We have been collecting data on staff’s digital skills for the last 6 months and have received 215 responses to date.
CEL is using this data to plan how we can configure our resources to best help academic staff in their teaching and learning. Staff who have completed the questionnaire say it has been useful for them to assess their skills and identify developmental opportunities especially as they consider curriculum design for the new academic year, prepare promotion applications and also go through the annual appraisal process.
A lot of interesting information has already been gleaned from the responses to the questionnaire. A striking feature is how many staff are unaware of many of the digital tools that are available to them and which are contained in the TEL Toolkit. Examples include; the survey tool, Bristol Online Survey which is used for online questionnaires (the digital skills self-assessment using this tool) and of which 43% of respondents were unaware; Camtasia, of which 58% of staff not aware, is a screen capture tool that is frequently used to create videos that help students to complete an online form or use a piece of software; One of the software tools that is very useful for teaching and learning is Panopto. Panopto allows you to record your lectures and also create other videos which can easily be made available to students. Panopto can be used on desktop computers on campus and also on laptops and your home computers (if they have video and sound recording capabilities). Nearly 40% of staff are currently unaware of Panopto.
The survey shows that staff are reporting high levels of confidence in using Microsoft Office tools and reusing and choosing appropriate media in their work.
There is a great deal of information in the survey and we are working through the information. We will discuss the survey results more in future posts.
If you would like to complete the anonymous self-assessment, please open the survey. It only takes around 15 minutes. We hope all academic staff will make the time to complete the survey.
