Teaching with infographics: practising new digital competencies and visual literacies

This position paper examines the use of infographics as a teaching assignment in the online college classroom. It argues for the benefits of adopting this type of creative assignment for teaching and learning, and considers the pedagogic and technical challenges that may arise in doing so. Data and insights are drawn from two case studies, both from the communications field, one online class and a blended one, taught at two different institutions. The paper demonstrates how incorporating a research-based graphic design assignment into coursework challenges and encourages students' visual digital literacies. The paper includes practical insights and identifies best practices emerging from the authors' classroom experience with the infographic assignment, and from student feedback. The paper suggests that this kind of creative assignment requires students to practice exactly those digital competencies required to participate in an increasingly visual digital culture

Website Design and Evaluation Workshop

Workbook on website design prepared for presentation at LIBRARIES IN THE DIGITAL AGE 2004: HUMAN INFORMATION BEHAVIOUR AND COMPETENCIES FOR DIGITAL LIBRARIES includes chapters on pre-planning, card sort technique, focus groups, usability, site architecture, accessibility, and assessmentunpublishednot peer reviewe

Digital entrepreneurship in a resource-scarce context: A focus on entrepreneurial digital competencies

Purpose – Thepurpose of this paper is to criticallyexplorehow context asan antecedent to entrepreneurial digital competencies (EDCs) influences digital entrepreneurship in a resource-scarce environment. Design/methodology/approach – The data comprises semi-structured interviews with 16 digital entrepreneurs, as owner-managers of small digital businesses in Cameroon. Findings – The results reveal the ways in which EDCs shape the entry (or start-up) choices and post-entry strategic decisions of digital entrepreneurs in response to context-specific opportunities and challenges associated with digital entrepreneurship. Research limitations/implications – The data comes from one African country and 16 digital businesses thus the research setting limits the generalisability of the results. Practical implications – This paper highlights important implications for encouraging digital entrepreneurship by focussing on institutional, technology and local dimensions of context and measures to develop the entrepreneurial and digital competencies. This includes policy interventions to develop the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure, transport and local distribution infrastructure, and training opportunities to develop the EDCs of digital entrepreneurs. Originality/value – Whereas the capabilities to adopt and use ICTs and the internet by small businesses have been examined, this is among the first theoretically sensitised study linking context, EDCs and digital entrepreneurship

Leisure Is Hard Work: Digital Practices and Future Competencies

Part of the Volume on Youth, Identity, and Digital Media This chapter is based on two claims, namely that digital media are fundamental in nurturing human competencies for the future and that children's leisured media practices are critical catalysts in that process. These claims are documented by results from a recent case study on children's content creation of digital animation. Based on these results, the chapter discusses some of the fundamental challenges posed to educational institutions if they are to nurture future-directed competences for all pupils. These challenges include pupils' understanding of knowledge, their attitudes to learning resources and contexts of use, and the distribution of power relations. Like 300 million other kids around the globe, every Dane under the age of 20 knows that the protagonist of The Little Mermaid is Ariel, a fiesty redhead who manages to shape her fate and fortune. This fact is noteworthy only because Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, the author of the orignal fairy tale, composed a tragic tale of loss and redemption. The narrative and experiential discrepancies raise fundamental questions about the ways in which global and local media products frame children's everyday culture and the ways in which media operate as identity markers in a variety of sociocultural contexts. Moreover, Disney's figures, like many other media elements, are routinely appropriated by children in their own, increasingly digitized, media productions, from simple drawings to blogs, screen dumps, and home pages. These practices raise important issues about the role played by digital forms of media production for children vis a vis the more conventional and widespread forms of media reception

