Inquiry into Triple Zero Service Outages
ACCAN recently submitted to the Senate Environment and Communications References Committee’s Inquiry into Triple Zero service outages. Australians believe that access to mobile telecommunications is critical for participation in daily life.
From silence to signal: Nigerian women building digital pathways to justice
Over the past years, I have had the privilege of visiting communities and interacting with women across Nigerian states. During my most recent visit, between July and August this year, I toured Bauchi, Abuja, Lagos, Kano, Port Harcourt and Kaduna, where women are rewriting what connectivity means in their lives. Sitting with them in the community ICT hub, under the Trees and Learning Circle, I have seen how access to technology can become more than a technical matter; it can become a bridge to confidence, agency and solidarity.
Children want to shape their rights in the digital world
Children represent approximately one-third of all internet users globally, according to UNICEF, with many routinely accessing digital platforms and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, from increasingly young ages.
Your rights in the digital world
In 2021, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child wrote a very important guide to explain to everyone that children’s rights apply in the digital world.
Unleashing fibre: The future of digital fibre infrastructure in New Zealand
New Zealand’s digital fibre infrastructure is a success story worth celebrating, but the best is yet to come. Unleashing the power of our digital fibre infrastructure is critical to a brighter future – one that could be worth $163 billion over the next 10 years.
Challenging the Myth of the Digital Native: A Narrative Review
Nurses are increasingly engaging with digital technologies to enhance safe, evidence-based patient care. Digital literacy is now considered a foundational skill and an integral requirement for lifelong learning, and includes the ability to search efficiently, critique information and recognise the inherent risk of bias in information sources. However, at many universities, digital literacy is assumed.
Creating a Connected Future Through Information and Digital Literacy: Strategic Directions at The University of Queensland LibraryFootnote
As knowledge-intensive institutions, universities face many challenges resulting from today’s highly dynamic technological environment. While the ways in which learners and researchers engage with digital information resources are complex and diverse, there is a keen awareness of the varying levels of information and digital literacy skills amongst students and academic staff. A university-wide approach to skills development, involving all stakeholders, has been recommended as a valid approach to addressing some of the issues. At the University of Queensland, the Library has led the way with the development of a future-focused strategic framework for information and digital literacy to help shape the University’s academic policies and practices. After reviewing the principles that underpin the strategic framework (collaboration, alignment, innovation, sustainability and evaluation), the paper presents some of the key strategies which have been introduced to encourage the development of digital skills in the contexts of undergraduate teaching and learning, digital scholarship and eResearch. It is argued that there is great potential for library staff to extend their reach and serve as digital facilitators, connectors and collaborators, making a significant contribution to successful outcomes in many areas of contemporary academic life.
Digital Inclusion and Digital Divide in Education Revealed by the Global Pandemic
The global pandemic has brought about fundamental changes in education. The abrupt closing of schools has disrupted the teaching and learning processes and presented challenges for schools worldwide. This Special Issue explores “digital inclusion” through the use of technology-facilitated learning platforms and modalities within the multicultural environment of schooling. It especially gives attention to cases that highlight the responses of parents, teachers, administrators, and students in countries that have the digital infrastructure and technological advancement and in those that do not in order to question the “digital divide” and the challenges and implications that this disparity brings to education.
How digital are ‘digital natives’ actually? Developing an instrument to measure the degree of digitalisation of university students – the DDS-Index
Young People are still referred to as digital natives, although numerous studies have shown differences in their access to digital devices, Internet usage and attitude towards digitalisation. Such differences can lead to digital inequalities. In higher education digital inequalities among students are scarcely researched as it is assumed that university students possess crucial digital competencies which they have acquired at school and in everyday life through the use of digital devices and applications. However, research findings suggest that students cannot directly transfer their digital skills to their study situation. The presented study aims to measure the degree of digitalisation by means of an index, the DDS-Index, which was developed in the context of a large-scale survey among first-semester students in Austria (n=4,822). The DDS-Index maps the degree of digitalisation of students on a range of 0 to 100 points. This paper outlines the development and assessment of the DDS-Index and uses it to analyse differences in the degree of digitalisation of students in order to draw conclusions about a digital divide at universities.
Policy, Practice, and Futures A report on the priorities arising from the second Digital Childhoods Summit
This report synthesises discussions from the Digital Childhoods Summit, held in Canberra on 11-12 June. Both the Summit and this report are initiatives of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child (Digital Child), aimed at producing agreed priorities and actions for supporting children in the digital world.