Year Published: 2021
Date Published: 21/02/2021
Research Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1874475
Methodology: Our data comes from the Oxfordshire Digital Inclusion Project, which documented the digital assistance provided by the Oxfordshire County Library to patrons. This library, like many municipal libraries, serves a wide range of patrons. We used a mixed-methods approach and collected several kinds of data between January and April 2020: (1) 55 logs of digital assistance sessions provided by staff and volunteers; (2) 19 in-depth interviews with library staff and volunteers, which ranged from 26 min to 1 h and 15 min in duration; (3) field notes from participant observation, as one of the authors served as a volunteer digital helper for two years.
Key Takeaways:
Allmann, K. and Blank, G.
Around the world, digital platforms have become the first – or only – option for many everyday activities. The United Kingdom, for instance, is implementing a ‘digital-by-default’ e-government agenda, which has steadily digitized vital services such as taxes, pensions, and welfare. This pervasive digitization marks an important shift in the relationship between society and computing; people are compelled to use computers and the internet in order to accomplish the basic tasks. We suggest that this era of compulsory computing demands new ways of measuring and theorizing about digital skills, which remain a crucial dimension of the digital divide. In this article, we re-examine the theory and measurement of digital skills, making three contributions to understanding of how digital skills are encountered, acquired, and conceptualized. First, we introduce a new methodology to research skills: participant-observation of novices in the process of learning new skills along with interviews with the people who help them. Our ethnographically informed method leads us to a second contribution: a different theory of skills, which identifies three primary characteristics: (1) sequence, (2) simultaneity, and, most importantly, (3) path abstraction. Third, we argue that these characteristics suggest the need to change current ways skills are measured, and we also discuss the policy implications of this empirically informed theory.