Digital Skills Newsletter Issue 17 — October 2022

Staff Digital Skills Training through People & Money

Semester 1 Programme Available for Staff

The Digital Skills and Training team are thrilled to bring back our Digital Skills Programme for the new semester. This year, we're running a hybrid programme consisting of both webinars and in-person classroom based courses to suit all your learning and development needs. Click on the button below to find out what courses are running for staff over the next few months.

Staff Booking through People & Money

The Learning app in People & Money is now the go-to place for staff to book training and find learning resources, and the Digital Skills team is using it to manage all bookings for our staff-focussed in-person and online courses. From this centralised space you can search for and undertake training and learning and record what you’ve done. Managers can recommend learning to staff in their teams and will have better visibility of their team’s learning goals and progress. Some of our new offerings for this semester include:

• Contextualising digital skills: Equality, diversity and inclusion in tech
• Microsoft Power BI: An introduction to Power BI and data ethics
• TikToks and Instagram Reels: Creating engaging short-form video
• Canva: An introduction for beginners

In terms of the Digital Skills Programme, staff will no longer be able to book training through the Event Booking website but can browse the People & Money learning catalogue for learning and development opportunities using the following steps:

1. Log in to People & Money.
2. From your People & Money home page, click the Learning tile to open the Learning app.
3. Type your topics into the search bar at the top of the screen (e.g. data science or Office 365) and press Enter to return suitable learning options.

LinkedIn Learning has also been integrated with the Learning app, so courses on this platform will be returned in your results alongside University offerings.

Developing Your Data Skills Programme: Graduations and Another Round

Tracy Steinberg, Developing Your Data Skills Programme Manager

Celebrating Our 2021-2022 Cohort Graduations

July 15th 2022 was another banner day for the Developing Your Data Skills Programme, when 85 Professional Services staff, academic staff, undergraduate and postgraduate students received their University of Edinburgh certificates for completing the six-month development programme. We heartily congratulate all our completers as we welcome new registrations of interest for our 2022-2023 cohorts.

Programme Structure

The Developing Your Data Skills Programme offers three capability levels to make it suitable for a variety of staff and students irrespective of their prior level of knowledge. For each level, content is divided into three topics:

1. Introduction to Data Skills and Programming (including Excel, R, SQL, or Python pathways)
2. Statistics and Data Analysis
3. Presenting Your Data

Now in its fifth year, the programme will follow a hybrid model of online learning with an orientation webinar and the option of recorded or face-to-face workshops and webinars. Along with completing a data project of their own choosing, participants will enrol in the course through the University's Learn VLE, working through videos and other online learning resources to develop their data skills.

Seeking New Cohorts for 2022-2023

If you are interested in joining a six-month cohort starting between September 2022 and January 2023 and finishing in July 2023, please register your interest on Event Booking. We will then contact you to let you know more about the programme and allocate you a cohort and start date.

Data Webinars for Staff and Students

If you're interested in learning more about data but can't commit to our full six-month programme just yet, check out these one-hour data-related webinars for staff in People & Money (Learning):

• Data and AI ethics
• Data Literacy for beginners
• Introduction to data science (for staff)

Students can book onto the same webinars through Event Booking using the links below:

• Data and AI ethics
• Data Literacy for beginners
• Introduction to data science

Digital Skills Student Intern Experiences

An interview with our former Digital Safety Support Intern

The Digital Skills and Training team were lucky enough to work with a fantastic Digital Safety Support Intern this summer. Amy Yin, a rising third-year Informatics student at the University, worked tirelessly over twelve weeks to help create resources for students and to plan new strategies for how our team can work with others across the University to keep our community safe online.

While Amy herself has written a fantastic post for the Information Services Group (ISG) Student Employee Blog, we thought we'd do a little interview with her to find out more about what she's learned and what advice she has to offer to fellow students applying for University internships. Read on for Amy's insights. (Please note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)

Q: What aspect of digital safety interests you the most and why?

