Digital Competency Profiler

Your Technological Competency

Welcome to the Digital Competency Profiler, a free tool that provides you with a snapshot of how you use digital technology in your life and how skilled you feel about using it. Based on a model developed by Dr. F. Desjardins, your responses to a series of questions about how you use various technologies will generate a personal visual profile of your relative competency and use of technology in four basic orders: Technical, Social, Informational and Computational.

This profile can then be used by you and/or your organization in planning for further development of the digital competencies that are foundational elements in successful careers in academia, commerce, service, or entrepreneurship.

USING THE DCP

The following questionnaire will ask you to rate your use and comfort with different types of technology for a variety of specific purposes. Your personal Digital Competency Profile will instantly be generated at the end of the questionnaire. As you view the profile, you will be given an opportunity to save the profile to your desktop or to the reserved space if you register on our profile storage service.

The profile will help you identify strengths as well as gaps in your competencies (as determined by frequency of, and confidence in) and use of technology across the four orders of competency. This will enable you to identify areas that you may want to address through further education and/or experience. All data collected will be anonymous. For further information about the DCP and/or your profile, please see the GTCU Digital Competency Framework

Discover your strengths today

With the help of your personal Digital Competency Profile, you can start learning and developing those digital competencies that can provide diverse career opportunities in the new digital economy.

Welcome to the Digital Competency Profiler (DCP)

Dear Member of the Northern College Community, The teaching, learning, and research environments in colleges and universities are changing rapidly, particularly with the new opportunities offered by online environments. It is critical to understand the nature of these changes and the factors affecting the online realities of the 21st century.

As participants in this research project, the Digital Technology Competencyand Use in Higher Education: Using the Digital Competency Profiler at Northern College study aims to understand how Northern College students, faculty, and staff use various technologies, including mobile technology, both personally and in their academic pursuits. When you complete the survey, a personal technology use profile graph will be generated. The profile will help you identify gaps in your competency (frequency of and confidence with) in the use of technology that you may want to address through further education and/or experience.

This letter invites you to compete an online survey (see the link below) that will take approximately 20 minutes of your time to complete. This survey will ask you to rate your use (frequency) and comfort (confidence) with various types of technology for various purposes.

Northern College Students

There are minimal risks to participating in this study. The risks include:

  • Possible feelings of being coerced to respond to this survey. However, it should be noted that:
  • Participation is voluntary and you are free to decline participation withoutexplanation or consequence. You may refuse to participate or terminate your participation at any time simply by exiting this page or the survey on any other page. Any data you have provided up to that point will not be saved. Once the data has been submitted, it is aggregated with other data and cannot be withdrawn, since your individual data responses will not be known.
  • By consenting to participate in this research, participants do not waive any legal rights.
  • This survey questionnaire will be available to you online until October 13, 2017 and your participation will require approximately 20 minutes of your time to complete.

All data collected is completely anonymous and will only be available to the investigators of this project (Drs. Roland vanOostveen, Maurice DiGiuseppe,

Wendy Barber, Audrey Penner and Kayode Arowolo). The data will be stored and secured by password-protected encryption on computer servers in the EILab at UOIT. The results from this survey will be used as aggregated data for our research. The aggregated data may be used for secondary analysis in future studies of a similar type. For instance, the resulting data set, in which your data responses are included, might be used for comparison to data sets obtained from participants from other colleges and universities. The resulting reports will be shared with the greater research community through technical reports, publications and conference presentations. Links to many of these will be accessible through the EILab.ca. Given these safeguards, this research has been reviewed and approved by the Research Ethics Board of UOIT (REB file######) on (date).

If you have further questions regarding any aspect of this study, please do not hesitate to contact the following: Roland vanOostveen at roland.vanoostveen@uoit.ca. Also, feel free to contact the UOIT Ethics and Compliance Officer at 905-721-8668 Ext. 3693 or compliance@uoit.ca, if you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about the research ethics of this study.

With gratitude,
Dr. Roland vanOostveen, Faculty of Education, UOIT
Dr. Maurice DiGiuseppe, Faculty of Education, UOIT
Dr. Wendy Barber, Faculty of Education, UOIT
Dr. Audrey Penner, Northern College
Dr. Kayode Arowolo, Northern College

Having read and understood this letter of information and consent form, by clicking the START SURVEY button:

  • I freely consent to participate in this research project.
  • I understand that my participation is voluntary and I am free to withdraw at any time without consequence.
  • I understand that data I provide for the study will remain with and be analysed, aggregated and used by the study investigators for further research and education purposes.
  • I understand that the results (aggregated data) will be reported on in research presentations and publications.
  • I understand that my identity will remain anonymous.
  • I understand that if I wish to end my participation in this survey, I simply have to leave the website or close my browser at any time.
  • No data will be saved unless I complete the entire survey. Once the data has been submitted, it is aggregated with other data and cannot be withdrawn, since your individual data responses will not be known.
  • I am aware that a profile graph will be produced for me at the end of the questionnaire and that the inclusion of my name or a pseudonym on the graph is optional.
  • I agree that my data may be used for secondary analysis in future studies of a similar type. For instance, this data set, in which your data responses are included, might be used for comparison to data set obtained from participants from other universities.
  • I have read the letter of information and had all questions answered to my satisfaction.

Demographics (Optional)

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To create/edit electronic documents (word processing, presentations, spreadsheets)
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To create/edit audio recordings (podcasts, voice memos)
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To create/edit multimedia items (photographs, movies, slideshows)
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To manage any of my accounts (email, bank, phone, videochat service, TV/movie service, etc.)
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To manage or operate other devices (home entertainment system, thermostats, lights, etc.)
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To communicate with others using text chat or text messaging (SMS, etc.)
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To communicate with others using audio (Skype, phone)
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To communicate with others using video (Facetime, Skype)
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To communicate with others using e-mail
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To use social networking systems (Facebook, Google+, LinkedIN, Twitter, etc.)
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To use collaboration/shared document tools (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.)
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To share my works and ideas publicly (blogs [Wordpress], photo sharing [Flickr, Picasa], Pinterest, etc…)
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To access digital maps (MapQuest, GoogleMaps) or a GPS (TomTom, Garmin, etc.) to find my way or to get directions
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To search for journal articles on the Web
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To search for short videos (i.e.: YouTube) on the Internet
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To search for and download movies from the Internet
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To search for and download music from the Internet
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To search for and download books (text and/or audio) from the Internet
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To use an aggregator to automatically collect and organise documents (news aggregators, data feeds, RSS feeds, media aggregators etc.)
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To use and share a calendar/personal agenda
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To create and use concept maps, flowcharts, site maps or algorithms
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To create, modify and use plans or other diagrams
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To sort large amounts of data
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To produce graphs from numerical data
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To do complex calculations
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To do some form of programming to automate certain processes (macros, scripts, robotics, any programming language, etc.)
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To promote or market my business, work or research to others
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To remotely monitor or manage the appliances and environmental conditions in my home
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To track or improve my health, fitness, or well-being
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