This document summarizes a presentation on a study examining digital learning strategies in UK higher education institutions. The study found that while institutions valued staff and student involvement, participation was not formalized. It also found that educators were viewed primarily as providers rather than users of digital tools, and students as receivers. The presentation proposes a framework for a more participatory "upside down" approach where students and staff are actively involved in developing digital strategies.

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Upside down:
Staff and student led digital learning
strategies in UK HEIs
Marketa Zezulkova, Debbie Holley and David Biggins September 2018

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Introduction: Digital Toolkits
Reporting on our third set of data
Debbie Holley
Head of CEL and
Professor of Learning
Innovation
David Biggins
Academic Learning
Designer
Marketa Zezulkova
Lecturer and Post-Doc
Researcher
Bournemouth UniversityCharles University in Prague

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Session content
• Drawing upon these findings, this paper will argue that HE institutions should acknowledge digital
capability or competence as a life skill equally important for educators as well students (Beetham
2011; Vuorikari et al 2016; Holley 2017) and consequently provide a space for their meaningful
participation (Yanchar 2018) in the development of digital learning strategies.
• In our case studies, the UK HE institutions do value academic staff and students’ active
involvement and feedback, however, this is not a formal long-term participatory approach, which
would enable meaningful dialogue during the decision-making processes. Of interest to the ALT
audience, our research discovered a number of emerging initiatives at some of the institutions
involved in the research.
• This talk will therefore draw upon the overall research findings, as well as these practical
examples, while exploring the possibilities afforded by the shift from a top down, measured and
managed set of internal drivers to what we term the ‘upside down’ approach. We will explore the
potential value of this participatory approach to the UK HE institutions while gaining traction in an
environment driven by external metrics and benchmarks, as well as to the academic staff and
students from the point of view of their confidence, capacity and wellbeing.

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Research focus
Following our work exploring digital competence
frameworks for the EU and UK, we were interested in
a) How this may be operationalised in UK HEIs
b) How academics were being supported/ developed/ in external
‘push’ to deliver ‘tech savvy’ graduates
c) To develop a framework for institutions to benchmark their work
against (an ambitiously named ‘ontology of digital toolkits!) as part
of possible institutional TEF cases to support excellence
(Biggins, Holley, Zezulkova 2016, 2017)

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External drivers
• Tensions in HE
• Sector-wide factors
• REF, TEF and KEF
• Importance of metrics
• Student outcomes and
learning gain ..
• Driving digital
transformation in HEIs

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Methodology
2016
Phase 1
Frameworks
2017
Phase 2
Questionnaire
Multi-strategy approach
(Bryman 2004; Creswell et al. 2003; Tashakkori & Teddlie 1998; Brannen 1992)
2018
Phase 3
Interviews
Semi-structured interviews
TEL leaders from 7 UK HEIs
Online survey
31 TEL leaders from UK HEIs
Jisc Digital Capability
EU Digital Competence 2.0
Data synthesis and interpretation
(open coding and thematic analysis)

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Emergent themes
Theme1
• Technology
enhanced
learning was
inseparable
from the
overall
learning and
teaching
strategies that
educators
were
expected to
effectively put
into practice.
Theme2
• Educators
were seen as
providers
rather than
end users
• Students
were mostly
seen as
receivers and
evaluators
rather than
active
participants.
Theme3
•There was an
emerging
connection between
technology
enhanced learning
and academic staff
and students’ digital
capability and
competence from
the point of view of
their wellbeing and
life-long learning.
Its practical
implications will
however struggle
with limited funding
and time as well as
archaic HEIs’
structures.

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Key themes emerging
• “[Continues talking about the student achievement strategy] In
practice [it] means, really training the staff (…) and try to encourage
them to think about different approaches, (…) use of some of the
different tools, and resources available.” (P4)
Theme 1 Staff focus
• Our [TEL] centre’s very much geared towards staff but the institution
itself would have had strategic goal that the student experience
should y’know be the best thing or whatever”. (P1)
Theme 2 Educators as providers
• “Some teaching staff kind of cover that [digital identity and wellbeing]
in their sessions because they deal with things like safe guarding.
(…) Also raising awareness of some of the problems (…) the
students are left on their own to deal with.” (P3)
Theme 3 Digital wellbeing

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Students as receivers
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Continually Frequently Rarely Never
Monitoring
Staff Students
“We’ve also been working (…) particularly (…) in using the student union and support
from student reps and advocates. (…) We did a bit consultation exercise with students
and staff (…) [and then] we actually used students to go round to staff to explain (…)
what they wanted. We had student ambassadors who would go and support staff in fixing
their courses and explain why they thought it was important, rather than us going. So that
worked quite well.” (P5)

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A framework for development
Theme 2:
• Educators were seen as providers rather than
en
• Educators
d users, while students were mostly seen
Draft of our proposed HEIs’ digital toolkit framework
under the people-centred and learning-orientated approach, the digital toolkit cannot offer the tech
tools alone. Instead it must include human interaction and easily approachable supporting content.
By this we for example mean videos and blogs about innovative ideas, best practice, problem-
shooting, etc. produced not only by the staff and educators, but also by the students. In addition,
following the open access, sharing economy and curatorship phenomena, the digital toolkit
should ideally include also a ready to use, re-use and remix content.

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Next steps: we need more volunteers to
interview! We want to test out our framework and would like to
collaborate on producing rich case studies
“We don’t have dedicated
time to teach the students
how to use technology.
(…) There’s an
assumption that students
are all IT proficient, which
isn’t true.” (P3)

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Selected References
Beetham, H., 2011. Digital Literacy Anatomised: Access, skills, and practices. [online] Joint Information System
Committee (JISC) Design Studio. Available at: <http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/40474828/Digital
literacies anatomy.pdf>
Biggins, D., Holley, D., Evangelinos, G. and Zezulkova, M., (2017). Digital Competence and Capability Frameworks in
the Context of Learning, Self-Development and HE Pedagogy. In: E-Learning, E-Education, and Online-Training
(ELEOT) Third International Conference. Dublin, Ireland, pp.46–53. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-49625-2_6
Holley, D (2017) Bournemouth University: a new vision for learning case study in JISC Developing organisational
approaches to digital capability JISC 4 May 2017
https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/developing-organisational-approaches-to-digital-capability/
Vuorikari, R., Punie, Y., Carretero Gomez, S., and Van den Brande, G., 2016. DigComp 2.0: The Digital Competence
Framework for Citizens. Update Phase 1: the Conceptual Reference Model. European Commission, 2017 [online]
Available at: <https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/digcomp-20-digital-
competence-framework-citizens-update-phase-1-conceptual-reference-model>
Yanchar, S.C., 2018. Agency, World, and the Ontological Ground of Possibility. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical
Psychology, 38(1), 1–14.