Developing Digital Capability:
Institutional SWOT Analysis

This document is designed to help you review your institutions' Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats as you set out to build a strategic approach to digital capability. It encompasses issues of strategy and organisation, the ICT environment, the curriculum and the student experience. For a more comprehensive analysis of these issues, consider undertaking a full Institutional Digital Literacies Audit as developed by the Jisc Developing Digital Literacies programme 2011-13.

Each section has a series of questions and prompts drawn from the experience of other universities working in this space. Having read these through, you should reflect on how relevant each point is to your institution. Remember that you may need to look beyond the issues referenced here. Current strategy and policy documents and mission statements will help, but conversations with staff in key areas are even more beneficial. A SWOT analysis should be the starting point of a broadly-based project so it is important from the outset to involve key stakeholders and to include their views of the landscape.

Key stakeholders might be found in departments across the institution, for example digital specialists in the areas of:

Learning and teaching, and the development of learning and teaching

Library and learning resources/content

e-Learning

IT/information environment

IT/ICT support

Digital strategy

Research and knowledge transfer

Student experience

Although 'digital literacy' is a term that has gained currency in UK HE, it really does not matter how the issue is described at your institution. 'Digital fluency', 'digital professionalism', 'digital competence' and 'digital scholarship' are all valid terms. We have used the term 'digital capability' as the most general. However, we would encourage you to settle on a particular term and use it consistently to allow you to draw together the disparate roles and interests under a common agenda and set of values.

Finally, remember that strengths and weaknesses are features of your organisation as it is today. They will have been shaped by a particular set of environmental factors, but they are now intrinsic to your structures and processes, culture and way of doing things. Opportunities and threats arise externally, or from your organisation's response to external factors. Because the digital and educational contexts are both changing rapidly, factors which are strengths today may actually limit an organisation's response to opportunity and threat, while factors which appear as weaknesses (e.g. having 'missed' a particular technology bandwagon) may emerge as opportunities when the context changes.

