Digital discovery: essential information

This information is for the lead contact at organisations involved in piloting the Jisc Digital discovery tool from January to May 2018 (staff and student versions).

The Digital discovery tool is a self-assessment tool for staff and students in further and higher education. By ‘self-assessment’ we don’t really mean that users should be left to do it on their own. The aim is for the tool to be part of a dialogue you are having with staff and students about their digital capabilities, and for the tool itself to be just one element of the support you offer. We ask that you think carefully about the setting in which your users will meet the tool, and the support they might need. We also ask you to think about the support you offer afterwards as they respond to the feedback and hopefully try out new ideas in practice. You will find lots of support for your organisational journey elsewhere on this blog, and in this briefing paper.

Our intended users are staff in a variety of professional roles and students across a range of subject areas. Teaching staff have their own specialist assessment in addition to the generic assessment for all staff, and new specialist assessments are planned for other roles. There is some very minor differentiation for staff and students in HE and in FE or skills.

The assessments are not suitable to use with new staff as an induction, and nor are they intended for new or arriving students.

When communicating about the discovery tool please help staff and students to understand:

  • their participation is intended to support their personal development
  • their responses are private and will not be made available to anyone else – though individuals may choose to share them
  • responses overall will be used to improve digital capability support – where a need is identified
  • their feedback may help to improve the Digital discovery tool for future users

In running a pilot version of the Jisc Digital discovery tool (2018) you – the organisational lead contact – have agreed to:

  • read the guidance available from this web site
  • make the Digital discovery tool available to your staff and/or students
  • encourage your staff and/or students to engage with the Digital discovery tool and to provide feedback on their experience
  • run a focus group or consultation event with your users and share the feedback
  • complete an evaluation form about your organisational experience and impact
  • be interviewed to inform a case study of your organisational experience if requested to do so

In providing a pilot version of the Digital discovery tool (2018) Jisc agrees to:

  • provide access to the Digital discovery tool platform and content free of charge for the duration of the pilot
  • provide guidance on running the Digital discovery tool and supporting users
  • provide your summative institutional data
  • use your institutional data only for the purpose of creating summative reports and benchmarks
  • use feedback from your organisation only for the purpose of improving the Digital discovery tool for future users

About data management and protection

Potentially takes the protection of your data seriously. Your data will be shared with Jisc in an anonymised way, enabling Jisc to produce institutional reports with aggregated data only. With the exception of anonymised data sharing with Jisc, your data will not be shared with any third party organisation.

All personal and organisational details are held in compliance with the current data protection legislation, and are stored on servers within the EEA (European Economic Area). We will keep your personal data for no longer than three years. You may instruct us to stop processing your details at any time by e-mailing support@potential.ly quoting your registered name and email address.

Jisc’s general privacy notice can be found here.

About using a beta tool from Jisc

This is a beta tool and may not reflect the functionality and features of the final service. We are developing and testing this beta service widely to ensure that it addresses real customer needs, and to test if it can be scaled up and delivered sustainably.

We’re committed to ensuring that any potential ideas respond to a clear customer need. As part of this our beta work undergoes a cycle of evaluation and improvement, which continues for as long as the service or product is in beta.

As this is a beta service, we may add features and make changes as the development process continues. We aim to have the beta service available at all times, but occasionally development needs may require taking the service offline. If the tool is offline we will aim to notify you of this as soon as we can.

Back to Guidance Page