http://digidol.cardiff.ac.uk/

What are Welsh institutions doing to supportthe development of learners for a digital age?

JISC Workshop : Developing Digital Literacy4th November 2011

Digidol Project team: Joy HeadCathie JacksonJoe NichollsSarah WilliamsonSimon Wood

Learning Literacy as a driver for organisational change

Learning Literacy is viewed as both a means and a goal

Whose responsibility is it to develop Learning Literacies?

• The simple answer ...

– it’s everyone’s responsibility – we are all capable of helping each other

– but it depends on our awareness and understanding

– It starts with the recognition that we have a need for these literacies

• Conversations are required to help people to understand what the various literacies mean to them in their situation and circumstance

Whose responsibility is it to develop Learning Literacies?

• In an organisation – there will always be some people who are better placed to create learning opportunities for others

– sustainable institution-wide change starts in the hearts and minds of those who own and control the means for training and educating others

– raise awareness and understanding in ways that are meaningful and relevant to those who have power to influence and make decisions

– senior managers need to be convinced of the value of developing learning literacies - the contribution it can make to achieving strategic aims has to be acknowledged – to get buy in that dependency has to be obvious to all concerned

Institutional drivers for change

• Exploit top-down and bottom-up drivers that determine or impact on educational practice

• Top-down:

– respond to and inform (educate) senior managers

– respond to strategic aims, actions plans and policies

– work in conjunction with established formal business processes

• Bottom-up:

– identify and build on existing successful initiatives

– disseminate and link-up pockets of good practice

– work with those who get it! – and build community

• Make the join!

Strategic Drivers : Education Strategy

http://learning.cf.ac.uk/strategies/

Partnership with students

Where to focus time and effort?

• First identify existing provision across the institution for the development of staff and students

• Centralised (under the control of the Directorates: HR, IT, Library, Registry) versus decentralised (e.g., under the control of Schools, Student’s Union)

• Official (endorsed by a governing body) versus unofficial (standalone) educational processes and practices

• For sustainable change target processes that are already established and officially recognised - and which ideally have impact across the institution

– work with those who own and control them

– n.b. people are protective of their patch, so dance to their tune!

– consider how you’re going to demonstrate added value to them

Learning LiteracyBridging the knowledge gap

betweentasks and services

Staff andStudents

ServiceProviders

Digidol ProjectDeveloping Digital Literacy

PALET Project : The Programme Approval Lean Electronic Toolkit

http://blogs.cf.ac.uk/palet/

Process Review: To review the current procedure for the approval of new programmes and to implement a redesigned process which is streamlined, value adding and efficient;

Business Case: To support Schools to develop an improved and enhanced Business Case for a new Programme Proposal:

Curriculum Design: To review the processes used to design programmes, to help ensure that we provide a range of stimulating and high quality learning opportunities for students;

Consistent and Streamline Information: To streamline the information required in a new programme proposal, enhancing the links between this and a programme’s operation;

The PALET ProjectThe key aims and objectives of the project are below:

The Cardiff Futures project aims to identify strategies and actions that will ensure sustainable, long-term success for Cardiff University, taking into account significant changes that may influence that success.

One aim of Cardiff Futures is to improve the consistency of the learning experience. PALET will contribute to achieving this aim by defining a template for a Standard Student Handbook, which will ensure that more consistent information is communicated to students. Furthermore, using technology to manage the Programme Approval Process, will enable Programme data to be reported in a consistent format suitable for the Student Handbook.

PALET will proceed in line with the work of the Cardiff Futures Group, to ensure that the new Programme Approval Process acts as an enabler to any future developments implemented by the Group.

The PALET Project Plan and the SIMS Development Plan have been aligned which will allow the outputs of PALET to be maintained and further developed in the future. The long-term common aim of both the PALET and the SIMS Project is to provide Schools with the facility and tools to manage their portfolio of programmes within a single electronic system.

PALET will work to ensure that the Programme Approval Process is fully integrated with other elements of Cardiff’s Academic Quality System. It will aim to produce reliable data on proposed developments which will aid annual and periodic review processes.

Cardiff Students Union and the University are working together to review and revise the current system for Student Representation at Cardiff.

PALET will ensure that the Programme Approval Process that is developed will draw upon the outcomes and recommendations from this work.

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PALET is working alongside the ‘Student Space’ Project, to define what information students want/need during the lifecycle of a student.

This work will feed into the design and implementation of a standard template for a Student Handbook, which is being explored by the PALET team.

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The PALET team will continue to align with the work of the Inclusive Curriculum Working Group, to ensure that accessibility and inclusivity of the curriculum is built into Programme Approval Procedures.

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”PALET will contribute to the “Assessment Matters” project by ensuring that consistent information about Assessment is communicated to Students via the Student Handbook. PALET will also work to ensure a better alignment between teaching, learning and assessment and ensure that alternative assessments are considered during Programme design.

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PALET has aligned with the work of the Collaborative Programme Subgroup, who are working to define and implement a process for the approval of Collaborative provision at Cardiff University.

Cardiff Futures Project

Cardiff University Academic Quality System

PALET will seek to ensure that skills and employability are considered as part of Curriculum Design.

Curriculum Design: controlling context

• Discipline/subject knowledge is what people are really interested in and it is what motivates and sustains learning

• Learning literacies are a means to an end – a socially grounded cognitive toolset – and thus has to be nurtured through ways that are context appropriate and fit for purpose

• The aim of educators is to engineer opportunities so that the learning literacy component becomes a seamless means to enabling the study of what the learner finds interesting

• A formal process for designing a curriculum or learning activity enables educators to take direct control over the context in which the opportunity to develop learning literacies arises

• That’s why it is important to target the curriculum design process as the mechanism for ensuring exposure to opportunities to develop learning literacies and so that they are continually presented to learners throughout their studies

Information Literacy at Cardiff University

Library based initiative running for many years• Subject Librarians work with academics• University Information Literacy Group

Significant impact and success across the institution• Embedded in undergraduate and postgraduate courses, • Postgraduate Certificate for University Learning and Teaching

- Information Literacy resource Bank – open access resources- Host the Welsh Information Literacy Project

- Much already achieved for the Digidol project to build upon- Exploring unified approach to information and digital literacy

Decentralised initiativesStudent Union

- run course for Certificate of Professional Development

Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning- Wide range of learning to learn

courses

School of Biosciences- ‘Shadow Modules’ run by students

School of Social Sciences - CPD managed by

students

The challenge...

• Of all the potential points of intervention, where is time and effort best placed to bring about sustainable change for the development of learning literacy in staff, and in students?

Digital Literacy Workshops

How are institutions implementing strategies and policies for developing learners for a digital age? Recommendations from the SLiLDA case studies

Available under a Creative Commons license from the JISC Design Studio http://bit.ly/jiscdiglit