Your digital skills

We live in a digital world and you will be bringing lots of digital skills with you to university.

Consider all of the tasks that you already do on your phone, laptop or computer. You’ll be using these skills at university and many of them are transferable to academic study. By completing this course, you're already using the university online learning environment.

We don’t expect you to arrive at university with all of the skills and knowledge that you'll need to complete your course. You will be supported throughout your learning to go on a digital skills development journey. Throughout your time at Herts, you’ll be guided to use digital tools, work in digital environments and develop strategies to be a flexible and adaptable digital learner.

What is digital capability?

Diagram showing the JISC six elements of digital capability Digital capability, or digital skills, are the skills we need to live, work, study and thrive in the digital world. At Herts we use the JISC Six Areas of Digital Capability model to discuss digital capability. The model is used by many universities across the UK, and summarises the digital skills students and graduates need.

Once you start your course, you’ll be using this model in more detail to guide your understanding of your digital skills, and how you might develop them during your time at Herts, to complete your studies and support your career aspirations.

Herts Digital Learner Profile

The Herts Digital Learner profile summarises our approach to digital skills development. You will have the chance to use this in more detail throughout your studies at Herts. Herts Digital Learner profile

After registration

Once you are registered with us you will get access to a wide range of support to help you begin the process of becoming digitally confident and capable, including:

Wi-Fi Warriors and Student Technology Mentors to get you connected from day one
Online help and information on how to use study facilities and services
24/7 Helpdesk support available
Support from specialist information and computing professionals who are familiar with your course
Flexible skills development tutorials to help you make effective use of learning resources
Specialist disability and wellbeing support
You will be able to join the Library SkillUP
Drop in online or on campus to the Study Success Hubs in the LRCs to meet with Student Technology Mentors to help you access module sites/materials, your timetable, university services and to help you learn about resources and how to get started with software such as Office 365 (incl Teams) and Zoom.
During induction, there will be Learning Resource Centres tours that will cover access to specialist software/Macs/PCs, laptop loan, printing/scanning.
Access to LinkedIn Learning that offers a fantastic suite of videos and courses to help you to develop your digital skills.

Get Started with Herts Digital Checklist

Using this checklist will help you get connected to all the systems here at the university. Following registration, you should aim to try to complete this checklist within the first four weeks of your first Semester. Many of the digital tools will be introduced through your work on your programme of study. To find information and instructions about digital tools, you can search on ask.herts.ac.uk or Herts mobile app using keywords, e.g. "timetable", "Office 365".

Get started with Herts Digital Checklist.pdf

Why don't you let us know what digital skills you would like to learn at university. Go to www.menti.com and put in the code shown below: