Students in creative disciplines, such as those studying Art, Design or Architecture at The Glasgow School of Art (GSA), are required within their programmes to balance a combination of academic, information and digital literacies. The unique demands of composite modes of study - studio based learning as well as online and more traditional tutor-led scenarios – requires students to develop confidence in the underpinning principles common to all three literacy areas: adaptability, critical application, collaboration and solution-focused, creative use of educational technologies.

For Gillen and Barton (2011), digital literacies refer to ‘constantly changing practices through which people make traceable meanings using digital technologies’ (p. 9). Such meaning-making is key within creative education in encouraging expression, reflection, autonomy and lateral sense making. As such, embracing digital technologies as part of the holistic learning experience enables students to research, develop and articulate ideas in a variety of innovative multimedia formats.

However, students’ use of technology in learning and teaching may not necessarily match existing confidence and competencies of everyday, personal use. As increasing criticism of reductionist concepts such as Generation Y (Manuel 2002) and Digital Natives (Prensky 2001) attest, assumptions are often made on the part of the institution as to students’ use of technology and the perceived ease of transferring principles from the personal domain to the academic. Reaction to the Digital Natives debate now posits it as over-simplistic (Luckin et al 2009), and as harbouring potential for the interpretation of students’ digital literacies to be stronger than they actually are (JISC 2009). As with both academic and information literacies, expectations of applying digital literacies within academic programmes must be made clear to students, both on joining their programme and as requirements change throughout each academic transition.