TY - GEN
T1 - Awareness of digital literacy on young innovators in the fourth industrial revolution
AU - Sithembiso, Khumalo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Academic Conferences Limited. All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - New technologies are forcing more job-related tasks to be automated. With more jobs becoming obsolete, others will be created, and they will be geared towards greater interaction with digital technologies. Therefore, a new set of digital skills will be required to compete successfully in a new economy driven by Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies. This paper aimed to understand to what extend young innovators are aware of digital literacy in the 4IR, and to determine if there is a need for digital literacy in a university curriculum in preparation for the 4IR. The mixed method nature of this study prompted the use of both a questionnaire and interview schedule to collect data from 250 Information Management students and 4 digital agency executives. The interpretivist nature of this study enabled the use of both frequency statistical analysis and thematic analysis to analyse and interpret the data. The results indicated that the majority of students knew about the 4IR, however they had limited knowledge on digital literacy and its fundamental components for the 4IR. The results further revealed that there is a need for young innovators to become digitally literate in preparation for the 4IR. Most of the students considered themselves as digitally literate and fluent, however some of the findings indicated that they do not understand what really constitutes a digital literate individual. The term digital literacy itself refers to individual abilities for understanding, interpreting, creating, communicating, computing as well as identifying and using printed materials related to different contexts (UNESCO, 2011). Furthermore, the research indicated that there is a need for 4IR related skills, such as coding, to be incorporated within the curriculum. In conclusion it is recommended that a study be conducted on graduates rather than the students and test their understanding of what digital literacy is, the concepts 4IR and whether the university has prepared them enough.
AB - New technologies are forcing more job-related tasks to be automated. With more jobs becoming obsolete, others will be created, and they will be geared towards greater interaction with digital technologies. Therefore, a new set of digital skills will be required to compete successfully in a new economy driven by Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies. This paper aimed to understand to what extend young innovators are aware of digital literacy in the 4IR, and to determine if there is a need for digital literacy in a university curriculum in preparation for the 4IR. The mixed method nature of this study prompted the use of both a questionnaire and interview schedule to collect data from 250 Information Management students and 4 digital agency executives. The interpretivist nature of this study enabled the use of both frequency statistical analysis and thematic analysis to analyse and interpret the data. The results indicated that the majority of students knew about the 4IR, however they had limited knowledge on digital literacy and its fundamental components for the 4IR. The results further revealed that there is a need for young innovators to become digitally literate in preparation for the 4IR. Most of the students considered themselves as digitally literate and fluent, however some of the findings indicated that they do not understand what really constitutes a digital literate individual. The term digital literacy itself refers to individual abilities for understanding, interpreting, creating, communicating, computing as well as identifying and using printed materials related to different contexts (UNESCO, 2011). Furthermore, the research indicated that there is a need for 4IR related skills, such as coding, to be incorporated within the curriculum. In conclusion it is recommended that a study be conducted on graduates rather than the students and test their understanding of what digital literacy is, the concepts 4IR and whether the university has prepared them enough.
KW - Digital fluency
KW - Digital literacy
KW - Fourth industrial revolution (4ir)
KW - Innovation
KW - Skills
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099878449&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.34190/EKM.20.154
DO - 10.34190/EKM.20.154
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85099878449
T3 - Proceedings of the European Conference on Knowledge Management, ECKM
SP - 719
EP - 728
BT - Proceedings of the 21st European Conference on Knowledge Management, ECKM 2020
A2 - Garcia-Perez, Alexeis
A2 - Simkin, Lyndon
PB - Academic Conferences and Publishing International Limited
T2 - 21st European Conference on Knowledge Management, ECKM 2020
Y2 - 2 December 2020 through 4 December 2020
ER -
