Learning Literacies for a Digital Age (LLiDA)

LLiDA Best Practice Exemplars

In collecting institutional audits data and snapshots of practice, our intention was to gain insights into how 'digital literacies' are currently interpreted and supported in UK HE and FE. We actively sought contributions from central services staff across the range of services potentially involved, from specialist projects or centres, and from those in academic departments working to embed literacies into the curriculum. We expected this last group of people to be much harder to reach, and this proved to be the case. Also very difficult to identify were examples of informal learner-led practices. We were, however, optimistic of finding multi-disciplinary work taking place across these groups, for example where central services staff have taken a pro-active role in supporting curriculum interventions or in setting up mentoring schemes.

To see the actual snapshots go to the access examples page on the project wiki.

Snapshots: Method

The snapshot Pro forma and Guidelines were distributed widely through a variety of mailing lists (lis-infoliteracy, elesig, JISC programmes, HE Academy and subject centres, key agencies) with a request for 'best practice' in learning and digital literacies support. Those who emailed to check criteria for submission were generally encouraged to submit. Snapshots were quickly added to the project wiki to provide examples and encourage further submissions, and a second mailshot was carried out about a month after the first. A small number of projects known to the authors were also approached directly.

Snapshots: summary findings

We received examples from a range of contributors including academics, librarians, and educational developers, with a few from teams working across these disciplines. Some of the exemplars were the result of project funding but the majority were institutionally funded and represented established practice or new approaches within established services and courses.

There are currently 41 unique snapshots highlighting provision for a variety of learners:

• school students (4)
• undergraduate students (31)
• postgraduate students (17)
• remote students (4)
• staff development (8)

It is worth noting that these tags/categories reflected the specific target group of the intervention/activity, and that many of these resources and activities could be appropriate and useful to other groups of learners. Seven of the snapshots were specifically focused on learner transitions.

The spread across literacies was fairly even, though these figures hide some interesting variations:

• ICT literacies (19)
• Information literacies (22)
• Academic literacies (22)

For a full discussion of the findings see section 4 of the LLiDA report. This section, which discusses findings of both the audits and the exemplars is also available as a smaller pdf file.

(view Team page)