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This project aims to explore and enhance postgraduate students' experiences of digital literacy within the academic institution. Led by a multidisciplinary team, it focuses on understanding how students engage with digital tools and practices. Through a combination of data analysis, focus groups, and ethnographic studies, we seek to identify and categorize experiences, learning environments, and the social dynamics at play. Our goal is to support students in developing digital literacy that is recognized and valued, ultimately fostering a more inclusive and responsive educational environment.
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Digital Literacies as a Postgraduate Attribute http://diglitpga.jiscinvolve.org/
Project overview • Lesley Gourlay (Academic Writing Centre), Martin Oliver (Learning Technologies Unit), Gwyneth Price (Library), Susan McGrath (Students’ Union), Jude Frasman • plus Mary Stiasny (Associate Director for Learning, Teaching and International) • “Our focus is on students’ experiences of digital literacy in their interaction with the institution.”
Concepts and theory • We’re not adopting a definition • Digital literacy is a set of social achievements, not an absolute category • We will, however, be informed by definitions • An emerging project position • Post-humanism; actor network theory – used to understand and frame what we see • How do people ‘do’ things that are, recognisably, digitally literate? …and where, and with what…?
Project structure • Baselining phase • Review existing institutional data (iGraduate survey of student experience) • Focus groups • Ethnographic study of ‘doing’ digital literacy • Pilot/Case Study phase • Likely academic writing centre, library, staff support, module teaching • Organisational readiness for change • Pilot/evaluate/embed (…not convinced it’s this logical)
Activity to date • Review of iGraduate data • Filtering for digital literacy statements • Categorisation • Learning and teaching, admin, library, living, IT infrastructure • LiDA pyramid: identity, practices, skills, access • Focus groups • Experiences of practices, but also moments of exclusion
Planned activity: ‘ethnographic’ studies • Understanding students’ experiences • ANT-like study; “follow the actors” (Latour, 1987) • Longitudinal, ideally exploring development (interviews at start, mid-point, end) • Multimodal data generated (photos, audio memos, screen grabs as well as text, interviews) • ‘Cultural probes’ e.g. settings where learning happens • How do learners achieve their digital literacy? • What are the ontological politics of this?
Now, how do we support this? • Four pilots – to be specified by baselining, but likely to include… • Writing / production of academic texts in a digitally literate way • Library / consumption of academic texts in a digitally literate way • Staff development / development of academic practices to recognise and support digital literacies • Teaching / reconciliation and differentiation between academic and other digital literacies
Organisational change • Still being pinned down • Scepticism about the neat logic of ‘baseline, pilot, evaluate, embed’ • Helping people (teachers, professional staff, managers, students) position themselves (and be recognised) as being digitally literate • What motivates them to be seen in this way? How can we help them do it? What happens as a result?