Digital Fife news

Fully Funded Digital Skills Course on Offer from Digital Scotland

Digital Skills Scotland in conjunction with Kelvin College is offering a free online course to individuals and employees. The course covers all aspects Digital Skills relating to Digital Marketing including Digital Promotion for Business

• Understanding Search Engine Optimisation for Business
• Coordinating the use of Digital Media for Business 
• Coordinating Offline and Digital Media for Business
• Producing Digital Promotional Content for Business
• Data Protection and Digital Media for Business
• Understanding Social Media
• Measuring the Effectiveness of Digital Promotional Activity for Business 

The only criteria to access the course is that you must be over 16 years and resident in Scotland for at least three years. To register for the course and/or receive more information please follow this link

Digital Skills Scotland

New data protection advice service aimed at small organisations preparing for the General Data Protection Regulation

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) launched a dedicated advice line on Wednesday 01 November at 10am to help small organisations prepare for the imminent new data protection laws.

The phone service is aimed at people running small businesses or charities and recognises the particular problems they face getting ready for the new law, called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Find out more here

Developing a Community Website through Digital Fife

Digital Fife promotes the use of digital technology through work with community groups and a network of volunteer Digital Champions. We offer websites to constituted community groups to promote their work, online learning and be part of a like minded community.

Throughout Fife there are over 300 community groups involved. Fife Council supports Digital Fife as part of its wider work to get more people online, so there is an expectation that the group will promote the Digital Fife website and the online learning section.

www.digitalfife.com

Free Advanced Funding Search Facility Launched for Charities, Community Groups and Social Enterprises in Fife

Fife Council’s Community Investment Team have teamed up with Scottish Council Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) to provide this free advanced funding search facility for charities, community groups and social enterprises in Fife. It includes information on over 1000 funds and can help organisations to find funding tailored to their own needs - everything from small grants to funding for big capital projects. 

To access this suite of support and guidance available (including Fife Council grants) visit 

Fife Direct/Community Group Support and Funding

For further information please contact:  Nicola.Buchanan@fife.gov.uk

Facebook Privacy Settings

Check out these Facebook settings that keep you as hidden as possible from strangers and advertisers (and strange advertisers)

Re-Hashed: 5 Ways to Determine if a Website is Fake, Fraudulent, or a Scam

The internet is full of websites that are either fake, fraudulent or a scam. It’s a sad fact of life. You see, the evolution of the internet has brought with it a number of extremely convenient advances in the way we shop, bank, and interact with the world around us. At the same time, that evolution has also given way to new risks—new avenues for criminals to rip off the unsuspecting. 

Click here to find out how to tell if a website is fake or not

The Scottish Charity Regulator - Cybercrime Factsheet

The Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR) has published a new factsheet about fraud and cybercrime. Developed with Police Scotland’s Cybercrime Unit, the factsheet provides Scottish charities with top tips and highlights sources of further support and advice.

Although the number of fraud and cybercrime notifications OSCR receives is low, with more organisations using digital methods of operating, it is essential that charities protect themselves against any potential attacks.

You can view the full factsheet here.

Free e-learning opportunities on welfare reform and Universal Credit

The Universal Credit (UC) full service was launched in Fife on the 6th December 2107.

It is anticipated to have a significant impact on individuals and families in Fife, and on demand for services and support. 

Free e-learning opportunities on welfare reform and UC are available via the Child Poverty Action Group to everyone in the public and voluntary sectors.

Register by clicking here to complete a short course designed for Fifers, ‘Supporting Hard-Up Households’, and to access additional courses on welfare reform and Universal Credit.

Five ways you can protect yourself from online identity theft

If you shred your paper bills, you’re worried about identity theft. What about all your information that lives and breathes online? Read this informative 5-step article on the best ways to keep your online identity out of a hacker’s reach.

access article here

Writing Readable Website Content for your Visitors

It has been two years since Government Digital Service issued guidelines for writing online content, although the guidelines are aimed at Government websites, including local authorities, they are still well worth having a look at.

Find the Governments Guidelines by clicking here

Also have a look at our Digital Fifes guidelines for Writing for Websites

Almost a third of older people do not use a computer, study claims

The Office for National Statistics study has led to calls to ensure the elderly are not digitally excluded

Read more here

Get Digital’s new heatmap highlights large areas of digital exclusion across the UK

"The Tech Partnership, in association with Lloyds Banking Group, published their Get Digital Heatmap this week. It shows the likelihood of digital exclusion across the UK at local authority level, using eight different digital and social metrics to calculate the overall likelihood of exclusion." 

view map here

Digital Inclusion & Social Housing Research Study

Fife Councils’ Digital Inclusion Strategy Group has commissioned a research project with the aim of determining how Fife could work with social housing landlords to improve digital inclusion.

