DISC (Digital Inclusion, Skills, & Creativity) are responsible for user education in the application of digital technologies for learning, teaching, and research. We provide digital skills support to all University members, including staff, students, and researchers. We have knowledge and expertise on effective learning and teaching design, digital literacy development, Google Workspace and Apps Script solutions, digital creativity, and data literacy.

Here's some examples of the sort of support we offer:

Training

We deliver training on a wealth of digital skills, information skills and IT topics:

• Our core Digital Skills Training programme runs throughout term-time and is open to all members of the University. It includes our weekly Digital Wednesdays sessions which vary throughout the year and offer opportunities to be creative with and curious about digital technology.
• Our IT Essentials programme provides specialist training for staff and research postgraduates.

Digital Labs

We run two digital labs in the Fairhurst, open to all members of the University:

• The Creativity Lab has a focus on software: high-end gaming workstations, with access to Virtual Reality (VR) equipment and other emerging technologies.
• YorCreate is all about hardware: a maker-space with 3D printers and other tools.

Online guidance & support

We're responsible for a number of online resources, such as:

• The Skills Guides – our main resource for digital skills support.
• Practical Guides, including:
  • IT Essentials – a guide to using IT at York;
  • In-depth guides on topics such as coding, reference management, presentations, and spreadsheets.

Applications support

We provide user support for a breadth of IT software, including:

• Google Workspace – Mail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, Apps Script...
• Microsoft Office – Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access...
• Video conferencing – Zoom, Google Meet...
• Reference management software
• Survey tools

Task-based support and consultations

It's one thing knowing about specific applications; it's another knowing which to use for what approach, or how best to go about things. We have a range of specialisms within the team, and can provide consultation work with individuals and teams to streamline processes using digital technologies. We offer help with a range of topics, including:

• Effective learning and teaching design for digital skills development;
• Communication and collaborative working;
• Productivity, automation, and Apps Script solutions;
• Digital creativity, storytelling, media editing, and coding;
• e-Accessibility and accessible online learning design;
• Working with data.

You can get in touch with DISC at itsupport@york.ac.uk — That's a generic email address for all of IT Support, but if you mark your email for our attention, or if you're just emailing about something that's in our area of expertise, then your message will come through to us.

Our ethos in DISC is one of digital curiosity: we seek to provide opportunities to explore new tools and new approaches to digital technology; to have a go, and in so doing, to develop new skills and new knowledge — new literacies for navigating our increasingly digital world. Literacies like criticality: the ability to judge appropriate tools and appropriate methods, and to appraise the benefits and the risks involved. These are skills that are useful to all of us: students, staff, researchers — members of the University — but also our wider communities. That's why our Skills Guides and teaching materials are, for the most part, open and reusable under Creative Commons, and why we've also worked to produce free online courses on topics such as Digital Citizenship and Digital Wellbeing.

Core to our ethos of digital curiosity is a keen sense of digital creativity — something which runs throughout our work, not least our annual Digital Creativity Week where students from different backgrounds and disciplines get to work together on a multimedia digital artwork, all the while expanding their curiosity and their creativity.

Curiosity, creativity, and criticality come together in all aspects of our support: our focus is on approaches, not applications — what is the task you are trying to achieve, and how best might you go about it? That's why, throughout these Skills Guides, and throughout everything else we do, we'll tend to offer you a range of options. That way you get to think critically and creatively about which works best for you; and you might even be curious enough to try out something completely new!