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Welcome to the spring 2022 issue of the Digital Skills Newsletter.
As we usher in warmer weather and fewer restrictions on daily life, the Digital Skills and Training team is busy preparing for this year’s Digital Skills Festival, to be held from 30th May to 3rd June 2022. This year’s Festival will be delivered in a hybrid format, with both online and in-person events happening throughout the week. We’ve also wrapped up our Edinburgh Award cohorts and will be welcoming a Digital Safety Support Student Intern to work with us this summer. Make sure you scroll to the end of this newsletter for a full view of our latest happenings.
We hope you enjoyed reading our last issue from February 2022. If you haven't had a chance to browse through it yet, make sure you check it out. You can find links to previous issues of the newsletter online on our website.
Digital Skills Festival Returns in May
30 May - 3 June
Satu Kapiainen, Digital Skills and Training Team Manager
We are pleased to announce that the Digital Skills Festival is returning for its second year. Free to attend to all University of Edinburgh students and staff, the Festival is running between Monday 30th May and Friday 3rd June 2022.
Last year’s Festival was a great success with 54 events running throughout the week, attracting over 1000 attendees from across the University. The Festival won the Staff Development Forum Developing Excellent Practice Award for its collaborative approach, relevance and inclusivity.
This year, the Digital Skills Festival is running in a hybrid format. 64 events are taking place throughout the week, some online and some in-person in our training rooms in Argyle House and the Main Library. Presenters from within and outside of the University will cover topics ranging from social media engagement to game development, and from reference managers to learning technology. The programme is sure to include something for everyone.
Take a look at the Digital Skills Festival website to browse the programme and book your place.
Learning at Work Week
Shining a spotlight on the important benefits of continual learning and development, this year's Learning at Work Week takes place from 16th to 22nd May. What better time to focus on developing your digital skills?
As Learning at Work Week is just a few weeks before our Digital Skills Festival, we're encouraging everyone at the University of Edinburgh to take some time during the week and pick out a few Festival sessions to attend between 30th May and 3rd June.
As a reminder to all staff at the University of Edinburgh, digital skills courses and other development opportunities are increasingly available through the Learning App in People & Money as Learning Providers build up their catalogues for September 2022. Log into People & Money, click the Learning tile and use the search bar to at the top of the screen to browse through learning options. You can also book directly onto our courses running in May using the links below.
- Office 365 essentials: notetaking made easy with Microsoft OneNote Online— 12 May, on-campus
- Media Hopper Create: Introduction— 23 May, online
- Adobe Creative Cloud Express: Advanced (formerly Adobe Spark) — 24 May, online
- Digital safety and citizenship (for staff) — 25 May, online
- Subtitling for media creators — 26 May, online
Developing Your Data Skills Programme Earns EUSA Teaching Award Nomination
Tracy Steinberg, Developing Your Data Skills Programme Manager
The Developing Your Data Skills Programme has been nominated by students for an Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) Teaching Award in the category Outstanding Course.
The Teaching Awards are an opportunity for students to express their gratitude to the staff who have taught and supported them during their time at Edinburgh, something that’s more important than ever this year. The nomination included fantastic feedback from a student on the programme
"I would like to nominate the course 'Developing your data skills'... because it has provided a crucial contribution to the development of my academic and life skills. The course is very well structured, easy to access and the material is very effective. What is most outstanding of the course is its facilitator, Mrs. [Tracy] Steinberg who is an extremely passionate, motivating, approachable and competent person. Mrs. Steinberg provides regular updates on learning opportunities linked to the course and ensures prompt support and guidance whenever asked. Thanks a lot Tracy."
The Developing Your Data Skills Programme is open to Professional Services and academic staff and students regardless of your degree subject or level of prior experience. The programme offers:
- Three capability levels
- Online self-study resources and orientation webinar
- Optional recorded/face-to-face workshops
- Complete online work and a small data project for a University of Edinburgh data skills programme certificate
Email the Digital Skills and Training team to register interest for the 2022-2023 academic year. Our new cohorts will start in September 2022 through January 2023, finishing in July 2023.
Students Achieve First Digital Skills Edinburgh Awards
Satu Kapiainen, Digital Skills and Training Team Manager, and Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian-in-Residence
This year the Digital Skills and Training team with the University’s Wikimedian-in-Residence launched two new Digital Skills Edinburgh Awards: Digital Skills Specialists and Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia.
The Digital Skills Specialists award ran between November 2021 and March 2022. The process consisted of a series of events, learning activities and independent project work designed to strengthen a student’s chosen digital skills. Six students achieved the Digital Skills Specialists Edinburgh Award, with projects ranging from adding Chinese subtitles to an existing MOOC to creating book review videos for social media platforms.
The Digital Volunteering with Wikipedia Award will finish up in May 2022 with ten students on course to achieve the award. These candidates have been editing and adding pages to Wikipedia to improve open access knowledge online. So far, a total of 23,600 words and 389 references have been added to Wikipedia articles on young British artists, women in astronomy, and much more. These articles have now been viewed over a million times.