1. Strategic environment
STRENGTHS
How do senior managers demonstrate an understanding and a vision for digital technologies?
How are digital issues championed and brought into strategic thinking?
How are digital issues included in other strategies such as Teaching, Learning and Assessment, Research, the Student Experience...?
What incentives do academic and middle managers have for engaging with the digital agenda?
Do digital opportunities feature in the university's external branding e.g. of courses or of the student experience overall?
Are there budgets which can be drawn upon to support a strategic approach to developing digital capability?
Does the institution attract external funding and/or partners for digital projects and initiatives?
What else do you feel gives you a strategic advantage relative to other institutions? / WEAKNESSES
In what ways are digital issues sidelined in major strategies, or pigeonholed in particular strategic silos?
How can central agendas for digital development be sidelined, frustrated or ignored?
How are financial constraints hindering investment in the digital environment and/or in digital expertise?
What other reasons do senior managers give for not investing?
How far does the reputation of the institution depend on a very traditional learning experience?
What else do you feel may be a weakness relative to other, similar institutions?
OPPORTUNITIES
How has the institution engaged with the following agendas:
- delivering courses across dispersed colleges and campuses?
- delivering courses online e.g. through MOOCs?
- delivering work-based learning and CPD?
- developing/joining HE partnerships for online or distributed learning?
- building regional partnerships?
- developing open educational content as a brand identifier?
- supporting open scholarship/open data/big science?
- (other agendas which clearly require digital capacity to deliver)?
How is the institution investing in digital capacity to deliver on its key priorities?
Are there opportunities for building digital capability to support other key institutional drivers e.g. sustainability, internationalisation, professionalism?
How has the institution engaged with national projects and initiatives around digital literacy? / THREATS
Can the institution defend the value of its offer against open learning opportunities such as MOOCs?
Is investment in ICT seen primarily as a way of doing the same things more efficiently?
Is investment in ICT seen as a way of responding to the latest tech trends?
In what ways is the institution being left behind by national agendas and initiatives around digital literacy?
2. Organisation
STRENGTHS
In what ways does the library exemplify good practice in developing information and digital literacies?
In what ways are digital content resources – including content generated by staff/students – being effectively managed?
In what ways does ICT support exemplify good practice in fostering students' use of their own devices/services?
In what ways can staff/students access ICT support to suit their needs?
In what ways do learning support services promote the value of digital devices in study (e.g. disability services, learning development)?
In what ways do careers/employability staff promote the value of digital jobsearch, digital CVs and portfolios, and a positive digital identity? / WEAKNESSES
In what ways are professional services failing to support the aspirations of digitally able students/staff?
In what ways are responsibilities for digital capability fragmented and/or undervalued?
OPPORTUNITIES
What opportunities exist for professional services to share digital practices and to develop their expertise?
How are staff in all departments being recognised and rewarded for developing digital capabilities relevant to their roles?
How might staff with digital capabilities be attracted to the institution? / THREATS
How might staff with digital capabilities be lost from the institution?
How might restructuring or financial constraint reduce support for developing digital capabilities?
3. ICT environment
STRENGTHS
How robust and reliable are current data networks, across different campuses (if relevant)?
How integrated is access to information services?
What hardware and software is provided to staff/students either free or subsidised/loaned?
What good practice exists in supporting staff and students to use their own devices and software/services?
What good examples are there of learning spaces being adapted for digitally-supported study and learning activities?
What good examples are there of social and living spaces being adapted? / WEAKNESSES
What problems do staff and students encounter with accessing institutional services and with using their own services on the network?
What problems do staff and students encounter with accessing institutional hardware/software and with using their own hardware/software on campus?
OPPORTUNITIES
How are staff and students involved in decisions about the ICT environment, infrastructure and access?
How can 'Bring Your Own Device' support better access for all?
How is the institution horizon scanning for the digital services that will be required in the future?
How are networks and services being upgraded to meet likely future demand?
What opportunities are there to allow staff/students to develop their own apps and services using institutional platforms and data? / THREATS
What assumptions are made about access to personal devices and services that may impact negatively on some staff/students?
How are advances in personal / social technologies reducing satisfaction with institutional provision?
4. Curriculum
STRENGTHS
How is innovation encouraged in programme design and validation?
What examples of good practice exist in embedding digital activities and outcomes into the curriculum?
What examples of good practice exist in use of the VLE?
What examples of good practice exist in students' independent use of digital devices, media and/or information sources?
What examples of good practice exist in students' use of digital media to produce assessed and/or publicly visible work? / WEAKNESSES
How is innovation discouraged in programme design and validation?
How is innovation discouraged in use of the VLE?
How widespread and sustainable is current good practice?
OPPORTUNITIES
What opportunities are there for teaching staff to develop their own digital, information and media literacies?
What opportunities are there to engage students in curriculum design and development?
What opportunities are there to enhance (use of) digital services and systems for learning such as the VLE, online assessment, clickers etc.?
How are students currently prepared for study and what role could digital technologies play in student induction? / THREATS
What external pressures (e.g. professional standards, funding constraints, student opinion) might make curriculum innovation more risky or difficult?
5. Student experience
STRENGTHS
How does the institution assess and involve students in assessing the quality of their digital environment and experience?
How are students rewarded for their digital expertise outside of programmes of study e.g. through paid roles, mentoring, personal development awards?
What good practice exists in students sharing digital know-how e.g via groupwork, mentoring, online networks?
What opportunities do students have to develop and showcase a positive digital profile e.g. via professional networks, an online CV or portfolio, public examples of their work? / WEAKNESSES
How are students prepared for differences between the experience of education and of the workplace?
How up to date are teaching staff with developments in the digital workplace and the wider world?
How widespread and sustainable is good practice around the institution?
OPPORTUNITIES
How is the institution investing in the student digital experience for the future?
How is the institution capitalising on its digital investments when it communicates with prospective students? / THREATS
Are students expressing dissatisfaction with digital aspects of their experience? What impact does this have on their overall satisfaction?

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