Earlier in the year I went to Digifest 2018, the biggest conference for Education Technology in the UK. As well as a chance to meet fellow professionals the conference presents a wide range of inspirational, thought provoking ideas. These can be from large solutions like an Augmented Reality band from Edinburgh playing live on stage with an orchestra in Birmingham, that tests the limits of the Janet Network, to suggestions on simple teaching techniques.
One of the presentations I saw was from the IT Training Team at the University of Lancaster, who set up a ‘Digital Skills Certificate’ for students and staff mapped to the Jisc Digital Capability Framework, it offered online courses in a range of topics under the six elements of digital capability. When participants completed the course it gave them a ‘certificate’ that could be posted on LinkedIn, for students it also went on their Higher Education Achievement Record (HEAR) transcript. It’s a great way for students and staff to develop digital and employability skills and also be able to clearly demonstrate those skills to potential employers for placements and work beyond university.
I like to think I know a good idea when I see one and began thinking how this could be adapted for use at the University of Portsmouth. The Jisc Framework is a great tool to use in order to develop student and staff Digital Capability. In the last year we have also implemented Lynda.com, an online resource of over 10,000 courses. The University of Portsmouth version of the Digital Skills Certificate combines the use of these tools.
Click on this link to see the video.
The University of Portsmouth Digital Skills Certificate is on Moodle and available for both students and staff to self register onto. Participants choose at least one course from each element of the Framework:
- IT Proficiency – Word, Excel, Google Drive, SPSS
- Information, Data and Media Literacies – Excel Statistics, Data Driven Presentations with Excel and PowerPoint, SPSS for Academic Research
- Digital Creation, Innovation and Scholarship – PowerPoint: Designing Better Slides, Introduction to Screencasting, Google Sites
- Communication, Collaboration and Partnership – GMail, Twitter, Webex
- Digital Learning and Self Development – complete the Jisc Digital Discovery Tool
- Digital Identity and Well Being – Computer Security and Internet Safety, LinkedIn for Students, Digital Citizenship
The courses are from Lynda.com and can be completed at participants’ own pace, anytime, anywhere. Once the course is completed, Lynda provides a certificate of completion that can be added to LinkedIn, it also needs to be uploaded as a PDF to the Moodle assignment for that section. The next step is to complete a quiz based on the topic that has just been studied and if passed a certificate for that element of the framework is issued.
Participants can study as many of the courses as they like, but one from each element is required. When all six have been completed an overall ‘Digital Skills Certificate’ is issued, for students this will be shown on their HEAR transcript.
For further information go to: digitalskills.port.ac.uk