BUILDING DIGITAL LEADERSHIP IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR - A LITERATURE REVIEW

While digital leadership competencies have been recognized as key to succeed with digital transformation, there is a lack of a common understanding about what constitutes such competencies specifically in the public sector—a sector that faces particular challenges with digitally transforming. This structured literature review adds to the existing body of knowledge on digital leadership by synthesizing what is known about the required competencies of digital leaders in the public sector. Based on 25 relevant publications from different databases and disciplines, we identified 44 sub-competencies classified into seven categories of key competencies. In addition, several measures for digital leadership skill development and recruitment could be identified that help building these competencies. While researchers can use our findings to advance knowledge in this research area, practicioners in the public sector can apply our framework to assess their leadership competencies for the digital transformation

Educating generation next: screen media use, digital competencies and tertiary education

Investigates the use of screen media and digital competencies of higher education students in light of the growing focus on new media and e-learning in Australian universities. Abstract The authors argue that there is a need to resist the commonplace utopian and dystopian discourses surrounding new media technological innovation, and approach the issue of its potential roles and limitations in higher education settings with due care. The article analyses survey data collected from first-year university students to consider what screen media they currently make use of, how frequently these media are interacted with, and in what settings and for what purposes they are used. The article considers what implications the digital practices and competencies of young adults have for pedagogical programs that aim to engage them in virtual environments

Key competency development and students use of digital learning objects

The inclusion of key competencies in the New Zealand Curriculum (2007) has presented challenges for teachers in their efforts to gather evidence and detail student progress for reporting purposes. Research identifies the need to adopt different evaluation processes and systems, as outcomes and progression in key competencies is fundamentally different from those associated with more conventional learning. It also suggests the use of digital tools may assist in this process, but offers few suggestions as to how this might take place. This article introduces and describes a current research project utilising a thinking skills framework and screen-recording software to map students’ interaction with digital learning objects, and explore the extent to which they provide opportunities to develop thinking and relating to others competencies. It suggests the approach offers potential to make explicit for reporting purposes the nature and quality of students’ thinking, and how their interaction with others in groups, influences their ability to solve problems presented by the objects. However, it also suggests the approach may suffer from manageability challenges, and that student-led administration systems need to be developed to ensure its viability in whole class context

Digital Competencies in Selected European Countries among University and High-School Students: Programming is lagging behind

Background: Constant integration of digital technologies in economic and social life is rapidly and significantly shaping and changing our environment and ourselves. To function in such a world, even in daily routines, it is necessary to possess certain digital competencies. Objectives: This paper aims to examine how university and high-school students of economic orientations from selected European countries self-assess their digital competencies, and to analyse the identified differences. This will enable further understanding of university and high-school students’ digital competencies that can serve as guidance for improving teaching practices and curricula. Methods/Approach: A survey was conducted to collect data that were analysed using non-parametric statistic tests (Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis H test) and Spearman Rank-Order Correlation coefficient. Results: University and high-school students consider to have below intermediate level of digital competencies. High-school students self-assessed digital competencies at a higher level than university students. University students of higher years of study self-assessed digital competencies at a higher level. There is no universal pattern among high-school students of different years of study. University students in the Accounting module and high-school students in the Tourism module assessed their digital competencies at the lowest level in several areas. There is a consistency in self-assessment of digital knowledge and digital skills. Conclusions: The identified below intermediate level of digital competencies and discovered discrepancies indicated the need for educational process improvements to provide university and high-school students with a higher degree of digital competencies. Programming is the most lagging behind in all the observed groups

