Improving your digital skills

Whether you are new to using a computer, feel you could benefit from refreshing or improving your computing skills, or you want to develop your technical and digital skills further, you may find some of the resources below useful.

Develop your IT skills

Whether you are a basic or advanced user, there are ways to develop your skills and become more confident, or faster using your computer or specific software.

If you like the online format, GCFLearnFree.org offers free online courses to develop your IT skills. For example, you can become a more confident Windows or Mac user, and learn how to use your browser to search and navigate the internet.

If you prefer to attend a face-to-face course, the best place to start is to find out if your local community or further education college offer adult education classes in basic computing skills. In addition, Learn Direct offers online courses and provides information about courses offered at local learning centres across the UK.

Students who are registered on the Department’s award-bearing courses (i.e. students with SSO login details) are eligible to enrol on a range of IT training courses offered by the University of Oxford’s IT Services department. You can also access courses delivered via Linkedin Learning using SSO. Courses are offered at all levels from complete beginner to advanced. You can find out more from the IT training website.

Make it work for YOU

Once you have set up your computer or tablet, and are able to access your email and the internet, there are a number of adjustments you can make to your browser or equipment to study more comfortably and productively.

For example, if you:

  • like to have text read out to you rather than reading it on screen,
  • prefer dictating your essays or forum messages rather than typing them,
  • need to change the font or text size to be able to read it, or,
  • feel you would benefit from removing distractions on screen to improve your focus,

Please have a look at the accessibility page where we share some tips to use widely available free tools to become a more effective online learner.

Become a digital scholar

Refer to our study skills pages to discover digital tools and strategies to help in your studies. For example, how to keep track of online sources and links with bookmarking tools and tips for effective online searches.

We would also recommend you browse the Bodleian Library How-to guides to support your studies.

Fact-checking, assessing online sources, and managing your digital footprint are essential skills for digital scholars to develop. They are more widely part of ‘digital literacy’ which can help in your future studies and beyond. If this is something you’d like to learn more about, Coursera, FutureLearn and other MOOC platforms offer free courses on digital literacy and skills.