This document discusses the concept of a digital university and presents a model for what a digital university may look like. It begins with background on the rise of digital technologies and how this is transforming higher education. It then defines some key aspects of a digital university, such as digital participation, information literacy, curriculum and course design, and learning environments. The document proposes a matrix model with these four themes and describes features within each theme. It provides examples of universities implementing aspects of this digital university model and concludes by encouraging readers to build on and extend the proposed framework.

1. Moving from ‘e’ to ‘d’ – what does a
Digital University really look like?
Bill Johnston
Sheila MacNeill
Ascilite 2013

2. Overview
• Background
• Introduction and explanation of matrix
• Examples of use

3. The rise of digital
Image: www.centerdigitaled.com

4. “The new competition, the real threat . . . is the emergence
of entirely new models of university which are seeking to
exploit the radically changed circumstances that are the
result of globalisation and the digital revolution.”
An Avalanche is coming, Higher Education and the Revolution Ahead IPPR ,
March 2013
(http://www.ippr.org/publication/55/10432/an-avalanche-is-coming-highereducation-and-the-revolution-ahead)

5. “There is no doubt that digital technologies have had a
profound impact upon the management of learning.
Institutions can now recruit, register, monitor, and
report on students with a new economy, efficiency, and
(sometimes) creativity yet, evidence of digital
technologies producing real transformation in learning
and teaching remains elusive”
Decoding Learning, the proof, promise and potential of digital education
Nesta, November 2012
(http://www.nesta.org.uk/library/documentsDecodingLearningReport_v12.pdf)

6. What is a digital university?

7. Where is a digital university?
Image: newsroom.cisco.com

8. A Digital University: key themes
Curriculum &
Course Design
Digital
Participation
Learning
Environments
Information
Literacy

9. Our model for the digital university
Digital Participation
Information Literacy
*Glocalization
*Widening access
*Civic role and responsibilities
*Community engagement
*Networks (human and digital)
*Technological affordances
*High level concepts and perceptions
influencing practice
*Staff & student engagement and
development
*Effective development and use of
infrastructure
Curriculum and Course Design
Learning Environment
*Constructive alignment
*Curriculum representations, course
management, pedagogical innovation
*Recruitment and marketing
*Reporting, data, analytics
*Physical and digital
*Pedagogical and social
*Research and enquiry
*Staff and Resources

10. Information Literacy
• "Information literacy is the adoption of
appropriate information behaviour to identify,
through whatever channel or medium,
information well fitted to information needs,
leading to wise and ethical use of information
in society.”
(Johnston, B. & Webber, S. (2003) Information literacy in higher education: a review
and case study. Studies in higher education)

11. Learning Environment:
Key features
• prepare students for lifelong, self-regulated,
cooperative and work-based learning;
• foster high quality student learning;
• change teaching methods in response to students’
increasing metacognitive and self-regulatory skills,
• increases the complexity of the problems dealt with
gradually and systematically.
Vermunt, J.D, Student Learning and University Teaching (2007), British
Journal of Educational Psychology

12. Process orientated teaching:
key features
• lecturer skills - diagnostician, challenger,
monitor, evaluator and educational developer.
• self-regulation for students e.g. collaborative
working spaces, complex projects and
personal reflective spaces.
• Institutional support to encourage this type of
student in a self regulating researcher culture.

13. And finally
• Take our model
• Work with it and build it
• Extend our conversation

14. Contact Details
• Bill Johnston b.johnston@strath.ac.uk
• Sheila MacNeill sheila.macneill@gcu.ac.uk
@sheilmcn
Blog posts: http://bit.ly/wUzP2p
http://howsheilaseesit.wordpress.com/
Examples: University of Dundee
http://www.slideshare.net/sheilamac/dundee-symposium31may13-21833957
University of Greenwich:
https://journals.gre.ac.uk/index.php/compass/article/view/79/121
Ascilite13 Workshop materials