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Academic Skills Team: A guide for staff

Digital Skills Awareness Course

The Digital Skills Awareness course is for students that are about to start university or those in need of a bit more confidence, and provides guidance on the foundation-level digital skills they will need for a successful learning experience at university. 

About the course

The Digital Skills Awareness online course was developed for higher education institutions by The Bloomsbury Learning Exchange (BLE), the digital education partnership for the Bloomsbury institutions and the University of London, and has been tailored for local use by Staffordshire University Library staff.

The course outlines the key digital skills students need for their studies, and helps them identify the skills they have and the ones they need to acquire or improve. While the course does not focus explicitly on developing digital skills, it does provides tips from a variety of sources including university staff and student support, as well as helpful resources and videos.

Course content

There are four topics:

  1.    General technologies (working with files, Microsoft Office applications, browsers and search engines)
  2.    Learning technologies (online learning environments, forums, assignments/assessments and video)
  3.    Access, sharing and safety (accounts/access, safety, social media and sharing)
  4.    Getting organised (notetaking, referencing and digital wellbeing)

The Staffordshire University Digital Skills Awareness course for students. 

  • Self Enrol onto the course; 

To sign up for this module first click here to enrol on the course.

Then click here to access the course material or find it in your course list in blackboard.

Not yet started at the University? That is ok!

Digital Skills for Starting Higher Education MOOC

In 2022, the BLE launched the Digital Skills for Starting Higher Education MOOC on the FutureLearn platform introducing prospective students to the important skills, systems, and core technologies for learning to help them succeed at university and Higher Education. Delivered over a three-week learning period, the course takes just a few hours each week to complete and covers similar content to the original online course including:

  • Week 1: The Learning Environment;
  • Week 2: Foundations of Digital Study;
  • Week 3: Digital Safety & Wellbeing.

In addition to this the team may be able to provide support in relation to Word, Excel and Power Point.