We’re coming towards the end of what has been an interesting and challenging phase of the project. From the outset we were acutely aware of the need to win over hearts as well as the minds of those in the University who are best placed to catalyse and promote the development of digital literacy. With this aim we focused our efforts on engaging and meeting with key individuals and groups across the University to identify how we could embed the development of digital literacy into relevant processes and mechanisms. Progress to date has been very encouraging indeed, with a number of strategies, action plans and initiatives now incorporating digital literacy as an integral component. This success will ensure that digital literacy remains in forefront of people’s minds and continues to be an agenda item for some time to come.

We took our initial lead from the University’s Education Strategy, which was invaluable in highlighting digital literacy in the broader context of Learning Literacies. This provided us with the impetus to be able to ask questions of the other University strategies as to how they could engage with this as a driver. We have had extremely positive and fruitful collaborations in such areas as Careers and Employability with the opportunity to feed into their action plan, with the Equality and Diversity group contributing to the Strategic Equality Plan, also close involvement with the development of the University’s Social Media Strategy and the Information Services Digital and Information Literacy Strategy, which was recently fully endorsed by its Board. Work now continues with these various groups to identify from a practical standpoint how Digital Literacy can best be realised in the short to medium term.

This is now leading into more grassroots and hands-on engagement with teaching staff to help them detail appropriate learning opportunities. Examples of this are our collaborations with academics responsible for planning and developing the new C21 Medical Curriculum to specify how both Information Literacies and Digital Literacies can be integrated in an evolutionary way throughout the 5 year course. We are also working with people leading the Cardiff Award scheme to specify content and activities for undergraduates to develop their digital literacy with a view to future employability. And workshops are planned with front-facing staff in Library and IT Services to explore how their own digital and information literacy might be developed and also how they in turn might better enable its development in others.

So, looking back over the first year of the project, much has been achieved in terms of raising people’s awareness about the significance of developing Digital Literacy and making the conversation happen. This has proved invaluable in helping to clarify where and how the project can best contribute to facilitate practice at the ‘coal-face’. This nicely leads us into the next phase of the project which is all about developing and gathering resources and running workshops to give staff and students an opportunity explore what developing their digital literacy actually entails when doing their work and learning.

Listen to JISC on Air – Digital Literacy – Delivering the agenda within colleges and universities.

Available at http://jisconair.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2012/04/24/deliveringdigital-literacy/

The sixth episode of the JISC online radio programme, JISC On Air, explores how universities and colleges can help teaching staff, researchers, support and administrative staff to develop their digital literacies.

The show highlights how Cardiff University and other colleges and universities are developing holistic approaches and strategies for supporting the development of these skills and capabilities.

In connection with the Digidol Project, a number of staff and students were interviewed by Kim Catcheside explaining how the project is establishing an institution-wide approach for contextualising and embedding digital literacy into the development of academic staff, students, research students and administrative, managerial and support staff.

Also, Dr Andrew Eynon discusses the Personal Actualisation and Development through Digital Literacies in Education project at Coleg Llandrillo, which aims to create a digitally literate, skilled and confident workforce and student body across all the FE institutions in North Wales (Coleg Harlech, Coleg Menai, Coleg Llandrillo, Deeside College and Yale College Wrexham).

Helen Beetham, synthesis consultant for the JISC Developing Digital Literacies programme, reveals valuable insights into the emerging issues from the programme, and Alison Mitchell, Deputy Director of Vitae, speaks about the importance of digital literacies for researchers.

For further information on JISC’s work in this area visit: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/developingdigitalliteracies

In part two of the show will be looking at how digital literacy underpins the academic success and employability of students.

The work of the Digidol project is also mentioned in an article on the Guardian Higher Education Network site on Digital technologies and the tensions between research and teaching, where Janet Peters (University Librarian and Senior Assistant Director INSRV) is quoted highlighting the potential benefits of developing Digital Literacy of staff and students in the university.

We’ve been traveling the last few months spreading the word about Digital Literacy and the Digidol project. Here are a few of the presentations we’ve recently given:

“What does social media mean for IT Services?”
UCISA – Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association
Using Social Media to Communicate , 18th January 2012, Austin Court, Birmingham.

“Project Digidol: developing digital literacy ”
ALDinHE – Association for Learning Development in Higher Education
9th ALDinHE Conference: Learning Development in a digital age: emerging literacies and learning spaces, 2th-4th April 2012, University of Leeds.

“Digidol: Developing Digital Literacies”
LILAC – Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference
11th-13th April 2012, Glasgow Caledonian University

“Developing Digital Literacy through social media: trainer and trainee perspectives”
UCISA – Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association
Using Social Media for Training ,18th April 2012, University of Salford.

We would like to say a huge thank you to all the researchers who gave up their time to take part in yesterday’s workshop exploring digital literacy. We are using the valuable information gathered to establish a baseline of attitudes and practicesamongst researchers todigital technology. Representatives ranged from postgraduate students through to early stage researchers, mid-career and senior research staff.  This varied group provided us with a broad range of views and illuminating discussion on the value and application of technology for research work. Unsurprisingly, there was an extremely diverse range of practices described, with some researchers making extensive use of a wide variety of digital technologies whilst others preferred a traditional approach, working with pen, paper and post-its to meet their particular needs.

Concern was expressed that an overly strong emphasis on technology driven (rather than task driven) methods may promote ways of working that aren’t necessarily the most effective or productive. Researchers are acutely conscious of the time and effort required not only to find out about what technologies are available but also change the way they work. A clear message was that researchers need to be provided appropriate and timely information to help them make a considered choice about the relative value of comparative technology for changing their practice; it must be fit for purpose and demonstrably add value. This highlights a significant challenge for the university to identify ways of raising awareness and understanding of technology enabled opportunities amongst researchers and how to target and tailor education and support. Further information and analysis of this workshop along with findings from an online survey will be available early April as the project’s second baseline report.