Digital Skills

This section provides development courses to support with Information, data and media literacies.

Information literacy

Information literacy is your ability to find, evaluate, organise and share information, whether you are using it for learning, research or professional purposes.

Information specialists recommend we are creative in how we find information, but critical in how we judge its value and credibility. It can be useful to have a broad understanding of information-based practices such as copyright, referencing, and avoiding plagiarism.

Examples include:

• The capacity to find, evaluate, manage, curate, organise and share digital information; interpret digital information for academic and professional/vocational purposes, and to review, analyse and re-present digital information in different settings; apply digital information to professional tasks such as problem solving and decision making.
• A critical approach to evaluating information in terms of its provenance, relevance, value and credibility.
• An understanding of copyright and open alternatives e.g. Creative Commons, and of the ability to reference digital works appropriately in different contexts to avoid plagiarism
• An understanding of technical and intellectual accessibility of digital information.

Here at the University of Derby Library we have developed a framework which outlines five key pillars of information literary: Prepare, Discover, Question, Manage and Communicate. These pillars cover the core information literacy skills you need to develop as you progress through your programme of study and into your future career. While each skill is individually important, understanding how they fit together is essential to becoming information literate.

You can find more information about the framework and as well as tools to help you develop your skills on the What is Information Literacy? guide.

Here are some courses to enhance your information literacy:

Data literacy

Data literacy is how you handle data as a special form of information.

Data is used in diverse ways within any organisation, from specialist professional use (eg research) to operational data informing a range of organisational activities.

Digital personal data is used in all areas of our lives. We all need a basic understanding of legal, ethical and security aspects when providing our own data or when handling data about someone else.

Examples include:

• The capacity to collate, manage, access and use digital data in spreadsheets, dashboards, databases and other formats; analyse data by running queries, data analyses and reports; produce, visualise and interpret data in reports and presentations; work with financial and/or budget data in a personal or professional context (financial literacy).
• An understanding of how data is used in professional and public life; legal, ethical and security guidelines in data collection and use including AI and Generative AI; the nature of algorithms; how personal data may be collected and used; the practices of personal data security; technical and intellectual accessibility of digital data, checking the T&Cs for safe usage.

Some courses to enhance your data literacy:

Media literacy

Media literacy covers all the ways you receive and respond to messages in digital media.

This includes text, graphics, video, animations, audio, and media such as websites, simulations and games. Most of us also share and produce messages of our own, and that means we need to understand issues such as audience, accessibility, user design and impact. Media users need to ask why messages are designed as they are, how they affect us – and particularly how different media can be used for learning.

We also need to understand issues around ownership of digital media such as copyright, referencing, and avoiding plagiarism.

Examples include:

• The capacity to critically receive and respond to messages in a range of media formats – text, graphics, video, animation, audio – and to curate, re-edit and repurpose media, giving due recognition to originators.
• A critical approach to evaluating media messages in terms of their provenance and purpose.
• An understanding of digital media as a social, political and educational tool and of digital media production as a technical practice.
• An understanding of copyright, AI and open alternatives eg Creative Commons, and of the ability to reference digital media appropriately in different contexts to avoid plagiarism.
• An understanding of technical and intellectual accessibility of digital media.

Some courses to increase media literacy: