Welcome to Issue 4 of the Digital Skills Newsletter
A warm welcome to all new and returning students. This issue is jam-packed full of information for students, featuring articles written by our student interns and highlighting digital skills development resources for different groups of students.
Digital skills development is at the forefront of the University of Edinburgh strategy. We aim for every student to be a confident user of digital technologies and have the opportunity to develop digital skills while studying or researching at the University. There are a number of digital skills resources freely available for students, and we encourage you to make the most of these while studying with us - not only will digital skills help you study and research more effectively, they can also make you more attractive to prospective employers, regardless of your discipline.
If you are a member of staff and believe that your students would find this newsletter beneficial, we encourage you to share it.
You can find links to all previous issues on our website. We really appreciate your feedback - if you have any comments or suggestions, please click on the button below to contact us. Our social media channels are listed at the end of the newsletter, and you can find our stall in the Main Library twice a month - come and have a chat, we are looking forward to meeting you all!
Wait, What Do You Mean by Digital Skills?
Hiroki Hirayama - Digital Champion, Philosophy and Psychology Graduate
'Digital skills' is a term commonly misunderstood by students - I bet you thought it had something to do with coding. Well, you're somewhat correct. Coding is undeniably an increasingly important skill, but what we mean by 'digital skills' reaches far further than that.
It's very likely that you already have a bunch of digital skills. You might use email, instant messengers (such as WhatsApp, Telegram or Skype), social media, video streaming services, or play online games. However, this is not necessarily enough to prepare you for life at university and beyond - that's where the Digital Skills and Training team comes in.
We hope that what we learn at university will be directly applicable to what we will do once we graduate, and recognise that studying will give us transferable skills and valuable experience on which to build. I would recommend that you obtain some targeted digital skills alongside your degree that you can apply to many different contexts once you graduate.
A good place to start is the 'Developing Your Digital Skills' workshop aimed at students - this will allow you to assess your current levels of digital capability, identify areas for improvement, plan your journey and discover digital skills development resources. Click the button below to book your place.
If you can't make the workshop, take a look at the Digital Skills Framework, on which the workshop is based. You can use the Discovery Tool to test your current digital skills levels, and search for digital skills development resources using the Resource Finder.
Six Digital Skills You Didn't Know You Needed
Blair Fleming - Digital Skills Advisor for Students, International Business Student
I worked with the Digital Skills team as a Digital Skills Advisor for Students over the summer of 2019. My job was to map out the activities that undergraduate students can expect to perform at different stages of their studies, and create a number of Digital Skills Development Journeys to highlight the resources that can help students develop the digital skills they need to successfully complete these activities. I also researched the University's Graduate Attributes and top employability skills across different sectors, and curated a Journey to help students prepare for employment. Take a look at the Digital Skills Development Journeys for Undergraduates here.
As I spent my summer researching all things digital, I came across a bunch of interesting skills development resources on offer. Some I had never even considered before, while others made me think 'Why haven't I been using this all along?'. So, to share my findings with you, here's my list of six digital skills you didn't know you needed:
Adobe Spark
Have you ever looked at those cool posters or newsletters (like this one) with stylish images and smooth transitions and wondered how many hours of Photoshop mastery goes into one of them? Well, sometimes the answer is none - you can create posters, newsletters and more with Adobe Spark. It's free to use, and we offer a training course covering the basics and then some. (That being said, if you do want to learn Photoshop, there is also a course for that.)
DIY Film School
Useful for projects as you gain hands-on experience with recording equipment and video creation. Also great for personal use, if you want to start vlogging or otherwise documenting your student experience.
Blogging
Not only is blogging an excuse to talk about a few of your favourite things, it gives you the opportunity to show off your creativity, ideas and writing ability. It's a corner of the internet for you to develop concepts and discuss topics you might not cover as part of your academic work. We offer training courses on blogging for postgraduate research students. Undergraduates and postgraduate taught students can find more information on blogging on the Information Services website.
Media Literacy
With fake news everywhere, you want to be able to protect yourself from misinformation. On top of that, in academic writing, you need to be sure that the information you are citing is accurate and comes from a reliable source. The 'Library Bitesize: Fake News vs Real News: Discovering News Sources' course is an excellent introduction to spotting fake information and fact checking.
Project Management Tools
We all know how hard it can be to manage our workloads. When you've got multiple projects and deadlines all over the place, it's easy to lose track of everything you need to do. Not only that, but group projects mean you all have to be on the same page with each other. Sounds daunting, right? Well, fear no more because there are a few handy tools to help you get your projects on track. Microsoft Teams, OneDrive and OneNote are free and available to you through your Office 365 Apps. Take a look at the LinkedIn Learning videos below to get started.
Digital Safety and Wellbeing
With our lives becoming increasingly digital, we have a number of platforms to get our voices heard, and a variety of ways of communicating and connecting with others online. However, sometimes it's good to take a step back and take stock of just how much information we share, who has access to it and how much time we spend doing all that. Take a look at the resources below to start thinking about digital safety and wellbeing.
Digital Skills for Postgraduate Students
While the vast majority of our classroom courses are open to students of all levels, we run a number of courses that are specifically targeted at postgraduate students and researchers. We have highlighted a selection of our courses below - take a look and book your place.
Producing a Thesis using Word
This course shows you how to use Word’s advanced features to efficiently produce a quality document. You will learn how to use styles to format and structure your thesis, create numbered headings, position and label images, work with footnotes, add structure with section breaks and headers and footers, and create tables of contents and figures.
Handling Data using SPSS
This course shows you how the facilities provided by SPSS can help with the management of your research data, demonstrating the benefits of using SPSS syntax-driven commands to keep a record of data preparation, management and analysis steps.
Data Cleaning with Open Refine
OpenRefine is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it, organising it and transforming it from one format into another. At its simplest, OpenRefine helps you explore your data, identify and easily correct errors and reformat columns. For more advanced users it can be used to extend your data and link it with web services and external data.
Working with Personal and Sensitive Data
Researchers today are pressured to share their research data and make it accessible to other researchers. But what if you have collected sensitive or confidential data? For many researchers, the sensitivity of research data is one of the main barriers to data sharing. This course addresses the fear of violating ethical or legal obligations, lack of knowledge about disclosure control and the time required to anonymise data.
Realising the Benefits of Good Research Data Management (Postgraduate Researchers)
This in-depth course will provide researchers at all stages of their career with an accessible and practical guide to Research Data Management (RDM) and how it can benefit their research. It covers the entire research data life cycle from data management planning through to improving the visibility and impact of research data in order to increase a researcher’s profile.
Library Services and Resources to Support Online Learners
Lauren Smith - Digital Support Librarian
Access to University library services and resources is a vital part of successful study, and this is no different for online learners. In many cases online learners need more support to find, evaluate and use resources in the context of an academic system they may be unfamiliar with, and are often at a distance from geographically and psychologically.
Academic Support Librarians provide a range of support for online learners, including one-to-one advice via email or online meetups; materials embedded into courses and programmes; online tutorials timetabled within courses to fit with timings for academic writing and dissertation preparation; and asynchronous online activities to support information practices, contextualised to the subject and skills requirements of students.
Take a look at the recently updated Library web pages for online learners and students. These pages include information on how to use the library, finding and accessing online resources, and developing information literacy skills. For supporting students' information literacy, a range of support materials is available in the Digital Skills Framework (filter 'By Digital Capabilities' and select 'Information, data and media literacies').
The Academic Support Librarians have produced a wide range of subject guides for almost every discipline. These help students get the best out of the library with information on study skills, finding resources, and evaluating and managing information. See all subject guides on the Library website.
