The presentation that Tracy and I did at the D4Learning Conference in Aalborg, Denmark on the 18th of Nov 2015

1. International students’ use of
informal Web resources and
tools for formal studies at an
English university
Tracy Simmons and Palitha Edirisingha
University of Leicester, UK
A research project funded by the College of Social Sciences, University of Leicester.
D4Learning International Conference: Innovations in digital Learning for Inclusion
University College Nordjylland, Aalborg, Denmark
17th-20th November 2015

2. Research Aims
• Combines theoretical insights from academic
research on digital literacy with perspectives on
pedagogy.
• Carried out at the University of Leicester with two
main aims:
1. to investigate international students’ access to and
use of digital technologies and Web 2.0 tools for
their formal and informal learning at the university,
and
2. to explore their digital literacy, and awareness and
skills in their use of Web-based resources for
learning activities.

3. Higher Education
• Prof. Sir David Melville (2009) Committee of Inquiry
into the Changing Learner Experience.
• Research commissioned by this committee, into the
use of web 2.0 in HE by students found that though
students in HE may well be pervasive users of social
networking sites, blogs, virtual environments and
other multi-media forms, but they lacked deep
critical skills to analyse and validate information on-
line.

4. Participatory Cultures
‘Participatory culture’: ‘a culture with relatively low barriers to
artistic expression and civic engagement, strong support for
creating and sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal
mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is
passed to novices’ (Jenkins et al, 2008, p. 3).
Access to such a participatory culture has a number of beneficial
effects for learners including: opportunities for peer to peer
learning, the diversification of cultural expression, development
of skills valued in modern workplace, and a more empowered
conception of citizenship (Jenkins et al, 2008, p.3).

5. Participatory cultures
• Participatory cultures as supporting the
emergence of self-directed learning activities
beyond formal educational contexts (Francis,
2011)
• HE students between ‘a top down culture-
industry model of education (associated with
mass media) and an emergent web-based
participatory culture (associated with new
media)’ (Francis, 2011, p. 21).

6. Participatory cultures, developing
literacies?
• Francis, 2010:126: networks that produce
‘globally distributed funds of knowledge’.
• though some ‘divides’ in terms of literacies and
skills around social media.
• A study at University of Leicester (Madge, Meek,
Wellens and Hooley, 2009) on students use of
Facebook highlighted how Facebook provided an
informal learning space for some students.
• Employability skills, social and academic capital.

7. Digital Literacy Model
Representation Language
Audience Production
Digital
literacy skills
Buckingham (2007)

8. Literacy / literacies?
• Participatory cultures, it is argued by Jenkins,
(2008) (and see also Ryberg and Dirckinck-
Holmfield (2010)) are ‘transferable’ to the
academic context.
• Locating multiple sources, aggregation of
material, editing and revision of material, critical
reflection and evaluation.
• Our research highlights some of these elements
but there is a variation amongst students and still
a need to focus on the ‘critical’ in their
understanding of online sources.

9. Methods
1st round
(2010-11)
2nd round
(2011-12)
3rd round
(2015 – 16)
Questionnaire surveys of
undergraduate and postgraduate
students to identify their ownership
of and use of digital devices and
web 2.0 tools (Questionnaire adapted
from Francis (2008))
53 students 41 students N/A
Focus groups (4) with students (3 –
4 in each group) to gain a deeper
insight into their use of web 2.0
tools in a learning context
3 groups, 10
students
3 groups, 11
students
May/June/
October
4 groups,14
students
Workshops with students to
observe their online activities and
digital practices
8 students

10. From data

11. The most important device(s) for studies and study-
related activities (% of those reporting)
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0% 100.0%
MP3
player
Smartph
one
Laptop
Year 2 data
Year 1 data

12. Top three locations where students used computers (%
of those reporting)
0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0% 80.0% 90.0%
University computer rooms
University library
Term-time accomodation
Year 2 data
Year 1 data

13. Locations where students used computers during term time
0.0% 20.0% 40.0% 60.0% 80.0% 100.0% 120.0%
Term-time accomodation
University library
Public library
Lecture / seminar room
Computer rooms in the university
Office / workplace
Cafes at the University
Café's elsewhere
At friends', relatives'
On the move
Other places
Year 2 data
Year 1 data

14. NON-WESTERN Web tools and resources that students use for
their formal learning
Baidu
Youku
Podcasts
Weibo
RenRen
Baidu
WikiWebsites
(Govt. and
non-govt.
organisatio
ns)
Websites
(media
org.)
Websites
(other)
Recom
mendati
on tools
QQ

15. Participatory Culture
• ‘Participatory culture’: book review
recommendations, Yahoo Answers, Baidu
Answers, Douban (book review).
• Instant messaging tools to contact peers, self
organise in groups.
• But contested notions of ‘quality’ and ‘authority’
related to peer to peer information.
• In general a sense of what is an ‘academic’ source
and what is not.

16. Blogs
• Creators? Students in our sample keep updated blogs,
contribute and comment on other blogs.
• Students said they were aware of the need to critically
assess information in informal websites such as blogs:
‘But I think blog, sometimes, you should be very careful… if
you do a really academic essay, you don’t want to use
personal thoughts or something like that’. [2nd round focus
group. FG1].
‘ … when we did the web assignment. I also looked at blogs. …
But like my college said the challenge with blog is how
authentic and credible’. [Second round focus group. FG1]

17. Blogs
“I use some blog websites. For example, if I’m looking
for some information about public relations, I will log
onto some public relations blog.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Because most of the bloggers are professionals in this
area and what they give is very useful information.
Yeah. Maybe with, how to say, write my creativity of
the topic.”