Read the report here

Scam Emails

What should you do if you’ve received a scam email?

Help disrupt fraudsters by reporting scam emails that you receive. People receiving scam emails are urged to report them to the National Fraud & Cyber Crime Reporting Centre.

Click here for more information

Something’s phishy: How to detect phishing attempts

Long gone are the days of the Nigerian prince email scam. Yet phishing is alive and kicking.

Cybercriminals continue to use this popular social engineering technique—not just through email, but through text and phone calls as well—to bamboozle people out of their hard-earned money. Learn how phishing has evolved from crude amoeba to four-legged beast, and what signs to look out for in today's sophisticated attacks. 

click here to learn more

Making Digital Real

Case Studies of How to Help the Final Fifth Get Online

Although the internet has great potential to help tackle social exclusion in the UK those who could benefit the most from being online are currently among the least likely to be connected.

These citizens in ‘the final fifth’ are likely to experience multiple, varied and complex barriers to getting online and sustaining their engagement with the internet.

How to help the 'Final Fifth' get online

Good Finance

is a new website to help charities and social enterprises navigate the complex world of social investment.

Good Finance also includes an interesting outcomes matrix, to help organisations to plan and measure their social impact.

http://www.goodfinance.org.uk/

Take Five to Stop Fraud

Take Five is a national campaign that offers straight-forward and impartial advice to help everyone protect themselves from preventable financial fraud.

This includes email deception and phone-based scams as well as online fraud – particularly where criminals impersonate trusted organisations.

Visit the Take Five website

Laptops Available for Short Term Loans

If you are a constituted community group or charity in Fife there are possibly laptops available for short term loans from Digital Fife.

Please contact Willie McCool

email: willie.mccool@fife.gov.uk 

Tel: 03451 555555 ext. 450506

What the Tech? 12 Tech Terms to Know Now

Do you know what these technical terms mean?

Autonomous Car,  Big Data,  A Cloud,  The Internet of Things,  Silicon Photonics,  Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning,  Deep Learning,  Augmented Reality,  Virtual Reality,  Mixed Reality and Merged Reality.

If not, or you want to learn more, click here

Stop nuisance calls to you mobile

Mobile phone users can send a simple, free text message to opt out of unsolicited sales and marketing calls from today.

The 'text-to-register' service, launched by the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)  and Ofcom, enables mobile phone users to add their number to the UK's official ‘do not call’ database by texting ‘TPS’ and their email address to 78070.

It is illegal for organisations to make unsolicited sales and marketing calls to numbers registered with the TPS, unless they have a person’s consent to do so.

Click here for the Telephone Preference Service

Scotland's Digital Participation Charter

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) are inviting organisations across Scotland to join a national movement to promote digital participation and basic digital skills.

This charter establishes a framework for organisations in Scotland to support the Digital Participation Programme and to pursue our shared ambition.

Find out more information by following this link

http://digital.scvo.org.uk/charter/

Digital Participation in Kirkcaldy and Dumfries

Research by the Dumfermline-based Carnegie UK Trust and Ipsos MORI set out to examine digital exclusion in Kirkcaldy and Dumfries as a way to help identify ways to get non-internet users online.

The full report can be read here

Digital Skills Volunteers

Fife Community Learning and Development have a volunteering program to support job seekers into employment through volunteering. 

To read more about our volunteering program, follow this link

 Volunteering Program

Our volunteers continue to champion the Digital world as we have also recently joined social media, using Facebook as a platform to stay connected and keep involved with Volunteering activities.

Visit our Digital Skills Fife Volunteers page on Facebook and our website at

www.digitalskillsfife.org.uk

Digital Skills Courses

Increasing numbers of people in Fife are being adversely affected by not having access to the online skills they need to use the Internet in their everyday lives. This is a disadvantage to them in terms of access to jobs (90% are now advertised online) and being able to complete Universal Job Match for benefit claim purposes. Community Learning and Development have a rolling programme of digital skills courses running across Fife. The sessions are free and supported by friendly tutors who help people gain the skills they need quickly .

Anyone wanting to find out more and get on a course should contact  digitalskills@fife.gov.uk

Net Safety

The internet is now part of everyday life. But many people are not confident about using the internet, and it’s important to know how to keep yourself safe, and protect your online identity and reputation. This guide provides some information on how to stay safe and secure, and provides links to further online information.

An easy read guide can be found here   ../webs/83/documents/SafetyNet Easy Read.pdf 

and the ordinary guide below.

Click here for normal Guide

[ download ]