LinkedIn Learning
In August 2019 the University's Lynda.com online learning service was upgraded to LinkedIn Learning. LinkedIn Learning offers you free access to over 13,000 technology, creative and business courses developed and delivered by real-life industry experts. As a University of Edinburgh student, you have free access to LinkedIn Learning throughout the duration of your degree. Access expires after graduation, but you are able to link your LinkedIn Learning account with your personal LinkedIn account to keep a record of all of the courses you have completed and let prospective employers see the skills you have gained.
Kaseya Chisala, a Chemical Engineering and Management student, who worked with the Digital Skills team as a Digital Champion had a great experience with LinkedIn Learning: 'Before interning for the Digital Skills team, I was one of the many students oblivious to the wonderful resource that is LinkedIn Learning. However, once I used the site and saw the thousands upon thousands of high-quality videos on a range of topics including Excel, data analysis and marketing, I was hooked. What makes the site even better is that it's free for all University of Edinburgh students, so log in using your EASE credentials and check it out for yourself! Trust me, you won't be disappointed!'
Why You Should Work with the Digital Skills Team This Year
Lilinaz Rouhani - Student Trainer, MSc Social Psychology Graduate
Last September I was encouraged by a friend to apply for a Student Trainer position with the Digital Skills team. She told me about the flexible, positive working environment and how her experience of working in a similar position led her to her current full-time graduate job. Now, a year later, I find myself giving the same advice to others.
When looking for a part-time job as a student, it is normal to look for something that drags you out of the university environment for a few hours every week. On the other hand, it can also be difficult to adapt to a new environment when you only spend a few hours there at a time. Digital Skills allowed me to make new connections, and engage with something completely different to my degree and academic interests, while being in an environment that I was familiar with and immediately felt comfortable in.
Flexibility was another important factor for me while working alongside my studies. The Digital Skills team offered flexible working hours that I could choose and occasionally change to fit around my studies. But perhaps more importantly, it offered flexibility in what I did. While the classes I taught were picked based on my own interests and skill-set, I was also regularly encouraged to develop new skills as part of my job.
So now, if you are looking for a part-time job this year, I ask you: Why not use the skills you already have, learn some new ones in a positive environment, and earn some money while doing all that?
Applications for our internship positions are open now until 29th September. We are looking to recruit Student Trainers and Digital Champions to work with us from October 2019 to May 2020 for one day per week. Find out more by clicking on the buttons below.
Project Focus: Improving Your Online Learning Experience
As a student at the University of Edinburgh you can find course specific materials on the Learn virtual learning environment (VLE) - over 5000 courses have a presence in Learn. The VLE is a key part of our everyday teaching and learning experience, and the University is investing in Learn through a programme of work called VLE Excellence.
Over the summer we moved Learn from a self-hosted service to a cloud-based service to minimise downtime and provide a more robust, resilient, and secure learning environment for you. In addition, a project called Learn Foundations aims to deliver an improved experience for you through the adoption of a consistent course structure and terminology.
This means that students who study across subject areas, Schools, and sometimes Colleges, will benefit from this institution-wide approach to basic course structure and terminology, to alleviate needless confusion caused by basic inconsistencies. We consulted widely on the development of the new structure which was co-created with students and staff, and it is being implemented in a phased approach over the next two years.
The Digital Skills team are delivering a new programme of training from Semester 1 onwards to support the Learn Foundations project, ensuring that our staff are well-positioned to make positive changes to improve your learning experience.
We hope you enjoyed this issue of the Digital Skills Newsletter. Keep an eye out for the next issue due to be released in November. If you no longer want to receive the Digital Skills Newsletter, find out how to unsubscribe from the mailing list.
Follow us on social media:
Credits:
Created with images by fritsdejong - "tu delft university library" • Samuel Zeller - "untitled image" • FunkyFocus - "sport skating halfpipe" • Foundry - "library books education" • jose aljovin - "untitled image" • fancycrave1 - "code programming hacking" • genesis_3g - "hacker internet technology" • Marten Bjork - "untitled image" • Sergey Zolkin - "untitled image"