Certificate in Digital Transversal Skills

Program Overview

The Certificate in Digital Transversal Skills is a one-year undergraduate program designed to equip learners with the core digital and soft skills required for the modern workplace. The program provides a foundation for graduates seeking to access higher education programs in Business, ICT, and Computing fields. Upon completion, graduates will possess the knowledge, skills, and competence to secure entry-level positions in the IT industry or advance within their current sphere. The program also prepares graduates for further academic progression at NFQ Level 6 or 7 in Computing or related disciplines.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The Certificate in Digital Transversal Skills is a one-year, full-time undergraduate program designed to equip learners with the core digital and soft skills required for the modern workplace. The program is also an ideal foundation for graduates seeking to access higher education programs from level 7 on the Irish NFQ, broadly in Business, ICT, and Computing fields. The program's objectives are to:

• Provide graduates with the ability to advance their IT careers by attaining a qualification that enables them to secure industry entry-level positions or further advancement within their current sphere.
• Provide the IT sector with graduates who possess the requisite attributes to make a positive contribution to the IT industry.
• Provide learners with an NFQ level 6 Special Purpose Award that will provide knowledge, skill, and competence to set them on a progression pathway to further their education in various disciplines and specialisms.
• Provide graduates with the foundation upon which they can further their studies at NFQ Level 6 or progress to NFQ Level 7 in Computing or one of many Computing-related disciplines (in Ireland or abroad) such as Computer Science, Computational Science, Information Systems, IT Management, Technology and Innovation Management, Information Security & Digital Forensics, Information Systems Processes, and others.
• Provide graduates with an environment conducive to personal development established through the use of peer learning, mentoring, and formative feedback, thus allowing them to acquire new knowledge and the ability to identify their further learning needs and continuing professional development.
Upon successful completion of the program, graduates will:
• Be able to demonstrate a topical understanding of the fundamental theories, concepts, and methods in current Information Technology areas, and how they underpin the practical technologies, skills, and aspects of the computing and IT domains, including computer systems, office applications, databases, web, and creative digital technologies.
• Have an ability to convey knowledge and understanding of current best practices in foundational areas in Information Technology, including where the boundaries of their existing knowledge are, coupled with the need to continuously improve this knowledge in order to expand those boundaries, particularly in the areas of office applications, creative design, and web technologies, incorporating personal and soft-skills with their technical knowledge.
• Have proficiency in utilizing a broad-based skill-set with specialized abilities that allow work on projects that incorporate multiple core areas.
• Have the ability to analyze problems across various problem domains, design appropriate product solutions, and implement and test solutions to agreed standards, while being able to provide and present written reports.
• Have an ability to design and develop professional presentation materials using appropriate digital tools and methods.
• Have the ability to work as part of a team within and use informed judgment for the prioritizing of design and development requirements, developing appropriate plans and courses of action, and adopting suitable approaches to problem-solving.
• Be able to implement operational solutions within particular domains while adhering to specified system and operational requirements.
• Be able to draw upon diagnostic, technical, interpersonal, and planning skills as well as critical thinking, to implement both standard and inventive approaches to solutions.
• Be capable of working within a team or independently to identify and apply problem-solving to high-level issues within digital project development.
• Be able to work as a member of a multi-disciplinary and diverse team, drawing from personal initiative when required, including being able to take direction from supervisors, and feedback from others, to solve real-world and business problems, while interacting and communicating effectively with staff and colleagues at all levels of an organization in an international context.
• Be aware of the existing limits of their own knowledge and have an understanding of the necessity of continuing professional development incorporating the ability of processing and assimilating new knowledge and skills as well as seeking and making use of guidance.
• Have the ability to identify and understand the wider social, cultural, political, and business context within Information Technology as well as the need for professional standards and ethics within the industry to maintain the integrity and independence in their professional judgment, subscribing to and promoting an ethical approach to the provision of digital technologies and services, and to be fair and supportive of their colleagues and work environment.

Outline:

The program is designed for learners seeking to develop their knowledge, skills, and competence in Digital Skills and Transversal Skills that are fundamental in today's modern work environments. This special purpose program is designed to produce graduates with the attributes required of a Digitally Skilled employee today and the ability to continue to develop knowledge, skill, and competence to remain competitive and employable in an ever-advancing sector. The program comprises classroom and laboratory learning as well as interactive workshops. This is carried out within an industry-focused environment. Industry-initiated real-world problems will be provided by our industry supporters (including Microsoft Ireland and its partner network of 1000+ companies) and used as the context for planning and designing assessment solutions, as well as being an aid for problem-solving sessions. The incorporated learning from all modules aims to produce industry-ready graduates and learners who are prepared for academic progression in this fast-developing discipline. Modules include:

• Digital Age Literacy
• High Productivity
• Office Applications
• Effective Communications
• Acting Autonomously
• Inventive Thinking
• Professional Development
• Legal, Ethical, and Privacy Issues

Assessment:

Faculty will use an Integrated Assessment (I.A.) approach where these opportunities arise in both the full and part-time running of the program. As part of the assessment strategy, a cross-modular collaborative endeavor has resulted in an integrated assessment or cross-modular assessment policy. This means that a completed project is produced by students containing sufficiently developed elements from different modules to allow those elements to be assessed individually to satisfy the continuous assessment assignments of individual modules and minimize the possibility of over-assessment. The result of this approach is a reduction in learner workload in relation to the amount of assessments and the benefit of the experience of dealing with the integration of subfields of Digital Skills into a coherent whole. This also reflects the industry environment where nothing is developed in isolation. Some sessions of every module of the program will focus on formative assessment that scaffolds learning by exploring and identifying learners' own current strengths and weaknesses. Lecturers will utilize several methods, including Problem-Based Learning (PBL), group work, peer observation and assessment, and when appropriate, techniques such as flipped learning. As a result of this strategy, formative assessment is 'pipelined' into summative assessment. For instance, formatively assessed laboratory tasks may form the basis for a later summative assessment item.

Careers:

Graduates of the program will be qualified to fill professional roles that require digital transversal skills in various industries and to progress beyond these roles by developing the knowledge, skills, and competencies learned in the program curriculum. Graduates will also be prepared to pursue further academic studies at NFQ level 6 or above. In addition to their academic program studies, learners will also have the option of obtaining Microsoft industry professional certification such as Azure Cloud Fundamentals.