Core modules
3 required
Digital Rhetoric · Designing Digital Projects · Teaching with Digital Tools
Electives
Choose 2 of 4
Attention Economy · Ethics · Accessibility · Multimodal Composition
Time commitment
10–12 hours
Completable in 4 weeks with focused effort
Capstone
Digital portfolio assignment or module
Submitted with a design rationale
What this certificate addresses
Digital communication is not simply communication that happens to use technology. It involves distinct rhetorical strategies, new questions about audience and purpose, and pedagogical challenges that traditional writing instruction frameworks do not fully address. This certificate equips faculty to teach digital communication as a rigorous disciplinary practice — not as a add-on skill or a technology tutorial.
The three core modules build a progressive argument about AI literacy as well as digital rhetoric. Module 1 establishes rhetorical foundations for digital environments and introduces AI systems as platform actors requiring the same analytical attention as any other affordance. Module 2 takes up assignment and assessment design, and raises — as a design problem — where AI tools enter the pedagogical frame and on what grounds. Module 3 delivers the full Cole (2026) AI literacy framework — conceptual, structural, and operative — as the certificate's analytical culmination. Electives then apply that framework to specific domains: the attention economy, digital ethics, accessible design, and multimodal composition. AI literacy is not an isolated topic in Module 3; it is the thread the sequence is building toward, visible in each module before it arrives in full.
Core modules
The required sequence
-
1
Foundations of Digital Rhetoric and Communication
Digital literacy as a rhetorical practice: multimodal rhetoric, networked writing, hypertext, and audience analysis in digital environments. How digital contexts change what communication requires and what it means.
Weeks 1–2 · ~4–5 hours
Open Module 1 workbook → -
2
Designing and Assessing Digital Projects
Best practices for designing digital assignments with clear learning outcomes, and for evaluating student digital projects with rubrics that balance creativity and rigor. What makes a digital project worth doing — and worth assessing carefully.
Weeks 3–4 · ~4–5 hours
Open Module 2 workbook → -
3
AI Literacy and Critical Digital Practice
The Cole (2026) AI literacy framework — conceptual, structural, and operative — applied to digital tools across your teaching practice. Produces a principled deployment decision and a prototype assignment with explicit accountability conditions built in.
Weeks 5–6 · ~4–5 hours
Open Module 3 workbook →
Electives
Choose two of four
Each elective workbook includes content sections, two activities, a branded artifact builder, and a repository opt-in. Progress saves automatically in your browser.
Elective 1
Social Media and the Attention Economy
Algorithmic recommendation systems as AI, platform literacy vs. fluency, and how to teach students to analyze and produce disciplinary content in attention-economy contexts.
Open Elective 1 workbook →Elective 2
Ethical Issues in Digital Communication
Structural analysis of AI systems, distributional harms, and the three-decision operative framework — applied to AI-based academic integrity tools as the anchor governance case.
Open Elective 2 workbook →Elective 3
Accessibility and Inclusive Design
WCAG technical and communicative accessibility, AI-assisted accessibility tool analysis, and designing assignments that treat accessible communication as a rhetorical criterion.
Open Elective 3 workbook →Elective 4
Multimodal Composition and Digital Narratives
Design decisions as rhetorical choices, structural analysis of generative AI tools, and building a discipline-specific multimodal assignment with mode requirements and design rationale.
Open Elective 4 workbook →Capstone
Create a digital portfolio assignment or module
Your capstone is a digital assignment or instructional module you design for your own course, submitted with a rationale explaining your design choices, assessment approach, and how the module integrates digital rhetoric principles. Upon submission, your certificate is generated and emailed automatically.
Questions? Contact Kirsti Cole at CWSP.