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What is Data Literacy?

Over the past few weeks, our series has focused on unpacking computer literacy and digital literacy. We’ve found that computer literacy differs from digital literacy, which is the ability to communicate or find information on digital platforms. Whereas computer literacy measures the ability to use computers and to maintain a basic understanding of how they operate. However one can’t assume that exposure to computers and digital tools and automatically equates to the knowledge of how to use these effectively. This is where data literacy comes in. All of them are interlinked and in many ways require an understanding of each other because they are so closely linked. For instance, one can’t begin with data literacy without any knowledge and understanding of digital literacy. It is an underlying component of digital literacy due to the usage of technology to drive better outcomes.

According to Gartner 2019, Data literacy is defined as “ the ability to read, write and communicate data in context, including an understanding of data sources and constructs, analytical methods and techniques applied…” This is the core definition but data literacy can be defined differently in line with the specific contexts. In a business context, Forbes defines data literacy as “Using data effectively for business actions and outcomes”.

If you’re at school, data literacy could just be how to read charts and graphs, drawing correct conclusions, and recognizing when data is misleading. In Mathematics, there is often a huge focus on data and problem-solving. Some of you might remember but this is where you are taught how to calculate the mean, mode, median, and range. Of course, it gets more complex once you enter the working space but essentially this is the most basic foundation of understanding data.

Why is Data Literacy important?

From a business point of view, data helps organizations to create digital business opportunities to improve efficiency, accuracy and help employees develop greater outcomes. Secondly, it helps give your company a competitive edge in this everchanging market.

However, schools and universities are often ill-equipped to solve the problem of data literacy holistically. The responsibility is often on you to ensure that your data literacy is up to date. People leave institutions and change workplaces every now again still being unable to use data literacy tools. For instance, Excel – a popular and relevant data literacy tool used in the workspace is only used by one in five people on the planet. And those who do use it, only a certain percentage truly know how to optimally use its features for data literacy.

A Data Literate person should be able to:

• Analyze using data
• Use data to communicate ideas and plans for new projects, products, or even strategies,
• Understand and create dashboards (spreadsheets, databases, visualizations for example),
• Make data-based decisions rather than based on intuition. Therefore, be able to make “fact” based decisions supported by data.

Data Literacy in the workplace

Over the years, data literacy has become a vital skill for organizations seeking to transform into data-driven teams. The issue is that not all staff members are trained to use data to make strategic decisions.

Organisations Need Data Literate Employees to:

• Communicate in a common language of data to better understand conversations about it
• Identify unexpected issues and come up with data-driven solutions
• Prevent making poor decisions due to data misinterpretation
• Have the framework and support to integrate new tools and ways of thinking into their everyday work lives

Becoming Data Literate

Get training and understand the importance of data literacy:

As an employee or future worker, you must understand how vital data literacy is to the success of the organization you work for. Once you understand why data is crucial for your business objectives, you will be less likely to resist gaining additional knowledge about how to interpret data. Unless you’re fortunate to work for a company that advances data literacy then you will have to take ownership of your own training so take advantage of free online courses. The Data Literacy project offers several free e-learning courses and the amazing thing is that training on critical thinking and data skills can be fun and casual. The more fun you make it, the more engagement you will see. Every employee must at least know how to ask:

• How the data was collected
• What can be learned from the data
• Consider the reliability of the information.

More than ever, Digital literacy has become extremely vital for navigating your personal and professional life. Once you get to a stage where you feel confident in your computer literacy, it becomes easier to transition into learning about digital literacy. Similar to computer literacy, it has become more compulsory for higher education students and employees to be digitally literate and this is why it is best to capacitate yourself with digital skills early as possible. Fortunately, other institutions may embed digital skills into the first-year courses as part of the first-year experience because they recognize its importance.

What is Digital Literacy?

According to Developing Employability, “Digital literacy is the ability to identify and use technology confidently, creatively and critically to meet the demands and challenges of life, learning and work in a digital society”. In other words, it is having the skills you need to live, learn, and work in a society where communication and access to information occur more and more through digital technologies like internet platforms, social media, and smartphones.

Why is it important?