Amy: I’ve always been a very privacy-conscious person and frequently notice poor digital safety practices in my friends and family, such as posting sensitive personal information publicly or using hilariously unsafe passwords. These oversights have potentially disastrous consequences, and I often find myself reminding them how dangerous it can be. […]

Professionally speaking, I am interested in digital rights and ethics. Spreading awareness about digitally safe practices is an important step towards having good policy frameworks that are up to speed with the rate at which technology develops.

Q: What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned on the job?

Amy: Work-life separation is the most important thing I’ve learnt, by far. As a student I frequently find myself working on coursework during ungodly hours in the night, thinking about my courses when I’m taking a shower, or just making academic work the centre of my life. A proper job with fixed hours isn’t like this […] Being able to get home at 5pm and not having to think about work-related issues all the time is quite cathartic, and a good way to enjoy your summer while getting paid for the work you did earlier that day.

Q: Has there been anything you’ve come across or learned during your internship that surprised you?

Amy: I was quite surprised by the amount of resources offered by the University that I never knew about, such as free subscriptions to LastPass password manager, and access to LinkedIn Learning. I also didn’t really know about the Chaplaincy’s Listening Service or the Report + Support platform for victims of gender-based violence. During a focus group study I facilitated, I found that [other students] also had no idea about these resources. This is very useful information to have because I am about to begin my duties as School Representative.

Q: What one piece of advice would you give to students at the University applying for a summer internship in Information Services?

Amy: Tailoring your CV and cover letter to the job you’re applying for really helps. My strategy is to apply for a small number of openings that I have a strong interest in, and write dedicated cover letters for each application. This may seem like a lot of work, but in my experience it’s proven to be more effective than submitting generic CVs and cover letters to a wide range of openings.

I don’t have much advice about working in ISG because my experience has been incredibly smooth and rewarding. Apart from enjoying your job, I would recommend going to Argyle House in-person to enjoy socialisation, and to soak in the brilliant view of the castle!

Want to work with us? We're recruiting a Coding Intern!

If Amy's words have inspired you, we have good news! Our team is currently on the hunt for a Digital Skills Trainer — Coding Intern (one post) to join us for 7 hours a week and deliver an introductory Python or R training course as part of our Digital Skills Programme. The successful applicant will also design and run a Coding Club to help students and staff develop their skills with free online coding resources.

If you've got a working knowledge of Python and/or R, we want to hear from you! Click the link below and apply by Sunday 9 October for consideration.

Start of Term Reflections

Satu Kapiainen, Digital Skills and Training Team Manager

Digital Skills Stalls around campus

It's only Week 4 of Semester 1 and already, the Digital Skills and Training team have been hard at work making sure students and staff know we're here to support them throughout their studies and work. During Welcome Week, we presented our services and gave out some new merchandise at four different stalls: three at the Main Library and one at the Student Support Fair in McEwan Hall.

The Student Support Fair alone attracted around 1100 visitors, many of whom walked away with our new "grow your digital skills" seed packets and sustainably made bamboo rulers. It was lovely to be out and about again greeting students in person. If you see anyone walking around with a Digital Skills tote bag, don't be jealous — you can find us again in the following locations to grab your own merch:

• Main Library Room 1.07 — Tuesday, 11th October (Ada Lovelace Day), 11:00am-5:00pm
• Law Library — Thursday 13th October, 2:00-4:00pm

Pre-Arrival and Induction Sessions

During this year's pre-arrival and induction period, we delivered nine "Making the Most of IT" (MMIT) sessions to over 200 attendees. Eight of these sessions were delivered to specific Schools while one was open to all students.

We also delivered a live "How to...develop your digital skills" session as part of the "How to..." series organised by the Pre-Arrival and Induction Team and provided a pre-recorded video on "How to...be a digital citizen and stay safe online," which has been viewed 150 times.

Student Focus Fortnight

Our Student Focus Fortnight is currently wrapping up its second week of workshops and live webinars intended to help new and returning students develop their digital skills. The last two of our 20+ events are running Friday, 7 October, but don't worry if you missed anything earlier in the week, as all of the sessions delivered during Student Focus Fortnight run regularly as part of the Digital Skills Programme, so if you can’t make a session, you can always catch up later on in the semester. For details and bookings, please visit the Event Booking system (University login needed).