Although it has been quiet on the blog recently, we have been busy behind the scenes with some new developments. We will also be starting a series of blog posts in March 2017, to launch a suite of resources to support colleges and universities with the development of digital capability of their staff and students. So bookmark this site and look out for the series of blog posts from Helen Beetham over the forthcoming weeks. We are pleased to be presenting on this work at DigiFest together with colleges and universities who are taking forward their developments on digital capabilities. We will also be launching a Digital Capability community of practice at an event on 9th May in Birmingham – more information will follow.
Piloting the discovery tool
We are delighted to be working with 14 institutions on a closed pilot of a beta version of our Discovery tool aligned to the digital capability framework.
The tool has been designed to support individuals and managers in a range of roles by helping them to identify and reflect on their current digital capability and make plans to improve their capability through a set of recommended actions and resources.
The following institutions are working with us over the next 6 months to pilot the discovery tool and our wider set of digital capability resources:
- Coleg Y Cymoedd
- Derwentside College
- Hartpury College
- North Lindsey College
- Hull College Group
- School of Pharmacy, Cardiff University
- University of Derby
- University of East London
- Glasgow Caledonian University
- University of Hertfordshire
- University of Hull
- Institute of Education, University of Reading
- The Open University
- University of Southampton
The findings from the pilot will be informing the further development of the discovery tool which will move to a more sustainable platform for a roll out of an open pilot in Autumn 2017.
Developing organisational approaches to digital capability
In March we will be launching a suite of resources to support colleges and universities with the development of the digital capability of their staff and students. We are creating an online guide on ‘Developing organisational approaches to digital capability’ authored by Clare Killen and Helen Beetham, which will be launched late March. The online guide aims to support organisational leads with responsibility for developing staff and student digital capabilities in FE and HE by offering a structured approach showing how our digital capability framework can be used alongside a suite of tools and resources to help you to build a contextualised model for developing digital capability in your organisation.
The guide will link through to the following resources which have all been updated following feedback from an extensive consultation with practitioners and managers across further and higher education:
- Updated digital capability framework
- Organisational lens on the digital capability framework – which will provide guidance on how to approach digital capability across four key areas within an educational organisation of teaching, research, content and communications.
- Strategic steps towards organisational digital capability – a 4 step model
- An audit tool and checklist – a valuable starting point for conversations within the organisation
- Seven digital capability ‘profiles’ outlining the digital capabilities required by different roles, including HE and FE teacher, learner, library and information professional, learning technologist, researcher and leader
- Series of case studies highlighting how universities and colleges are developing staff digital capability
These resources will all be published in March and linked from the Building digital capability project page with supporting blog posts here.
If you have any queries please contact us at digitalcapability@jisc.ac.uk
We look forward to your feedback on these forthcoming resources.
Lisa Gray, Heather Price and Sarah Knight