About Digital and Information Literacy

At the OU, digital and information literacy refers to the skills of OU students using digital technologies to achieve personal, study, and work-related goals. Digital literacy includes the ability to find and use information (otherwise known as information literacy) but goes beyond this to encompass communication, collaboration and teamwork, social awareness in the digital environment, understanding of e-safety and creation of new information; all underpinned by critical thinking and evaluation.

We created this framework for qualification and module teams in 2010, to support students’ skills development. In 2020, we refreshed it, to reflect changes in employer expectations of graduates, as well as the latest thinking in HE about digital skills. We have used Jisc’s digital capabilities framework to inform this refresh, which sets out the kinds of skills the sector should now consider developing in students and staff. A range of stakeholders from across the OU have been involved in supporting the various stages of development of the framework.