18. Resources
Their mastery of digital literacy skills:
“I first go to Blackboard, check my lecture notes. I read
that. Second, I go to the links that the professor has given
me and I read those. 3rd, I go through the reading lists.
4th I search for journal articles. For media and advertising
I have specific databases. Business premier and Waris[?].
These are the two where I can find most journals. I also
use digital library. I also find books from the library. I also
use Google Scholar to get things, to collect things. You
can type certain key words … . [Second round, FG3].

19. Students' most used Web-based resources for learning (n = 49,
First survey)

20. Resources and spaces that international students use in carrying out their
assessed work
Classroom
(face-to-face)
VLE (lecture
notes,
slides,
reading
lists)
Library
(books,
articles,
learning
space)
Cafe
(learning
space)
Wikipedia
(introduction
concepts,
references)
Google
(books,
articles)
Translation
software /
tools / Apps
Online
Social
Network
(friends,
family)
Personal
tutor

21. Resources
“I am on Facebook as well. I have my professors on my
Facebook. So if I have any problems, I can send a message on
Facebook. They will answer me. Even if I apply for a job or
writing a proposal they will help me, give me information.”
Interviewer: Are they professors of your previous university?
“Professors and friends. … In advertising we had lot of
modules and we had a really bad time so I ask some of my
friends to find me journals. They couldn’t because they didn’t
know how to find them. But they tried to find me things.”

22. Authority and Status
YouTube: for some participants a useful basis for preparing an essay, other
participants reject it as not an academic sources they can ‘use’ or
‘untrustworthy’.
“I think YouTube is another great source after Wikipedia. You can type in
anything and you can get information. Even if there is a lecture in Boston you
can access it. Just from learning to entertainment to music - everything is
there.”
Interviewer: “Would you refer to YouTube in your essays?”
“Yes. There are lots of interviews which I am referring to from YouTube. I
study advertising. When we study [classroom] half the time we are using
videos from YouTube.”
Online videos: TedTalk, You Tube as a guide e.g. SPSS

23. Authority and Status
• Wikipedia - some sense of the limitations of
this information, but it is often a starting place
for background information and to follow up
references in line with Selwyn and Gorard
(2016).
• See The Guardian, Economist, BBC as ‘reliable’
information they can refer to.
• Dominance of Google infrastructure: Google
Scholar, Google Dictionary, Google Books.

24. Reflections from the research
• Students pooled a huge array of online
sources, some (not all) in their first language,
familiarity from their country of origin.
• They do however, develop new sources as a
result of their study, some through tutor
recommendations (such as TedTalk) others
through peers.
• Some gaps in their knowledge e.g. primary
and secondary sources.

25. Recommendations and thoughts
• The cultural context of digital literacy needs to be
focused on more closely, this is something we are
developing in our new data gathering.
• Participatory cultures vary. Jenkins very much rooted in
US and particular types of activities online (gaming for
example). However, students are engaged with creating
and producing (blogs), sharing peer to peer.
• As learners and teachers we need to recognise this
cultural context: practical reasons, in teaching and
learning strategies, pedagogic practice.
• Provide direction and intervention (where there is scant
access to physical books, the web is seen as a solution).
Not all students have the ability to determine good
quality sources online.

26. Finally…
• Students have useful mobile technology; an iPhone
provides multiple uses (mini photocopier, access to web
material, arrange group meetings).
• Vertical and horizontal space of the new media
environment raises a number of challenges
• Expert and ‘non-expert’ information
• Moving across ‘expert’ or ‘academic’ information that
flows downwards: reading lists, Library e-link, alongside
peer to peer (horizontal) information.
• But some of our students bring with them resources
from their country of origin and remain within those
vertical information structures.

27. Special thanks to our current and
former PhD students for their
contributions
• Dimitrinka Atanasova (Media and
Communication, Leicester)
• Mengjie Jiang (Education, Leicester)
• Nan Yang (University of Trento, Italy)

28. Selected references
Adorno, T. W. (2001). The Culture Industry : Selected Essays on Mass Culture . London: Routledge.
DCMS (2009) Digital Britain: Final Report London: TSO. Available at
http://interactive.bis.gov.uk/digitalbritain/report/being-digital/getting-britain-online/. [Accessed September 2009].
Dijk, J. V. 2005. The Deepening Divide: Inequality in the Information Society. London: Sage.
Francis, R.J., (2010) The Decentring of the Traditional University: the future of (self) education in virtually figured
worlds,
Francis, R.J., (2008), The Predicament of the Learner in the New Media Age, DPhil thesis submitted to University of
Oxford.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: A critique of traditional schooling, Abington, Oxfordshire: Routledge.
Jenkins, H., Purushotma, R., Clinton, K., Weigel, M., & Robinson, A. (2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory
Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: Comparative Media Studies Programme at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Available at: http://www.projectnml.org/files/working/NMLWhitePaper.pdf
[Accessed 2 Nov 2010].
Melville, D. (2009) Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World: Report of Committee of Enquiry into the Changing Learner
Experience, Available at: http://www.clex.org.uk/CLEX_Report_v1-final.pdf. [Accessed 29 May 2009].
Lave, J., and Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Selwyn, N. (2014). Distrusting Educational Technology: Critical Questions for Changing Times, New York: Routledge
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ofcom (2011b). UK adults’ media literacy.London: Ofcom.

29. Thank you