Library Subject Guides
Digital literacy is widely recognised as an integral element of learning, scholarship and research, and has been recognised as a key priority for lifelong learning by the UK government (House of Lords Select Committee on Digital Skills 2015). 'Digital literacy', in the broadest sense, is
"the capabilities required to thrive in and beyond education, in an age when digital forms of information and communication predominate"
Our own definition of digital literacy at York, from a learner perspective, is:
Digital literacy encompasses a wide range of capabilities and approaches, going beyond functional ICT skills (which rapidly become obsolete) towards a critical and evaluative approach to information and digital technologies that enables the development of lifelong knowledge practices. The "digitally literate person" continues to develop and refine their approaches in different contexts and in the light of ever-changing technical, social, economic, cultural and educational contexts.
Put simply, digital literacy is the ongoing development and refinement of the higher order critical skills employed when finding, evaluating, managing, and sharing information and data, and when putting communications out into the world — and the confidence and agility to test and adopt a range of appropriate technologies, in professional, academic, social, and personal settings.
Digital technologies are transforming the workplace, with over a billion jobs likely to be disrupted and radically transformed by technology in the next decade according to figures by the World Economic Forum (2023).
Their Future of Jobs Report 2025 reports that "technological skills are projected to grow in importance more rapidly than any other type of skills". The top six skills considered by employers to be of increasing importance are:
…most of which can be captured within our concept of digital literacies.
Digital proficiency continues to be a concern for the UK workforce, with over half of working-age people unable to complete the 20 essential digital tasks for the modern workplace set by Lloyds for their 2024 UK Consumer Digital Index and Essential Digital Skills report. About a fifth of respondents were unable to use digital productivity tools or collaborative tools such as Microsoft Office or Google Workspace. Digital productivity and cybersecurity were the most identified tasks people struggle with, corresponding to 5 of the top 10 essential digital tasks that people are unable to complete.
Such skills gaps lead to cybersecurity breaches, and the UK Government's cyber security breaches survey 2024 reports that half of the UK businesses it surveyed experienced a breach or attack in 2023 — the same year that a cyberattack took out the British Library. The risks of poor digital literacy have never been greater.
Likewise, projects can stand and fall on the skills of those involved. It's been quoted that 70% of digital transformation projects in business fail each year due to empoyees' inability to adapt to new technologies. Digital skills underpin effective system deployment, usage and change, and our students therefore need to be equipped with the literacies they need not only right now but also in the future. They need the creativity and critical skills to reshape their practices as technologies evolve. We've already been seeing this playing out for ourselves right here in the University as our workplace has become more and more 'hybrid'. By finding opportunities for digital collaboration, creativity and innovation, we prepare our students for a life that is increasingly online and a world of technology that is ever-changing.
At York we have adopted the JISC six elements of digital capabilities model for articulating the various skills and learning abilities that digital literacy encompasses.
All disciplines will make use of digital technologies for the purpose of teaching, learning and research. Here are some relatively easy-to-implement examples of how digital literacy enables students in their academic endeavours:
Familiarity with resources in print and other media, together with relevant methods of information retrieval.
Download materials from the internet or institutional shared spaces and manage digital files to enable retrieval.
Select appropriate search tools (e.g. bibliographic databases, indexes, catalogues) and develop an effective search strategy to locate appropriate information.
Undertake problem solving both of a qualitative and a quantitative nature.
Use basic productivity software (text editing, spreadsheets, image editing, presentation) and find solutions and workarounds when things go wrong.
Collate, manage, access and use digital data in spreadsheets and other media.
Collect and analyse research data using digital methods e.g. data capture, design online surveys.
Communicate effectively to a variety of audiences in written and verbal forms.
Appreciate how digital messages are designed for particular audiences, purposes and effects.
Communicate with other people in a range of different media and respect the different ways of communicating in different media/spaces. Design digital communications for different purposes e.g. to persuade, inform, guide and support.
There's more examples on our case studies page.
