Comparative analysis of students and faculty level of awareness and knowledge of digital citizenship practices in a distance learning environment: case study

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic increase the use of distance learning while studies have shown that there is insufficient digital knowledge among students in distance leaning as they do not adequately use technology as a digital citizenship indicator, while the awareness and knowledge of digital citizenship among teachers and students remains a key criterion for improving distance learning that mainly depends on information technology. Therefore, this study comes up to examine the awareness and knowledge of students and faculty of digital citizenship in distance environment by focusing on two different higher academic institutions, namely the Al-Quds Open University (QOU) in the Palestinian territories and the University of Kyrenia (KU) in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 2020, using interview, descriptive analysis, and Z-test Technique. The results revealed that students and faculty in both institutions were aware of the digital citizenship concepts, but lacked the in-depth knowledge and understanding of concepts such as digital rights, digital security, and digital ethics. Furthermore, the awareness and knowledge of digital citizenship among KU students are higher than QOU students. Faculty in both institutions agreed with the importance of integrating digital citizenship practices such as digital rights, digital security, and digital ethics into elearning curriculum.