Becoming a digital citizen

In today's post, Susan Halfpenny introduces a series of articles looking at the topic of digital citizenship...

The ‘digital citizen’ is a person who has developed the skills and knowledge to effectively use the internet and digital technologies; who uses digital technologies and the internet in a responsible and appropriate way in order to engage and participate in society and politics.

Back in 2016 we embarked on our first journey into the world of Massive Open Online Courses, with our Digital Citizenship course, which launched on 23 January 2017 on the FutureLearn platform. Over the next few months we'll be publishing a series of blog posts on this theme based on the content of that course.

Why Digital Citizenship?

We live in a world where the use of digital technology has become the norm. Effective participation in our society increasingly requires our ability to engage online. This isn’t just a question of technical ability – just as with our physical society, there are appropriate and responsible behaviours we need to acquire.

The Digital Citizenship three week course investigated and explored the concept of the digital society. It looked at how personal values and ethical judgments shape our online participation, and how new technologies can be applied to solve some of the problems we might face. The aim of the course was to develop digital capabilities, and awareness of the cultural and ethical implications of using digital technologies, and it sought to establish in its participants the skills required to become an effective and successful digital citizen.

Digital access and information inequalities

In this theme we explored the rise of digital technologies and the implications for society. We traversed the digital divide, and considered the barriers to accessing modern information and communications technologies. Participants reflected on their own digital skills and undertook a literature search on the digital society.

Digital identity and security

Within this theme we started by considered what we mean by digital literacies, and whether new generations brought up in digital world automatically possess the necessary digital skills. We looked at digital identities and personas, from managing our digital footprints to how we present ourselves online. Participants engaged with information security issues and looked at strategies for protecting themselves in the online world. This theme concluded with an exploration of some of the challenges and responsibilities of online engagement: how do you manage negative attention, and do you behave in a legal or ethical way?

Digital participation and ethics

Finally, we looked at positive uses of the internet: how we can harness its powers to reach new audiences, engage with research literature, and generally improve the world? We looked at how digital tools can encourage engagement from harder-to-reach groups or non-traditional audiences, exploring both the success stories and the darker forces using the medium for illegal activities.

The development of the course was a collaborative endeavour involving academics from across the science, social sciences and humanities faculties, as well as support staff. The collaboration with academic staff made this a rich experience for our learners, enabling them to engage with current research on digital citizenship and the use of digital technologies at the University.

We hope you enjoy our collection of blog posts on this subject over the next few months. When we're done, you'll be able to find them all under the Digital citizenship tag.