You can find out more about the two digital skills Edinburgh Awards on the Digital Skills and Training website.
Digital Safety Support Student Intern
Vicki Madden, Digital Safety Support Officer
The Digital Skills and Training team is thrilled to be welcoming a Digital Safety Support Intern to work with us this summer. Lasting twelve weeks, this role constitutes one of many summer internships within Information Services Group (ISG) available to undergraduate students at the university this year.
Our Digital Safety Support Intern will be helping the team review our Digital Safety and Citizenship Web Hub, running focus groups with fellow interns to gauge what students value about digital safety and citizenship, and creating a range of digital marketing and promotional materials, among other tasks.
While recruitment for this year's ISG summer internships has concluded, students interested in working with us should keep an eye on the Information Services Group Student Employment webpages, which contain more information on our commitment to student employment and the types of roles available.
Look out for an interview with our student intern in the next issue of the Digital Skills Newsletter, coming your way this August. For more information on digital safety, check out the Digital Safety Support Officer's latest article, "Digital citizenship: creating safe and inclusive online learning spaces," in the Times Higher Education (THE) Campus.
Learning Resources for the BusinessObjects Upgrade
Catherine Koppe, Digital Skills Trainer
SAP BusinessObjects is a reporting and analysis tool widely used across the University to create and share information. On 30th March it was upgraded to version 4.3. This upgrade added extra features to the modern launch pad interface while the classic launch pad was removed entirely.
The Digital Skills team have worked with the Applications Service Management team to upgrade the existing training resources and create new ones for the upgrade rollout. The resources include videos, workbooks and familiarisation sessions, details of which can be found on the SAP BusinessObjects – Learning Resources page, with the videos hosted on a dedicated BusinessObjects Media Hopper Create channel.
Digital Skills Role Profile for the Technical Community
Christina Hussell, Digital Skills Trainer
The Digital Skills and Training team are working with the Technician Commitment Action Plan Coordinator and technical community to create a Digital Skills Role Profile for workers in this area. This role profile will contribute to the Technician Commitment Action Plan 2020-2023. The action plan serves to promote the Technician Commitment within the University of Edinburgh, ensuring the future sustainability and full utilisation of technical skills and expertise.
Role profiles are a useful tool for helping individuals and training staff to take a holistic view of digital skills development focused on a specific role. They can then pinpoint specific skills development needs and start planning a development journey.
Creating the role profile involves capturing the tasks involved in the technician’s role and then identifying and mapping the digital tools, processes and skills required to complete these tasks at the University in accordance with Jisc’s digital capabilities. The profile will then be added to the Digital Skills Framework and publicised to help the technical community plan their digital skills development journeys.’
LinkedIn Learning for Earth Day
Andy Todd, Digital Skills Trainer and LinkedIn Learning Service Manager
On April 22 the world came together, as it has done on a yearly basis since 1970, to celebrate Earth Day 2022. Earth Day serves as a reminder to us all of just how fragile our ecosystem is and how our actions, both positive and negative, can directly affect the planet we live on. This year, the theme was 'invest in our planet', with a strong focus on encouraging individuals, businesses and world leaders to invest in and switch to greener technologies and practices.
To help raise awareness of Earth Day 2022 amongst members of our University community, the Digital Skills and Training team collated a range of LinkedIn Learning videos and courses on the subjects of green skills, green practices, social sustainability, and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).
View our Earth Day 2022 LinkedIn Learning Collection to find out more. You can learn how to create your free LinkedIn Learning account and access the service on our LinkedIn Learning support webpages.
Keep in touch
We hope you enjoyed this issue of the Digital Skills Newsletter. Keep an eye out for the next issue due to be released this summer. If you no longer want to receive the Digital Skills Newsletter, find out how to unsubscribe from the mailing list.
Please follow us on social media using the buttons below to keep informed about our upcoming courses and events, both digital and in-person. For more information on our Digital Skills Framework and training sessions, please visit our website, also linked below.
Credits:
Created with images by Prostock-studio - "Afro businessman wearing augmented reality goggles at home" • applezoomzoom - "Hot air balloons flying over the sunrise mountain at phucheefa mountain. Chiang Rai Province, Thailand" • Natee Meepian - "Close up young business woman sitting at table and taking notes in notebook on table is laptop and many books. Student learning online. Blogger." • sergign - "Star shaped golden trophy for rewarding in contest" • Prostock-studio - "Studying together. College students preparing for classes in library" • khwanchai - "silhouette team work of men helping and lifting word, concept as improving and development business" • Who is Danny - "Technology, software and idea concept" • Viacheslav Lakobchuk - "My best team. Handsome concentrated curly-haired man discussing work with his colleagues and showing information on the screen while sitting at the table" • LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS - "Top view of woman holding paper cut planet with renewable energy sources on turquoise background, earth day concept"