Experiences of (re)developing an online digital skills awareness course: Practical implications for supporting widespread implementation of open educational resources

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Open educational resources (OERs) are materials made freely available for others to use and adapt to support their educational practices. In 2019, the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange (BLE) created a Digital Skills Awareness Course (DSAC) to support digital skills development and transition into Higher Education (HE) for students across its six partner institutions in London. Subsequently, the BLE took the unusual step to release the entire course as an OER thereby making it available for educators across UK HE to use and edit to fit their own educational context. Five years on, this study sought to evaluate how and in which contexts the DSAC had been implemented across UK HE institutions using an explanatory mixed-methods approach. We conducted an online survey of those who had signed up to receive a copy of the course (n = 54). Of the twelve respondents, eleven had implemented the DSAC at their institution and edited the course to include links to institution-specific support and resources. To further interrogate participants’ experiences of using the course, we conducted five semi-structured interviews and, using thematic analysis, identified two themes that captured participants’ experiences: ‘The DSAC lays the foundation to explore digital capabilities’ and ‘It’s me driving it forward (with the help of others)’. This study demonstrates that the DSAC provides a much-needed starting point for professional and academic staff to implement digital skills training for new students. We found that the DSAC was being used both as a generic institutional or discipline-specific course and that learning technology and senior management support was integral to successful implementation. Future work should seek to explore how best practices and iterative changes to OERs can be shared back to the community, so that these materials remain relevant for adopters and tomorrow’s students.