by Wendy Denton
This blog post focuses on the following three areas:
- What are digital capabilities and why do we need them?
- How are digital capabilities being developed at other universities?
- What is CELFS doing to help develop digital capabilities?
What are digital capabilities and why do we need them?
Take a look at any typical workplace, learning environment or home and you’ll see just how much technology has become embedded into our everyday lives. Even the most basic activities (e.g. shopping, communication and sourcing information) now require some level of digital knowhow. As someone who provides technical support to colleagues, friends and family (no family gathering is without its one-to-one tech support sessions), I’m acutely aware of the need we all have for digital skills in order to operate in a digital society.
Our digital capabilities are also an economic hot topic with the government anticipating a huge digital skills gap. As more and more advanced technologies transform the workplace, over a third of the UK workforce lack basic digital skills. The government’s digital strategy looks to employers and the education sector to close the skills gap that is stunting the growth of UK business.
As with all good campaigns the first step is to raise awareness, and this two-minute video from the University of Derby is a great example that explains what digital capabilities are and how they enable us to learn, work and carry out fundamental aspects of our day to day lives.
How are digital capabilities being developed?
Many universities have responded to the government’s call to action by creating digital capability frameworks to support their staff and equip students entering employment. Jisc (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee) have produced a framework for digital capabilities to help educational institutions get started. It consists of 15 digital behaviours which are categorised into 6 elements, including managing our digital identity, digital well-being, and digital participation (which translates as being a digital advocate and contributing to a community of learning and development). This is a holistic approach that emphasises behaviour as much as the typical ‘how to’ skills you’d expect.
Jisc supplement this framework with the discovery tool, a reflective questionnaire designed to assess your current skill level which provides a detailed report on your digital mindset with ‘next step’ guidance on suggested areas to develop.
You can try the JISC discovery tool here. When you sign up you’ll need to use the code: dcap17!
Some universities are customising the Jisc framework to create their own. At Staffordshire University they’ve developed the ‘Digital U’ programme based around 5 digital values: Digital communication, Handling information, Creating digital content, Digital learner, Room technologies and Digital ambassador. It’s a much more streamlined resource but it too uses a self assessment tool as a starting point. Using a simple confidence rating quiz for a series of specific task-based questions, it generates a confidence score, suggests areas to focus on and links to relevant resources. You can try it here.
There are other examples outside of HE too, ‘All Aboard’ is an ambitious nationwide project from Ireland aimed at empowering students, teachers and anyone else using technology in their work, studies or any other aspect of life. With such a broad audience the digital skills are quite generalised but does show how widely digital skills affect all walks of life.
The common format is that individuals reflect on their digital skills and behaviours using a self-assessment tool, this identifies your level of achievement within the framework and signals you to appropriate training resources for areas you may want to develop. To put it another way, it’s a case of ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’.
What is CELFS doing to help you develop your digital capabilities?
At CELFS, we wanted to take a more customised approach that gives staff a clear map of the specific skills our academic staff use. We developed the CELFS staff digital skills framework and together with our in-sessional academic staff identified and mapped those skills into 3 levels. Level 1 is all the fundamental skills that apply to all staff.
You’ll also see that rather than grouping digital capabilities into behaviours (like the Jisc-based examples) we’ve focused on 5 key areas of TEL activity, which are; Software & systems, Blackboard, Classroom technology, Online discussion and Creating flipped materials.
An interactive version of the framework is in the pipeline so that each skill will link to a range of relevant learning resources. Completing each level will contribute to attaining the Digital Driving License (DDL) which is underpinned by the CELFS TEL vision:
to embed TEL in the everyday life and programme development of the Centre, sustaining our reputation for educational innovation.
We’ll be developing our own CELFS self assessment tool to help you identify where the gaps are, and now that the DDL is embedded into staff reviews, a self assessment tool could be useful in preparing for them by identifying TEL achievements and feed in to discussion on areas you’d like to develop.
It’s still in development and open to your input. Tell me what you would like from a self assessment tool to help you get started on the road to your Digital Driving License.
Further information about the CELFS Digital Driving Licence and other TEL resources can be found on the CELFS CPD site.