A February survey of students and faculty members said
that neither group thinks much of the other’s digital literacy. The 2016 State
of Digital Media in Higher Education Report made the case that learning
outcomes would improve if institutions did a better job of providing information
and access to digital resources, according to a report in eCampus News.
One of the main findings from the report was 45% of the
responding students consider themselves highly digitally literate, while only
14% of the faculty agreed with them. Conversely, 49% of the faculty said they
were highly digitally literate, but just 24% of the students agreed.
More than 90% of faculty members and 76% of the
students said that multimedia-enhanced lectures were more engaging, but both
groups gave low marks to university-provided resources to digital media. Just
20% of faculty and 32% of students said they accessed course-related digital
media through university resources.
“Schools
are making huge investments in infrastructure, yet they’re cutting at the
efficacy of their own institutions by not providing content for students to use
in their new digital center or on the cloud,” said TJ Leonard, CEO of
VideoBlocks, the digital-resource provider that conducted the online survey.
“Schools should be doing everything possible to prepare students for the 21st-century
economy, and it’s hard to imagine that without access to digital media. They
have to make resources available and give students consistent access to them in
the classroom, the library, and off campus to get the full value out of digital
media.”