful in terms of understanding and exploring what would work and add value for our students and staff. I look forward to continuing to develop these conversations and collaborating to pilot and implement approaches to enhance our student and staff experiences.
In addition to working with colleagues based within the Faculties, I’ve also been working with representatives from the Students’ Union; Careers Service; Digital Learning; ITL; Learning & Organisational Development; The Library and Researcher Development, all of whom are members of the Flexible Learning Supporting Digital Capabilities group. he group’s role is to inform strategy and identify and implement approaches and deliverables to support student, staff and institutional digital capabilities. Working together we’ve identified opportunities to embed communications and support, create Careers and Researcher Development resources and promote digital skills at student and staff events. Top tip: a wheel of fortune can work wonders for engagement.
As expected, we’re working collaboratively within the Flexible Learning team too. As you’ll have seen in the recent communication sharing the Digital Learning Environment Review report from Prof Caroline Bowsher, Academic Theme Lead for the Digital Learning Environment, embedding digital skills support for students and staff is essential within our future DLE.
Supporting students’ digital development goes beyond developing the skills needed for their studies. We recognise the importance of understanding and aligning with the demands of the workplace in preparing students for their careers. As Academic Theme Lead for Flexible Learning Pathways, Prof Ang Davies is exploring digital skills needs with employers and this work will inform the enhancement of support offered to our students.
Digital wellbeing staff workshops will continue across the next academic year. These are open to all staff and provide a space to share experience, talk about how our use of technology affects us and hear from others about what they have found helpful. I encourage us all to take time to talk to the people we work closely with about how we use the different technologies available to us in our work and what steps we can take to promote our wellbeing.
Looking ahead to the next year, my next steps include continuing to promote and offer support around embedding the Discovery tool and digital capabilities within the curriculum; looking at how digital skills are represented within job adverts and roles; identifying gaps in training and support; exploring meaningful recognition for students and staff and continuing to promote and share effective practice.
It’s great to hear from you. If you have a case study to share or any queries I can help with, please do get in touch.