Digital Capability: How digitally capable are we?

Gillian Fielding

Chair of the UCISA User Skills Group

g_fielding g.d.fielding@salford.ac.uk

ucisa.ac.uk/digcap #ucisadigcap

Background

• From the UCISA Technology Enhanced Survey (TEL) Survey

• Development of digital capabilities across the UK HE sector

• Benchmark

• Inaugural biennial study

• International opportunities

• Stimulate discussion

Coverage

• 156 UK HEIs institutions invited

• 96 institutions provided a survey rep

• Ran 1st August - 19th September 2014 – (5 weeks + 1 week extra)

• 63 surveys returned – 41% response rate

• Online survey (used licensed UCISA survey tool Vovici)

Survey sections

• Definition

• Strategy

• Delivery, Implementation and Practice

• Bring Your Own

• Supporting Differentiation and Inclusion

• Looking to the Future

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Definitions: Findings

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Definition: Recommendations

• Adopt a standard definition

• Use for benchmarking

• Make sharing resources and exemplars using common terms and standards more easy

• Specific competencies and baseline measures can be developed from this, to enable competency or fluency to be demonstrated

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Strategy: Findings

• Most important factors driving digital capability development:– Student expectations and requirements (for staff and students)– Student Experience Survey (for staff and students)– Development of innovative pedagogic practices (3rd for students)

• Of low importance:– Develop a unique selling point or use as a marketing tool

• Other strategies– Estates and Staff development (mid-table)– Marketing was least important

• Only 11 institutions expressly cited a member of their senior management team as having responsibility for digital capabilities.

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Use of resources

NUS Charte

r on T

echnology in

HE

Jisc I

nfoNet '

Developing D

igital L

itera

cies'

info

Kit

Jisc S

tudents

as Change A

gents re

sourc

es

Jisc '

Learnin

g in a D

igital A

ge' report

Jisc D

igital S

tudent r

esourc

es

HEA Digita

l Lite

racy

in th

e disc

iplin

es reso

urces

HEFCE 'Stu

dent Pers

pectives o

n Tech

nology' report

Other

Independent '

Towards m

aturit

y' reso

urces

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

1.20

1.40

1.60

1.80

2.00

Students Staff

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Strategy: Recommendations

• “Institutions should adopt a whole-institutional approach and embed digital capabilities into all strategies, including Estates, HR, Finance, as well as Library, IT, Academic Development etc.”

• “Institutions must obtain active senior management sponsorship to drive the successful embedding of digital capabilities throughout the organisation.”

• Utilise existing resources, Jisc, NUS, HEA, UCISA, Horizon Report

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Delivery, implementation and practice: Findings

• Emerging practices in:– students - curriculum-based initiatives, integrating digital capabilities into

learning outcomes, inclusion in handbooks and the curriculum, and extra-curricular activities, including using students as change agents and digital champions

– staff - included integration into annual appraisals, managing a digital profile, digital scholarship practices and induction processes

• Mandatory training– Students (40%) - on VLEs and Turnitin, IT and Library induction– Staff (41%) - systems training before access is granted, IT induction and mobile

learning/VLE

• Certified training– Students – 54% offered no certified training– Staff – 38% offered no certified training – ECDL was the most popular for staff

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Delivery, implementation and practice: Recommendations

• “Institutions should develop digital capabilities through a range of opportunities and emerging practices which motivate and reward students and staff and positively change culture. Impact can be maximised through the sharing of resources and working in partnership.”

• “Institutions should create digital curricula which is holistic, relevant and innovative for students and all staff, i.e. academic programmes and development activities, to encourage effective study, work and digital citizenship.”

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BYO: Findings

• BYO practices vary

• % of learning spaces available for BYO use (table)

• AV facilities becoming increasingly flexible

• Easy and secure access to campus networks largely available

• Challenges remain in some areas:– network or code of connection policy restrictions (75%)– (in)flexibility of space and furniture– wi-fi saturation and bandwidth– accessible wi-fi printing– support provided to users

• Admin rights cited frequently as a barrier

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Option Avail.

100% 32%75-99% 50%50-74% 5%25-49% 10%1-24% 3%

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BYO: Findings

• BYO practices vary

• % of learning spaces available for BYO use (table)

• AV facilities becoming increasingly flexible

• Easy and secure access to campus networks largely available

• Challenges remain in some areas:– network or code of connection policy restrictions (75%)– (in)flexibility of space and furniture– wi-fi saturation and bandwidth– accessible wi-fi printing– support provided to users

• Admin rights cited frequently as a barrier

www.ucisa.ac.uk/digcap #ucisadigcap

Option Avail.

100% 32%75-99% 50%50-74% 5%25-49% 10%1-24% 3%

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BYO: Recommendations

• “National organisations should collaborate with heads of service and users to develop coherent policy guidelines for the use of personal devices. Institutions should review how to provide a robust and flexible digital environment to enable personalised ways of working.”

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Looking to the future: Findings

• Most significant barriers for future development of digital capabilities:– Students - lack of money, department culture, competing strategic

initiatives and institutional culture.– Staff - competing strategic initiatives, institutional culture, lack of

money, and department culture.

• Key initiatives coming up:– Reviews of teaching and learning systems– A range of digital literacy projects– Infrastructure, training and development projects

• Key agents (depts) of change:– IT Services, Academic Development/Learning Technologies, Library

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Faculties/Schools

TEL/eLearning Units

SMT

Library

IT Depts

Academic Development Unit/Teaching Enhancement Units

Human resources Depts

Research/Graduate Units

Careers, Employability & Enterprise

Student services/study skills

Other

Where responsibility sits

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Looking to the future: Recommendations

• “Institutions should encourage staff-staff and staff-student partnership to co-create digital resources and experiences in learning, teaching, assessment, research and administrative practices.”

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Survey Expectations

• Yes, findings and recommendations

• But also:

• Encourage dialogue within responding institutions

• Highlight the importance of digital capabilities for both students and staff

• Empower and support change

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Drop-in

clin

ics or a

ppointm

ents fo

r stu

dents

Telephone/email/

online ch

at

Remote

access

Twitter/

socia

l media

Videos (

e.g. YouTube, V

imeo, in

house

etc.)

An online knowledge b

ase

Other m

ethod

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

library IT Services Ac/StudySkills eLearning

Key finding: Differentiation and Support

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• See the full report – published in May

• Watch the webinar

• Join our Training Community:– http://digitalskillsanddevelopment.ning.com/

• Future events: – “Spotlight on Digital Capabilities” – 3 & 4 June

http://www.ucisa.ac.uk/groups/dsdg/Events/2015/digcaps.aspx

– Change Agents Network webinar – 27 Aprilhttp://can.jiscinvolve.org/wp/webinars-upcoming-webinars-and-recordings-of-past-webinars/

Finding out more

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Thank you

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Discussion

• What can you as an individual, and your team do to further the digital capabilities agenda?– Discuss your ideas.– Tweet your plans to #ucisadigcap.

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