Digital Skills Awareness Courses

For students - available now

Our Digital Skills Awareness course is available for UK higher education (HE) institutions to roll out to students before they start university. This resource will provide new students with advice and guidance to help them have a successful learning experience at university.

​The course outlines the key digital skills students need for their studies and helps them identify the skills they have and the ones they need to acquire or improve. While the course doesn’t focus on teaching practical digital skills, it provides valuable tips from a variety of sources, including university support staff and students, as well as helpful resources and videos.
Just wish I’d had this when I first started! All relevant info for studying and helping to use the technology at Birkbeck. All in one place!  
​Pilot course participant
Watch our introductory video!
Each unit focuses on a particular topic:
  1. General Technologies
    Working with files, Microsoft Office applications, browsers and search engines
  2. Learning Technologies
    Online learning environments, forums, assignments/assessments and video
  3. Access, Sharing and Safety
    Accounts/access, safety, social media and sharing
  4. Getting Organised
    Notetaking, referencing and digital wellbeing

​Based under a Creative Commons licence, this generic Moodle course can be tailored and personalised to fit the local needs of your university once installed on your own Virtual Learning Environment.

To access the demonstration version of the course and find out how to request a copy, please send us a message.

Designed and developed by:

Sarah Sherman, BLE Service Manager, and Nancy Weitz, Digital Education Specialist, with the advice and guidance of the BLE Advisory Board and a working group of BLE members.

For teaching staff - in planning and development

While we were working on the Digital Skills Awareness course for students, we started to hear about the need for a similar course for incoming teaching staff, who sometimes enter employment without essential digital skills. This led to a bit of market research and the confirmation that there is indeed a need gap.

This new project will be along the same lines: a "template" Moodle course with basic structure and content, which institutions can adopt, adapt and install locally in order to give their new staff a heads-up about what skills they need for their work and - crucially - steer them to where they can acquire and improve these skills.

The course is being developed initially for and with the guidance of the BLE partners, but the expectation is that, upon successful piloting, it will be available more widely around the UK. Watch this space!