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Assumed Digital Literacy Knowledge by Australian Universities: are students informed?

Published: 31 January 2017 Publication History

Abstract

As disruptive technologies make an impact in the workplace, employers are demanding a broader range of skills that go beyond the capabilities that graduates have developed through their higher education studies. Further, digital literacy is increasingly being recognised as an essential skill, on a par with literacy and numeracy, to support job readiness. As a result there is increasing pressure on universities to ensure their courses prepare graduates appropriately, but is digital literacy amongst these skills? The first step to address this question is to gain an understanding of what universities' expectations are of a student's assumed digital literacy knowledge, the foundation from which graduate digital capabilities are built. The aim of this study is to investigate what information Australian universities provide to prospective students to inform them of the expectations of assumed digital literacy knowledge when entering a course. Based on a sample of 13 Australian universities it seems that minimal information is being provided to new students. This study demonstrates that there is no shared understanding of what digital literacy entails, which poses challenges for students who are expected to have an ill-defined and in some instances, unknown set of digital skills. It also challenges relationships between staff and students, as expectations and understanding of digital skills are not aligned.

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  • (2024)Empowering through digital skills: A case of alumni in the business services sectorJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.24890Online publication date: 4-Apr-2024
  • (2022)Taking a Lead on Digital Literacy for Students—A Case Study from the Library at the University of LimerickNew Review of Academic Librarianship10.1080/13614533.2022.203924329:1(11-32)Online publication date: 23-Feb-2022
  • (2021)Competencias digitales en el contexto COVID 19: una mirada desde la educaciónDigital competence in the context of COVID 19: a view from educationCompetências digitais no contexto do COVID 19: uma visão a partir da educaçãoRevista Innova Educación10.35622/j.rie.2021.01.0063:1(120-150)Online publication date: 28-Jan-2021
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cover image ACM Other conferences
ACE '17: Proceedings of the Nineteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference
January 2017
117 pages
ISBN:9781450348232
DOI:10.1145/3013499
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

In-Cooperation

  • CORE: Computing Research and Education

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 31 January 2017

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Author Tags

  1. Digital literacy
  2. assumed knowledge
  3. higher education

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Funding Sources

  • Australian Government Department of Education and Training

Conference

ACE '17
ACE '17: Nineteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference
January 31 - February 3, 2017
VIC, Geelong, Australia

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Overall Acceptance Rate 161 of 359 submissions, 45%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Empowering through digital skills: A case of alumni in the business services sectorJournal of the Association for Information Science and Technology10.1002/asi.24890Online publication date: 4-Apr-2024
  • (2022)Taking a Lead on Digital Literacy for Students—A Case Study from the Library at the University of LimerickNew Review of Academic Librarianship10.1080/13614533.2022.203924329:1(11-32)Online publication date: 23-Feb-2022
  • (2021)Competencias digitales en el contexto COVID 19: una mirada desde la educaciónDigital competence in the context of COVID 19: a view from educationCompetências digitais no contexto do COVID 19: uma visão a partir da educaçãoRevista Innova Educación10.35622/j.rie.2021.01.0063:1(120-150)Online publication date: 28-Jan-2021
  • (2021)Helping students get IT: Investigating the longitudinal impacts of IT school outreach in AustraliaProceedings of the 23rd Australasian Computing Education Conference10.1145/3441636.3442312(115-124)Online publication date: 2-Feb-2021
  • (2021)Integrating the Development of Professional Skills Throughout an ICT Curriculum Improves a Graduate’s CompetencyAdvances in Software Engineering, Education, and e-Learning10.1007/978-3-030-70873-3_5(55-67)Online publication date: 9-Sep-2021
  • (2018)Digital competence and digital literacy in higher education research: Systematic review of concept useCogent Education10.1080/2331186X.2018.15191435:1(1519143)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2018

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