05 August 2026 - Digital Capability Is Not Simply Developed. It Is Enabled
Tom Bennett SFHEA
Universities often ask a familiar question.
How do we improve digital capability?
It is a reasonable question.
Digital capability now influences teaching, assessment, student experience, employability, accessibility, AI adoption, organisational resilience and many of the transformation agendas currently shaping higher education.
Whether institutions are redesigning assessment, embedding AI, improving accessibility, enhancing the student experience or reviewing curriculum models, digital capability is often identified as a critical enabler of change.
But I wonder whether the question is sometimes incomplete.
More training.
More workshops.
More guidance.
More resources.
All of that can be valuable.
But capability is not always the problem.
Staff may already have the skills.
The surrounding conditions can make those skills difficult to apply.
That is why I keep returning to a different distinction.
Digital capability is not simply developed.
It is enabled.
The same could be said of transformation itself.
Universities often approach transformation as a question of changing individual behaviours, skills and practices. Those things matter. However, successful transformation also depends upon the organisational conditions that allow new ways of working to emerge, be adopted and be sustained.
Capability and transformation are therefore closely connected. Both rely not only on individual development but on the environment in which that development is expected to take effect.
The challenge is often less about capability itself and more about the conditions in which capability operates.
A member of staff can attend every workshop available and still struggle to adopt new approaches if workload leaves little room to experiment.
A programme team may value digital innovation but find assessment regulations, approval processes or system limitations working against them.
An institution may invest heavily in digital capability development while leaving the surrounding conditions unchanged.
When that happens, digital capability becomes something universities encourage rather than something they enable.
This matters because people build confidence when they can apply what they have learned, when systems support the intended practice, and when leaders signal that innovation is valued.
Individual development still matters. Staff need time and support to build new skills.
But individual development cannot compensate for institutional conditions that make those skills difficult to use.
One example appears regularly in assessment.
A university may encourage staff to explore more authentic, technology-enabled assessment approaches. Staff attend workshops. Guidance is produced. Examples are shared.
Yet programme teams may still struggle to adopt those approaches if approval processes are complex, workload models do not recognise redesign activity, or assessment regulations create unintended constraints. In that context, teams may return to more familiar assessment patterns, not because they lack imagination, but because redesign is too difficult to absorb.
The capability exists.
The conditions do not.
This is often where transformation efforts begin to stall. The ambition for change may be clear, staff may be willing to engage, and development opportunities may be available, yet the organisational conditions required to support implementation remain absent.
The same issue can appear in accessibility.
A lecturer may understand accessibility requirements and know exactly how to improve digital content.
Yet if templates are inconsistent, platforms are fragmented, support routes are unclear and workload is already stretched, capability alone may not translate into practice.
The same pattern can increasingly be seen in the adoption of generative AI.
Staff may understand the technology, recognise potential benefits and be willing to experiment. However, uncertainty around policy, assessment design, governance arrangements or workload implications can limit meaningful adoption.
Again, the capability may exist while the enabling conditions do not.
That is why I increasingly find myself asking a different question.
Not:
How do we improve digital capability?
But:
What conditions make digital capability possible?
Those conditions include curriculum design, assessment strategy, workload allocation, learning technology, educational development, leadership expectations, recognition and reward, accessibility requirements and professional communities.
Before commissioning another workshop or producing another guide, institutions might ask four practical questions:
- What digital practice are we trying to enable?
- What conditions currently make that practice difficult?
- Who can change those conditions?
- What evidence would show that capability is being used in everyday practice?
Digital capability is not simply an individual characteristic. It is partly a product of the environment in which people work.
That matters as universities navigate AI, hybrid learning, accessibility, digital assessment and rapidly changing student expectations.
It also has implications for how institutions measure digital maturity.
Metrics focused only on training participation, workshop attendance or self-reported confidence may tell only part of the story. An institution may have digitally capable colleagues while still lacking the conditions needed for capability to influence everyday practice.
The more revealing question may be whether capability is translating into curriculum design, assessment innovation, accessibility improvements and student experience.
If digital capability is genuinely a strategic priority, it should influence curriculum design, assessment strategy, workload planning, educational development, technology investment and institutional governance.
Otherwise, universities risk asking individuals to solve problems that are actually systemic.
Many transformation initiatives struggle for precisely this reason. Institutions focus considerable effort on developing individual capability while paying less attention to the systems, processes, governance arrangements and workload models that determine whether new practices can take root.
For institutional leaders, the question is not only where digital capability sits.
It is who can change the curriculum, systems, workload and support conditions that make it possible.
Digital capability is therefore more than a staff development challenge.
It is also a transformation challenge.
The institutions most likely to succeed will not simply ask how they can improve digital capability. They will ask how they can create the conditions in which capability can flourish and contribute to meaningful, sustainable transformation.
