Perhaps we should be worrying less about what counts as inside or outside a particular domain, and more about whether the comprised skills and competences are well-defined and coherent with each other? Personally I see no particular problem with different people defining “ICT Skills” (or any of half-a-dozen different related phrases) differently. Already in the WS ICT Skills the “end user” and “professional” skills/competences are acknowledged as having different extents. What matters, for transferability among other things, is that when they contain similar things, they are defined using the same definitions.

That is, don’t worry about disputing the water, be it ever so stormy, as long as we have a common categorisation of the fish!

But maybe there is another take on this?

The question of orientation of ICT skills is, I think, an interesting one. At first inspection, I thought “ICT skills” seemed to be a neat and tidy domain but on reflection, we’ve seen a number of developments over the last couple of years (or so) which deepen, darken and disturb the water:

1. a reaction against ICT skills in compulsory education (e.g. http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/, although the resolution of this tension is some way off IMO)

2. an wider view on the concept of “digital literacy” (taken on board in the JISC “dig lit” programme – http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/developingdigitalliteracies.aspx)

I wonder whether these (and other) ideas relate to the problems SSCs have with National Occupational Standards. Maybe the SFIA is going to be “it” for a while, something that exists while the distinctions within the spectrum of ICT skills, digital literacy, computing/computation skills, etc are clarified. My fear is that an analysis of desirable graduate skills would find them to be largely in the darker, deeper and disturbed (maybe also disputed) water.

Cheers, Adam

I suspect it is often difficult to have an “in-between” conversation, even face-to-face, let alone on line!