Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

Library hub discover, library hub compare, and library hub cataloguing will make it easier for UK higher education libraries and researchers to access, discover and manage academic collections.

By Simon Launder, Deputy Chief Innovation Officer and Ian Dunn, Provost (Coventry University, UK)

The meaning of digital in education is changing.

In spite of universities often being at the bleeding edge of technological innovation in research, higher education providers have often lagged behind when it comes to digital innovation and the adoption of technology in teaching and learning.

To date there perhaps hasn’t been the competitive imperative in higher education, as seen in other industries such as finance or media, to develop technology on a continuous loop of innovation and improvement, but there are signs that the sector is waking up to the strategic advantage of adopting a digital mindset.

Our campus communities -- students, faculty, staff, alumni -- deal with information overload across many platforms and apps. Isn't it time we brought campus communication and learning into one high-tech ecosystem?


Editorial by Kathy Edersheim (President, Impactrics LLC) and Yasim Rahman (CEO, Unio)

Today, while we all deal with massive information overload, this is an acute problem for students. Simply by carrying a smartphone, students are bombarded with information almost constantly. And, as mentioned in a recent Nielsen study, 98% of students from age 18-24 own a smartphone. Millennials wake up with their phones, sleep with their phones, take their phones to their bathrooms and, yes, some check it during sex.

At its new Waterside Campus the University of Northampton is doing away with lecture theatres in favour of more flexible ‘teaching spaces’.

It’s the latest evidence of the university’s developing approach to using digital technology to enhance teaching and learning. Already, Northampton has redesigned two-thirds of its courses to support its ‘active blended learning’ approach and the new teaching spaces are part of a strategy to give students best value from face-to-face time with teachers.

Key messages:

Prepare students for digital learning
Arriving students need to know what to expect from
digital learning. Our findings point to the key practices
and tools that students find useful in each sector but
there is no one-size-fits-all solution. This is where
institutions can make excellent use of their local
insights data.

Make bring your own devices (BYOD) work
Most students now bring their own devices for
learning but many can’t use them to access subjectspecialist software and online content. Students learn
more efficiently if they have access to the full range
of learning tools on a device of their choice.

Assistive technology is for everyone
One in five students is using assistive or adaptive
technologies, often by choice rather than necessity.
Institutions should recognise the value of ‘inclusive
for all’ and investigate how digital technologies can
support inclusion in learning and assessment.

Help students stay happy and well
FE students would benefit from better access to
health and wellbeing services online. HE students
would benefit from more help to stay safe online.
All students want to feel that they belong, so their
log-in should give access to personalised services,
student societies and social networks.Digital experience insights survey 2018: findings from students in
UK further and higher education.

Authors: Tabetha Newman, Helen Beetham and Sarah Knight
SEPTEMBER 2018

Across the higher education sector, aspirations to internationalise the student body, transform approaches to education, increase student recruitment and generate revenue are all on the agenda.

Once, universities might have been able to do all of this on their own. But it looks less likely as we move towards a digitally integrated future. Evidence-based pedagogical approaches for online education mean that very high quality engaged learning is now available at scale. But making the right choices of technologies and deploying them effectively requires effective partnerships and collaborations with providers.

The ninth UCISA Survey of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for higher education Report has been published. The Report offers a longitudinal perspective of TEL developments across the UK higher education sector, focusing on the current provision within universities and other higher education providers and the emerging and planned patterns of learning technology usage. This year’s Report draws on data going back to 2001 in its longitudinal analysis of TEL trends. In this blog post, we will explore some of the key findings from this year’s Survey, updating the picture that was reported on in 2016 (see corresponding blog post).

In this chapter included in the book Higher Education in the Era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Dempsey and Malpas consider the future of the academic library in the context of a diversifying higher education system. The academic library is not fixed. It is changing as it adapts to the changing research and learning behaviors of its home institution, which are the principal drivers of the library service.

Dempsey and Malpas explore ways in which libraries are responding to the transition from a collections-based model to a more diffuse services-based model. This is in parallel with the evolving influence of the network on student, teacher and researcher practices and with the shift from print to digital. They describe diversification of the higher education system, around poles of research, liberal education and career preparation. Academic libraries similarly will diverge, with different service bundles depending on the type of educational institution they serve.

This means that the model of excellence for libraries also will need to be plural, based on strategic fit to the needs of the institution they serve and not on collection size or gate count.

For colleges and universities to succeed today, treating nontraditional students as the norm is becoming quite important.

With college enrollment declining over the past five years, looking to engage students who have often struggled in traditional academic settings might be a way for universities to increase their success.