The general objective of ORWELL is supporting digital writing competences in higher education. Today, more than ever, students are immersed in a technology-rich environment, which provides them with opportunities to improve and support fundamental skills such as writing. We identified three specific objectives that helped us addressing the general objective (“Addressing digital transformation through development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity”: SO1. Supporting higher education teachers in improving students' writing competences using technologies across disciplines. SO2. Supporting higher education students' writing competences in digital spaces. SO3. Supporting collaborative writing practices. Overall, this set of specific objectives helped participating organisations and other organisations at the local, regional, national, and european level to address the digital transformation through development of digital readiness, resilience and capacity.
In several higher education institutions across Europe, students are given very limited opportunities to practice and improve writing competences. This represents a problem because, writing is a fundamental competence for citizenship as it is a powerful tool to reflect about complex topics, organize ideas, and communicate. Moreover, in several countries, teaching professional development is not mandatory for higher education instructors. Universities are targeting this issue, introducing workshops for young lecturers. Teachers may be experts in academic writing, but their expertise may not extend to other forms of writing, other contexts of writing (e.g., digital spaces) or how to teach writing (being an expert researcher does not necessarily mean being able to teach this competence to other ones). Finally, the project addresses the need to focus on the digital component of writing. What does “digital” mean when associated with writing? ICT matters, of course: in the last twenty years we have moved from handwriting to typing, from writing on paper to writing on screen. But the most powerful changes are cultural. Digital writing is networked, and because of this, often deeply collaborative or coordinated.