Digital Competencies at Work

The digitalized work environment poses challenges to the workforce, such as the meaningful use of ever-new technological advances, dealing with increasingly complex tasks, or effective collaboration in dispersed work groups. The individual worker needs to adapt to rapidly increasing demands due to far-reaching changes in the workplace, to complete their everyday work tasks. However, there is an increasing discrepancy between the existing and required digital competencies in the workforce. Due to the urgent need to expand the scientific knowledge on this important topic, the main focus of this dissertation is on the development and measurement of the construct of digital competencies at work. In the scientific literature, a comprehensive framework that integrates the perspectives of prior research and practitioners in a work context has not been developed yet. Additionally, a common definition of digital competencies at work was still lacking although many wordings have been used for the concept. Modern work practices, such as the ubiquity of remote work for office workers emphasize the importance of digital communication and collaboration competencies at work. Yet, to date, there was no measurement tool for individual digital communication and collaboration competencies at work that is needed to conduct more scientific research on the construct. Another research gap derived from the results of the prior studies in this dissertation measuring digital competencies: The high mean values in all collected data sets led to the assumption that office workers might over-estimate their digital competencies. However, the research question of how the self-assessment of workers’ digital communication and collaboration competencies can be influenced by varying instructions has not yet been explored in an experimental study. Moreover, to further explore the nomological net of the construct, the relationship between digital communication and collaboration competencies and the motivation to train those were investigated. In my dissertation, I realized the collection of quantitative and qualitative data in nine samples and conducted a literature review to address the outlined research gaps. By integrating perspectives from research and practice and combining diverse methods, a coherent and detailed framework of digital competencies at work was created and a definition of the concept was provided in Paper 1. As depicted in Paper 2, building on the theoretical framework and prior research, digital communication and collaboration competencies were identified as dimensions with particular relevance to the challenges of today’s work environments. By using mixed methods, a measurement tool for digital communication and collaboration competencies was developed. The role of those competencies as potential resources in a gain spiral with social support, ultimately boosting work engagement in the unique setting of a pandemic that fundamentally altered the way of work worldwide based on the Job Demands-Resource model (Demerouti et al., 2001) and the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 2011) was explored. Although results did not support the assumption of a gain spiral, we found that digital competencies, social support, and work engagement were stable and high during the crisis. The findings add knowledge about the motivational processes of workers in times of crisis. Subsequently, in Paper 3 the initial measurement tool was refined into a reliable and valid short-scale of digital communication and collaboration competencies at work. In several studies, the short-scale was validated and the nomological net of the constructs was explored. The last part of my dissertation is dedicated to the systematic examination of the effect that varying instructions have on workers’ self-assessment of digital communication and collaboration competencies and the motivation to train those. The results imply that the self-assessment of competencies and the motivation to train those cannot be influenced easily by varying instructions. Nevertheless, workers with high levels of digital communication and collaboration competencies also showed high motivation to train those. The findings of this dissertation provide a solid base for further theory building and extension in research on digital competencies at work. The insights gained from the studies of this dissertation comprise theoretical and practical implications for training development and human resource management. Overall, the results of this dissertation imply that digital competencies at work could be an important benefit in meeting the challenges of today’s digital work environments. The concept of digital competencies at work deserves more attention in future research

Formation of Digital Competence of State Servants in the Conditions of Government Digitalisation: The Problem Statement

In the context of public administration digitalization the importance of human resources and their quality increases, which requires state employees to possess new digital competencies (knowledge and skills), and often to master new professional functions that enable them to function effectively in the new digital environment. However, under these conditions, in the process of their professional socialization, a number of problems emerge. The purpose of the research is to determine the conditions and factors affecting the digital competency formation required in the transition to digital public administration of the civil servants digital competencies, as well as to identify contradictions that emerge in their formation process. The study was conducted on the basis of the information society concept, E-Government and the paradigm of the new public administration. The main research methods were documents analysis and statistical data analysis. The study has fixed that one of the factors hindering successful professional socialization in the context of public administration digitalisation is the uncertainty in the content of servants’ digital competencies they need, including taking into account future development prospects. The existing vocational education system cannot form digital competencies at the required level for several reasons (closed access to basic digital services and platforms, a variety of departmental digital services and workflow systems available in only one department, etc.). Civil servants are forced to master digital technology is more on its own. The main contradiction emerges in the process of creating digital competencies is the lack of officially fixed requirements for the availability of state and municipal employees’ digital competencies and the lack of mechanisms for their assessment in the selection or certification process. Moreover, the need to master the relevant digital competencies follows from regulatory documents. Keywords: digital competency of civil servants, digital competencies, digital literacy, professional socialization, digitalisation of public administratio