On Digital Literacy

Computer Science has achieved a major success, we have cause for celebration. We have made the case for our discipline and, both politically and culturally, we have arrived. The importance of 'computational thinking' and programming as the central supporting thread of a dynamic digital economy is largely accepted. The broader intellectual contribution of computer science to the academy and to both science and engineering no longer needs to be argued. Yes, there is further work to do. We must build on the success. We must develop engaging curricula for computer science in schools alongside tools and systems that will allow the next generation of innovators to give flight to their creativity. We need to be at the forefront of the 'big data - big model' challenges of science. All of this is within our reach.

And yet. In our enthusiasm for our discipline we may have taken our eyes off another significant challenge. Digital innovators will only be a small part of the digital economy. The remainder will be digital consumers, people who live and work within that digital economy. Their leisure, their social life, their engagement with government and the products of their work will be digitally mediated. They require digital literacy. To the extent we provide for this now, it is of the lowest quality: essentially 'click here' training. The answer to this is not to teach computer science, except insofar as it is part of a general education and conveys transferrable skills in analysis and reasoning. So, here is a big question for computer science - what does digital literacy look like?

I think I can identify some ingredients. Digital literacy should provide an armature for skills acquisition. It should also equip the recipients to be intelligent and critical consumers of digital innovation. It should also provide some conceptual understanding to allow digital citizens to understand and fix simple problems and identify more complex ones.  Digital literacy necessarily entails having a functional mental model of how distributed computing operates. A further important component of digital literacy should be an appreciation of embedded computing and sensor systems that constitute the digital environment. Digital literacy education should ensure that digital consumers are conscious of their rights and capable of defending them, for example to privacy and to freedom of expression within the law, and that they are also conscious of their obligations in a global communications media. Safety from crime and from attack is vital. Digital literacy must include an understanding of the regulatory, economic and business structures of the digital world.   Critically, digitally literate consumers should be able to recognise 'experts' or 'digital professionals' and communicate with them.

If we, computer scientists, do not address the question of digital literacy, it will fall to those less concerned or less well equipped to do so. Our capacity to innovate is not simply about our own skills and capabilities but is critically dependent on the skills, capabilities and knowledge of those who use or consume that innovation. The potential of digital technologies is to a large extent in the hands of users who can creatively appropriate those technologies in their lives and work. We need to look outward as well as inward.