It’s important to understand the being digitally literate is more than just knowing how to use technology, it’s knowing how to navigate effectively in a digitally enhanced environment. This may be in your social, cultural life, learning life, and/or working life. It’s about recognizing the ability to transfer digital skills that you’ve learned from one situation and moving across one platform to another application seamlessly. All you need to do is to build a solid foundation and then working on strengthening your digital footprint.

It also becomes really important in the future when you enter the professional world. The requirement for digital skills is higher in professional careers. A 2017 study from the European Commission found that 90% of professionals are required to possess at least basic digital skills. In your workplace, you’ll be required to interact with people in digital environments, use information in appropriate ways, and create new ideas and products collaboratively. Above all, you’ll need to maintain your digital identity and wellbeing as the digital world continues to change at a fast pace.

Without these digital literacy competencies, people struggle to thrive in a technology-driven society. For instance, the working world needs graduates and employees who are able to:

• Utilize digital tools for communicating, collaborating, and solving problems
• Find, evaluate and use online resources
• Produce and effectively share knowledge
• Create online content, not just be consumers of content
• Curate data and media sources

5 Key Digital Literacy skills and how to Apply them

1. Photo-visual literacy: This is the ability to recognize a photo or infographic and be able to understand the symbolism behind them. So, you’re able to “read” the photo on the screen intuitively and understand the instruction and the message behind the visual. For example, if you see a photo of a small trash bin, you immediately understand that it means “delete”.  
2. Socio-emotional Literacy: This is the ability to identify the advantage of working in the digital space but also identifying the “traps” and dangers that may come with working in cyberspace and how to avoid them.
3. Information Literacy: The ability to know when there is a need for information and using that information for the problem at hand. It’s also having skepticism when consuming information. For example, knowing how to identify fake news in the age of misinformation.
4. Reproduction literacy: Digital reproduction literacy is the ability to create a meaningful, authentic, and creative work or interpretation, by integrating existing independent pieces of information.
5. Branching Literacy: Branching literacy is understanding the complexity of cyberspace. For many, it might come quite naturally after years of understanding how the digital world operates. It is the ability to navigate the internet and databases without getting “lost” in cyberspace.  In simple terms, it involves making a mental note of how you got to a certain page once you are there, how to leave it, opening other tabs, choosing options based on visuals, etc.

Digital skills that can make you employable in the workplace:

1. Social Media skills
2. Analytics
3. Understanding collaboration and project management tools – Google Drive, Asana, Trello
4. Content Marketing – blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, social media status updates
5. Strategy and Planning
6. Emails, google calendar
7. Fluency in choosing the right device and software
8. Awareness of digital trends

How do I learn digital skills?

The inevitable part of living in the digital era is that being digitally literate can help you advance your ability to participate in the economy. All organizations in the digital economy, are coming to realise that digital skills are vital for employees in the digital era. Especially in the covid-19 shifted world, it is more important than ever that new employees are cross-disciplined and have both hard and soft skills.  Whatever the specific job you are interviewing for, recruiters will be looking out for a wider skill set and broader experience in their recruitment.

• Watch YouTube

Another way to learn about digital is online (i.e. digitally)! And you don’t even have to read. There are YouTube videos for everything and it’s not just a website – it’s the world’s second-largest search engine

• Take a course

If you find it hard to dedicate time to self-learning, then committing to a course – either free online or classroom-based – might be what you need. Another option is presenting it to your manager as being relevant for your career development then it’s worth asking if your workplace will fund it.

• Find a teacher

If you’re a working person, ask someone digitally savvy in your office to help you learn. Or you can ask someone in your family, community, varsity to teach you.

The beginning of the year comes with many reflections, goals, and most importantly, preparation. Some are waiting in anticipation and preparing to go to university for the time this year or even start a new job. And this may come with certain requirements such as the ability to use a computer. As some of you will know, having basic computer literacy skills makes it easier to complete some tasks and increase the rate of productivity.

What is computer literacy?

In the simplest terms, the ability to know how to use a computer. Your computer literacy can be determined by the level of familiarity and expertise you have with computers. This includes knowing how to operate software programs, platforms and other computer programs commonly used in different types of institutions and settings.

