Background
In December of 2017 the Vanderbilt University Digital Literacies Committee issued a white paper defining digital literacy and suggesting both curricular and non-curricular means of advancing digital literacies locally. In brief, the committee defined Digital Literacies as “a constellation of practices necessary for full participation in contemporary culture.” These include computational skills, as well as the ability to “produce, curate, share, and critically consume and synthesize information in a variety of digital (and non-digital) forms.... communicate ideas through multiple means of digital design and to decipher and critically reflect on mediated communication while also assessing their own ethical responsibilities in participating or sharing information.”
In the Fall of 2019, Virginia Tech Libraries issued a Digital Literacies Framework Toolkit designed to operationalize the key values and core competencies of digital literacies identified at that institution. This workshop series aims to meld the two approaches. Drawing from both the VA Tech and Vanderbilt approaches, we identified 4 pillars of digital literacies, to structure workshop content. In keeping with the charge of the Summer Workshop Team, we will develop and deliver 6 one-hour workshops within this framework in the fall. Having established a digital literacies framework to be deployed locally, though, we are also creating the conditions for further growth in this area. As such, a range of possible workshop topics are listed below.
Statement of Need
Both media and scholarly outputs are shared in increasingly open, diverse ways. Indeed, this increasing production and consumption of digital media, necessitates an understanding of the cultural logics of information sharing ecologies, an understanding of how and why digital outputs are created, and our own ethical responsibilities in sharing those outputs. Just as information literacy is critically important to student success, digital literacies are critically important for life-long learners, engaged citizens, and critical consumers of open scholarship.
