1. **Assessment of Internet skills** The files related to this work represent the assessment of Internet skills used in my research to determine how well participants could use the Internet. Each participant carried out a generic assessment of Internet skills.The assessment was based closely on methods used by Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2010) who proposed definitions of Internet skills to allow for nuanced understanding of the complexities of Internet based tasks. They divided Internet skills into four categories (operational, formal, information, and strategic) and asked randomly selected participants from the Dutch population to carry out a series of increasingly complex online activities. For my PhD study, Van Deursen and Van Dijk’s method was simplified and modified for use with people with aphasia. Prior to data collection with the participants, a pilot version was tested with a member of the Newcastle aphasia research user group (ARUG) and a volunteer participant without aphasia. Their performance on the assessment and their feedback during pilot trials informed the final design. Description of Operational, Formal, Information, and Strategic skills based on those of Van Deursen and Van Dijk (2010, pp. 898–890) are provided below. Definitions of each category allow for distinctions between the different types of skills required to successfully use the Internet. A further category of linguistic skills (not featured in Van Deursen and Van Dijk’s definitions) was added as linguistic skills are necessary for most Internet activity and are likely to be affected by aphasia. The assessment was carried out in participants’ homes on their preferred devices. It involved asking them to work through a series of Internet-based tasks. To assess each of the skill types, four tasks were designed and presented in a presumed hierarchical order of difficulty (easy to more challenging). As most aspects of Internet use are highly complex, it was not possible to design tasks to assess each type of skill in isolation. Therefore, elements within each task were pre-coded according to the skills required. This pre-coding involved a level of assumption around likely routes individuals could take to achieve each task, e.g., the need to use a search engine, to enter information on times or dates, to scroll down a page. Participants were not penalised for taking a different route than the one expected (e.g., going directly to an appropriate website rather than using a search engine first). The tasks were designed to be of broad relevance to everyday Internet activities; the type of online tasks which require no specific knowledge but that participants may want to carry out. Instructions were designed to be accessible to someone with aphasia i.e., they used simple written language alongside relevant pictorial information, repetition of instructions, and task separation. The following information lists types of Internet skill and gives examples (based on Van Deursen and Van Dijk, 2010) Operational skills (O) These involve basic skills in information technology: - Opening websites by entering the URL - Navigating forwards and backwards - Opening various common file formats (e.g., PDF) - Operating Internet-based search engines Formal skills (F) These involve navigation and orientation around the Internet - Using hyperlinks (e.g., menu links, textual links, image links) - Maintaining a sense of location while navigating on the Internet Information skills (I) These involve actions taken to fulfil information needs online - Choosing a website or a search system to seek information - Defining search options of queries - Selecting information and evaluating information sources Strategic (S) These skills relate to the use of the Internet towards reaching particular goals which benefit the user - Developing an orientation towards a particular goal - Taking the right action to reach this goal - Making the right decision to reach this goal Linguistic skills (Lr) (Lw) This relates to language processing skills required for digital literacy - Understanding written information on websites (Lr) - Entering information using keyboard or other text entry system (Lw) A head mounted video camera recorded the computer screen and followed participants’ head movements as they looked at the screen and keyboard. The assessment comprised four tasks: 1. switching on a device and logging on 2. finding out information on weather for a particular date and location 3. obtaining contact information and a newsletter from a charity website 4. finding the cheapest train tickets to arrive somewhere at a particular time. For each task, if the participant asked for or appeared to need assistance, verbal or written prompts were given to direct them towards their goal. If this was unsuccessful, direct prompting alongside verbal/written prompts or specific support with language was provided (e.g., initial letter or verbal cueing). Finally, if needed, further assistance was given (e.g., hand over hand guidance, or repeated cueing). If participants were unable to complete any element of the task independently, the researcher would sensitively offer to carry it out on their behalf and move on to the next step. For scoring, there was a breakdown of the likely steps required to complete the task. Each of these steps were pre-coded per the types of skills required. Performance on each task could then be scored according to completion of each step, and according to the amount of assistance needed. The assessment was scored within the session, then scoring was reviewed later using the video recording obtained from the head mounted camera. To obtain a measure of satisfaction with their performance, participants were also asked to rate how they felt about their performance on each task on a pictorial five-point scale. Timings were obtained from the video from when the assessor presented the instructions for each task to when the task was completed or abandoned. These were then added together for the total time needed to complete the assessment. To obtain qualitative data on response to the tasks, detailed notes were made on participants’ performance. This took the form of a description of the behaviours of both the researcher and the participant during the assessment. Observations included the individual steps taken by each participant in approaching a task, the types of difficulties they encountered, the solutions they found, when assistance was requested or when cues were given by the assessor, and when assistance was beneficial. Appendix H contains a description of all tasks in the assessment, pre-coding of each element of the tasks, and examples of the instructions. I am uploading the assessment and scoring system as a word document as the screenshots used in the accessible instructions are now likely to be out of date and others may want to adapt the materials to be more appropriate to their region or country. I am also including a file with some data from four participants with aphasia who completed the assessment at two time points (A&B). The second time point was following case-based interventions to improve specific aspects of Internet use. The participants were not expected to change on this measure of their Internet skills so this data can be seen as an indication of stability of performance over two time periods. **2. Simple Facebook Writing Assessment** The assessment for writing on Facebook was used to establish baseline ability to write within Facebook for one of the case study participants from my PhD . This participant had informally demonstrated that they could open Facebook, navigate the site, and click on ‘Like’ in response to pictures or comments. The participant did not currently write status updates, but liked to read those of others. An assessment was designed to determine ability to produce simple written Facebook content. The participant was presented with pictorial and/or written stimuli one at a time and asked to comment on each one by typing underneath the stimulus. The pictures and status updates were related to everyday occurrences and news from this participant’s Facebook feed. As responses for this person were at single word level and there were a number of possible responses to each stimulus, I did not develop a formal scoring system but compared responses pre- and post- intervention. You are welcome to adapt this resource but please make sure you comply with creative commons licencing and only use images that are licenced for re-use. I recommend using google images to filter search results to show only pictures licenced for re-use. If you plan to use any of these materials, please cite this page or my PhD thesis: Menger, F (2018). Inclusion in Digital Environments for People with Aphasia (Doctoral Thesis). Newcastle University, UK. You can contact me at fiona.menger@ncl.ac.uk Thanks to my PhD supervisors Julie Morris and Christos Salis for their support with this work. Citation for van Deursen & van Dijk: Van Deursen, A. J. A. M., & Van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2010). Measuring Internet skills. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 26(10), 891–916. http://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2010.496338