Transcript

BECKI VICKERSTAFF

The Jisc digital capability framework is really a way of looking at digital capabilities from a higher level, if you like. And it focuses on six different areas of digital capability. So, we've got ICT proficiency, information, data, and media literacies, for example, but this was a framework that was actually designed and worked with and collaborated with the sector as well. And it's one that's used across a lot of higher education institutions and the sector, both nationally and internationally as well.

JO PARKER

We've used it pretty extensively in work with students because one of the things that it enables you to do is think about digital capability from an individual’s perspective, whether that's staff or students, and from an organisational perspective too.

So, we've used it to inform the development of student facing resources. So, for instance, we have our own digital and information literacy framework at the OU to help us think about the skills that we embed into modules for students. So, we've used some of Jisc's thinking there to shape and frame what we mean when we talk about it in a student facing context.

SARAH JONES

The University decided to map to the Jisc digital capabilities framework because essentially the mapping has been done for us. Digital capabilities, digital skills is a very broad area, from creating a Word document, logging into your email, doing your online shopping, engaging online, up to more complex tasks like programming. Just learning in a digital environment poses skills' barriers for some people.

So, Jisc having done that work already made it easier for us, and also some of the resources that we were using, for example, LinkedIn Learning have also already mapped their own resources to the Jisc digital capabilities framework.

BECKI VICKERSTAFF

One of the main benefits, if you like, of the framework is it really enables those important discussions and it helps build that consensus around what digital capability is and why it's important for a higher education institution, and particularly thinking about how we then empower staff and students, how that digital capability is really important at being able to help support staff to support the students in being able to thrive in that digital world.

And obviously, as things are developing, as the jobs of tomorrow don't even exist yet, that digital capability understanding is really important, but what it also does is that the framework allows the institutions to be able to signpost and align to their own provisions.

And we see a lot of our customers and members do that. So, they'll take that framework. They'll break it down. They'll align it to their own provisions. And it really creates this wonderful starting point, to aid those communications across the institution, to help build that kind of work on that digital transformation as well

But I think one of the strongest areas with the framework is that it breaks down those areas for an institution and then allows them to identify areas that will align again to their own provisions, their own initiatives and just be able to kind of support that.

So, if we think about things like digital creation, for example, an institution may say, well, we can align that to some of our own workshops that we're offering. This ties in lovely where we're doing some redevelopment work on our curriculum. We want staff to create more online material. So, there's lots of different ways that they will use that framework as a starting point, adapt it, and make it more localised and specialised.

JO PARKER

What I have found in my conversations with people who are involved in skills development across the OU is that all those individual digital capabilities that are articulated in the framework are positioned slightly differently in the organisation. So, there's no shared understanding about what the big picture looks like, but there's lots of areas of the University that have responsibility for those digital skills areas.

So, what it enables us to do is build that thinking and that shared language around the whole thing, bringing people on board, but then also having conversations with them about, well, what stuff have you got that would help us build this big institutional picture?

So, from a staff point of view, it's enabled us to audit what we've got, and it's enabled us to build a hub where we bring all this stuff together. So, it makes sense to people in terms of what their digital skills look like at the OU.

BECKI VICKERSTAFF

So, the pandemic, I think, has created lots of different new ways of working. I think it's given us a lot of thoughts that we need to think about. It's given us a lot of experiences and thinking about what we need for the future.

We've certainly seen, as I'm sure most institutions have, a sudden acceleration and a sudden implementation of all these wonderful digital education tools and approaches. I think one of the things that's highlighted is that we need to have that attitude of lifelong learning.

So, we're thinking about the digital needs of our students and our graduates as well. When they go out into the workplace, the workplace is changing phenomenally at the moment in terms of the digital space. So, we need to provide them with those transferable digital skills.