For example, certain software skills are more commonly desired in different fields. If you’re a computer programmer, you may be required to know various coding languages like Python, Javascript, SQL, or HTML5, among others. For many who are not into software development or have aspirations of being a developer, this might seem very foreign but for instance, those who are applying for positions in administrative assistance will likely need to be computer literate and have some experience with Microsoft Office tools like Word, Outlook, and Excel (i.e. basic computer skills).

Before getting to the more “complex” aspects of computers, you have to start with simple basics such as knowing how to switch a computer on and off. This might seem like unnecessary or irrelevant information to someone who has been exposed to computers from a very young age but believe it or not, at some point, even the best computer boffins didn’t know how to switch on a computer at some stage. Basics may include typing, knowing the different computer parts, and learning keyboard commands.

Computer Literacy skills

Before anyone starts panicking, the good news is that computer literacy can be learned and transferred which becomes computer literacy skills.

Computer skills categories: Hardware and Software

Hardware skills speak to the physical aspect of operating a computer. This includes the ability to switch on and off your devices. Knowing which part is which and what its purpose is. This can include more complex aspects such as connecting machines to the network, changing and fixing parts of devices. On the other hand, Software skills help you use computer programs and applications efficiently.

Two of the most popular software programs are Microsoft Office or G Suite which has programs including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access. It is important to understand that different programs serve different purposes. For example, Word Processors such as Word and Google Docs are used for producing digital documents whilst Excel and Google Sheets are for organizing data, budgeting, and counting numbers because of the easiness of the spreadsheet.

Why is it important to be computer literate?

• A pre-requisite to participate in the new world (i.e. the digital world or 4IR)

A big portion for most careers or even getting through university will require the use of computers as a part of completing daily tasks. It, therefore, becomes important to know how to operate a computer and why it’s important. Most jobs now require the use of computers, mobile devices, or software applications in some capacity. Some employers will require prior knowledge or experience with specific applications, while others will offer on-the-job training.  Secondly, having a foundational understanding of computers makes it easier to learn advanced programs as needed by the course that you are studying or the organization that you work for.

• Efficiency and productivity

One of the big benefits of being a computer literate person is that you can become more efficient and productive at a quicker rate. For example, if you are an employee, you can produce more work in a shorter period of time, freeing up time to do other tasks. If you are a student it would be more efficient for you to type all your assignments on the computer compared to writing them out freehand.

• Better communication

Another positive for computer literacy is the ability to improve communications, especially if you are familiar with emails. If you’re a student, you can easily connect with lecturers, fellow mates, share notes and other documents. If you’re an employee, this means you can have more streamlined communication with clients and your colleagues. Most companies use communication and collaboration tools to help with communication. These project management tools can range from Slack, Asana, Trello and JIRA. Therefore, if you can’t use a computer, this means you will also struggle to navigate the workplace with these tools.

How to improve your computer literacy?

• Practice, practice, practice

Practice makes perfect. One of the best pieces of advice you can get regarding improving your computer literacy is to just keep practicing. For example, if you want to learn how to type faster, set out 30 minutes every day to just type religiously and time yourself.

• Set SMART goals and commit

You need to remember that only learning the skill is not sufficient. You need to set smart goals to become better and good. For example, if you take 50 minutes to complete a PowerPoint presentation, keep practicing and aim for 40 minutes next time. 

• Register for a short course

It goes without saying that before learning any technical skill, you will need a fundamental skill of how to use a computer. Taking a proactive approach to educating yourself might be your best bet. There are several computer training academies out there such as Silulo Training Academy. If you’re completely new to the computing world, you can try in-person learning or if you just want to improve a skill, you can try online courses. Sites like Lifewire have good tutorials and blog posts on how to improve your computer literacy. Companies like Standard Bank, Microsoft SA, and Pioneering Solution Studio have partnered to help anyone become digital literate for free (visit: www. icted.online and select Microsoft Digital Literacy V4 or v5, register and then get started).

You can also find free introductory courses on sites like Khan Academy and Coursera.

• Ask someone to teach you

If you know of anyone who might be willing to give you a few lessons and teach you some basics, perhaps you should consider approaching them. Asking won’t hurt and it might require less complication than traveling for an in-person course to an institution or worrying about the data for an online course.