Project website
You can find more about the Literacy in the Digital University project at the following sites:
- Four ESRC-funded research seminars promoting new research into digital literacy practices in post-school education - October 2009 to March 2011 http://lidu.open.ac.uk/home.cfm
- Digital Literacies in Higher Education (DigitaLits) http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/digital-literacies/
What research questions the project addresses, aims & themes
The aims of this seminar series were to:
- Bring together researchers and practitioners from the learning research, teaching, study support, and library communities of colleges, universities and other contexts of post-school education in the UK to contribute to the development of a research agenda for literacy development in these sectors.
- Disseminate awareness of ongoing research in this field, via the seminars and the maintenance of a series website and blog, electronic publication of papers produced for the seminars, summaries of discussions held during the series, presentation and publication of conference papers related to the seminars, and publication of an edited print collection of papers once the series is over.
- Critically evaluate teaching and learning practice in contexts of digital communication, bringing together perspectives from applied linguistics and technology-enhanced learning.
- Develop new thinking and methodologies for researching digital practices as literacy. In particular to develop new approaches to studying the social and technical profiles of 'digital university' students, develop new ways of doing research that address challenges to accepted research ethics and cultures from the use of visual knowledge practices amongst young people entering the research professions, and develop new approaches to research into academic practices in ways that are reflective and reflexive in relation to our own emerging literacy practices.
How the research questions are addressed by the project (methodology and activity/environment)
Not applicable - this was a seminar series.
Findings and outputs
There were no findings and outputs as this was a research seminar series.
Project impact
The key scientific impact of the seminar series is in the emergence of a new informal network of researchers seeking to apply insights from literacies, cultural studies, and sociotechnical research to the issues of learning with technologies. This network is centred around the new Society for Research in Higehr Education special interest group on The Digital University, and has an international dimension through connections with Prof. Caroline Haythornthwaite at the University of British Columbia.
Members of the network are engaged in the production of an edited collection of papers that is expected to make a major contribution to the development of new research in this field. In particular, the network is foregrounding the themes of posthumanist theory and actor network methodology as a development of current social literacies perspectives in higher education, and extending the focus of research to include academics and scholarship alongside the more traditional concern with student learning.
The main societal impact of the series has been through the production by one of the LIDU core group (Helen Beetham) of a consultative report for the JISC, scoping a programme in digital literacy to help universities meet the needs of students and graduates in the digital age, in which she drew on themes explored at the LiDU seminars, made use of ideas discussed there, and worked with contacts made through the series.
JISC have subsequently funded a number of development projects under this programme, including one led by a LIDU participant working with postgraduate students at the Institute of Education on Digital Literacies as a Postgraduate Attribute. Another bid to JISC by a LIDU participant from the Open University under the same programme was unsuccessful, but the OU are supporting it as an internal project to work with academic and library staff on the development of a digital literacy framework for academic progression.
Publications
Selection of Outputs: (for a full list of outputs see the ESRC site at: https://researchoutcomes.rcuk.ac.uk/grants/RES-451-26-0765/details
Book in preparation:
- Goodfellow, R. & Lea, M. (eds) Literacy in the DigitalUniversity: learning as social practice in a digital world. Routledge Research in Higher Education Series (publication May 2013)
Journal articles:
- Littlejohn, A., Beetham, H., & McGill, L. (2012) Learning at the digital frontier: a review of digital literacies in theory and practice, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning (JCAL)
- Goodfellow, R. [2011] Literacy, literacies and the digital in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, Volume 16 Issue 1, 131: http://oro.open.ac.uk/26758/
Other publications:
- Gourlay, L. (In press) 'Cyborg literacies? The construction of the hybrid subject in higher education' In S. Warburton and S. Hatzipanagos, Digital Identity and Social Media. London: IGI Global.
- Ross, J . (2012). Just what is being reflected in online reflection?: new literacies for new media learning practices. in L Dirckinck-Holmfeld, V Hodgson, D McConnell (eds), Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked Learning. New York: Springer, pp.191-207. http://www.springerlink.com/content/q13101092v13125j/
- Bayne, S. and Ross, J. (2011) 'Digital native' and 'digital immigrant' discourses: a critique , in Digital differences: perspectives on online education, Ed. Bayne, S. & Land, R., pp. 159-170, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers
- Jones, C, (2011). Literacies and the Digital University a Critical View. Open University Japan, one day conference, Digital Literacy: Opportunities and Challenges in Higher Education and Lifelong Learning. Mukhara Messe, Chiba: http://www9.code.ouj.ac.jp/sympo-2011/pdf/2_Chris_Jones_10.pdf
Keywords
Academic literacies, critical literacies, digital literacy, digital literacies, digital university, digital scholarship, post-human pedagogy
People involved
Robin Goodfellow
Mary Lea
Chris Jones
Project partners and links
The Open University
Lancaster University
Glasgow Caledonian University
The University of Edinburgh
Institute of Education
Edge Hill University
North Western University, USA
Chinese University, Hong Kong
Funder(s)
ESRC
Start Date and duration
1 October 2009 - 30 April 2011