Improving our staff and student digital capability is a key aim of our digital strategy. We are investigating a number of ways in which we can do this is in a strategic way. With this in mind we are participating in the Jisc digital capability discovery tool pilot.
The digital discovery tool supports individual staff and students – in universities, colleges and training providers – to reflect on their digital capabilities. It presents a series of reflective questions that relate to the different elements of capability. The tool is based on the Jisc digital capabilities framework.
Those who use the tool are presented with a series of ‘discovery questions’ looking at digital areas including: creativity, teaching, innovation, information literacy, wellbeing, productivity and collaboration. The questions aim to assess users’ confidence and experience with a host of real-world digital practices. Just by answering the questions, users are made aware of digital practices they already have and new ones they might try.
The initial log in screen
Users can then download a report providing them with a score in each area and guidance on how to improve.
My score is shown below in a graph.
Marieke Guy’s report graph
As Jisc explains:
“Organisationally, the digital discovery tool can be used to raise awareness of the range and importance of digital capabilities, and to encourage personal development. Conversations about digital capability can be taken forward with a common reference point and some shared terms. Digital capabilities become more familiar and less threatening.
The Digital discovery tool is not meant to monitor individuals, but staff could choose to bring their results into appraisal settings, or professional development reviews. While personal findings remain anonymous, aggregated data views are available to organisational users of the service. These can be used to help understand the organisation’s strengths, weaknesses, and priorities for development.”
Anonymised data from the tool can be extracted and used to help shape training strategies.
We are currently using the tool only within the IT services team but may roll it out further later in the year. The main thing is for us to have a plan for how we can support staff to improve their digital capability once they have explored and assessed it using the tool.
