Each year, Jisc collect data from students and staff across Further and Higher Education at Institutions subscribed to their Digital Experience Insights Service.  Their reports on how students and staff are using and experiencing technologies in HE can be found here.

Starting with Jisc’s ‘‘HE Student Role Profile’’ for students, personalise the expectations / ILOs against each of the 6 elements of digital capabilities so that they are relevant to your Programme / Curriculum / Unit / Module and context. This template from Jisc can be used to help capture your mapping.

Example:

For a blank copy of the template used in this example click here.

For each of the elements of digital capabilities complete a mapping exercise of current Programme / Unit learning activities against the ILOs you have derived.  This will identify the elements you are already providing support for, as well as helping to highlight areas you may wish to expand on.

Example:

Jisc worked with the NUS to create a 'Roadmap for supporting students to improve their digital experience at university and college'. Jisc have also created a ‘Benchmarking toolkit for online learning'. These are useful rubrics, guiding what ‘good practice principles’, such as students being ‘prepared to study with digital technologies’ look like on a scale from ‘first steps’ to ‘outstanding’. Again, this phase can assist in identifying areas to develop or enhance and having students’ views represented is essential.

The Conversations that Count cards have been designed by Jisc to scaffold discussions with students about their ‘digital experience’. Guidance is included on how to use this resource which provide starter questions against a series of key topics for students and staff to explore, enabling the planning of developments / enhancements.

These resources from Jisc can be useful when starting to consider how ‘digital learning activities’ and ‘tools’ can be used to support the development of different capabilities. Your Faculty eLearning team can advise on the creation of learning activities, in addition to providing practical guidance about different technologies. University recommended software can be accessed via the ITL ‘Guidance on software for online teaching’.

Two further measures to support embedding of digital capabilities into practice:

• Supporting students to recognise, capture and confidently discuss their digital capabilities as they build their digital CVs. Sharing digital capability ILOs with students, e.g. including them at the start of each Unit / Module, can assist this development process.
• Signposting to supplementary supportive resources for students, such as My Learning Essentials and support from IT Services and the Careers Service.

This student-facing resource is intended to raise awareness around digital capabilities and provide students with the opportunity to understand and reflect on their digital experience, confidence and development. 

The Discovery tool is a supportive, online tool that takes individuals through a series of questions about their experience and confidence of using digital tools and approaches

A personalised digital capabilities report is provided on completion of a questionnaire, with suggested ‘Next steps’ and signposting to further relevant online resources. Completion of the tool also allows the user to sign up to retrieve a digital badge that can be added to their CV / portfolio.

There are 2 questionnaires students can complete within the Discovery tool

Once students have logged in to the tool, using their UoM username/password, they have access to two questionnaires. One is designed for students who are new to HE and the other for ‘current’/returning students. The latter enables a more in-depth exploration of their digital practice and it is recommended that returning students complete this annually and reflect on their progress.

Students and staff can access further resources within the Discovery tool

In addition to the selected resources recommended to students within their personalised reports from the Discovery tool, students can access extensive further resources within the tool. Staff can also review and access these resources by logging in to the Discovery tool and clicking on the ‘Resource bank’ icon on the left.

This 'Introduction to digital capabilities' blog post, written by the Library’s Student Team, shares their perspectives on the MLE resource / Discovery tool and provides a useful, relatable introduction to what students can expect from these resources.

Supporting students to recognise the skills they are developing, e.g. by signposting digital capabilities ILOs within Programmes / Units, is critical to them being able to take ownership of their digital capabilities and confidently showcase and discuss them with potential employers. This blog from the University Careers Service encourages students to consider how they can evidence their digital capabilities when updating their CVs: Digital CV makeover? You are savvier than you think

As mentioned, students can use the Discovery tool to reflect on their digital progress. It is recommended that students complete the ‘New’ student questionnaire on arrival and then complete the ‘Current’/returning student questionnaire annually, enabling them to reflect on their progress.

The Careers Service signpost students to the MLE Develop your digital capabilities / Jisc Discovery tool resource through their Transferrable skills page (What are digital skills) and their page on The IT sector. They additionally promote internal and external ‘Free and low cost training to boost your skills and your CV’.

In addition to the ‘Develop your digital capabilities' resource, MLE has resources to support different aspects of student digital capabilities, such as literature searching, evaluating sources and social media.  To embed MLE resources in your Blackboard space, get in touch with the Library team by clicking ‘‘Request training’’ or completing this form.

In addition to giving an overview of digital capabilities and the MLE resource / Discovery tool, this staff-facing resource outlines how students can be supported to consider their development once they have completed the Discovery tool and received their personalised digital capabilities reports.

While the reports students receive through completion of the Discovery tool can only be viewed by them, an Institutional ‘dashboard’ is also provided. This collates anonymised data from completed questionnaires and benchmarks our University, anonymously, with the sector.

If you are embedding the use of the Discovery tool within your Programme or Unit and would like to receive feedback on how your students are reporting their digital capabilities, please get in touch.

This case study from Catherine Wasiuk and Helen Davidson demonstrates different ways that a new undergraduate programme has embedded digital capabilities into the curriculum.

In this case study Cath Wasiuk, E-Materials Quality Control and Student Support Officer, Integrated Interdisciplinary Innovations in Healthcare Science (i3HS), shares how she created 1minuteCPD - micro-learning supporting staff digital skills development while recognising the time pressures staff face accessing CPD.

In this case study Prof Raj Ariyaratnam describes implementing Nearpod to promote active learning in revision sessions. The digital capabilities tagged are: Digital learning and development; Digital learning & Digital teaching.

This case study from Tim Cappelli, discusses the introduction of a ‘digital logbook’ for clinical skills.  The digital capabilities tagged are: Digital learning and development; Digital learning & Digital teaching.