Using a student-staff partnership to map, understand, and develop the digital curriculum

Digital literacy is increasingly central to the experience of learning and teaching in higher education. This paper details the design, implementation, and results of a student-staff partnership project that utilized a mixed method research strategy to "map" the digital curriculum within a sociology program, measure the digital capacity of students across the degree (n=104), and explore their experience of that curriculum (n=12). The findings reveal that digital capabilities of undergraduates did develop over the course of their degree. However, not only is the development of digital curricula often without signposts, the results suggest that we should not assume that all students are "digital natives." Indeed, many struggle to adapt to the technological demands upon entering higher education while others fail to connect educational uses of digital technology to their everyday lives. In detailing the tools that were developed as part of the project, the paper goes on to outline the value of student partnerships in the context of information and digital literacy, as well as higher education more generally.