Welcome to the first issue of the brand new Digital Skills Newsletter
Our aim is to keep you up-to-date with the latest news, courses and developments from the Digital Skills team and tutor community within the Information Services Group (ISG). The Digital Skills team offer a range of services to all students and staff to help you evaluate, plan and update your digital skills.
This newsletter replaces our previous Lynda.com newsletter. While it will include Lynda.com content, the Digital Skills Newsletter takes a broader view of digital skills development through a variety of means. In this issue we will give you an introduction to the services and resources we have on offer, from new courses to Lynda.com recommendations.
We hope you enjoy reading our newsletter. If you have any questions, feedback or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact us.
New Courses
Here at Digital Skills and Training we are always trying to bring you fresh training opportunities and are thrilled to introduce a number of new courses to the Digital Skills Programme this semester. The new courses cover a variety of topics and are aimed at different audiences - check out some examples below:
An Introduction to Microsoft Office 365 - As a student or member of staff at the University, you have free access to Office 365. This introductory workshop will build your knowledge of the Office 365 service. Open to all students and staff.
Information Security: Why is Information security important to me and you? - Joining our suite of information security talks, this session outlines the main reasons why, in an increasingly connected, data-sharing world, information security is vitally important to everyone. Open to all students and staff.
Data Cleaning with OpenRefine - OpenRefine is a powerful tool for working with messy data. This three-hour course is open to all staff, PGT and PGR students, and is ideal for anyone who works regularly with any kind of tabular data.
Academic Blogging: Blogging to build your professional profile - Open to all staff (excluding visitors) and PGR students, this workshop will provide an introduction to the new Academic Blogging service, discuss the benefits of professional blogging, and look at privacy, copyright and open licensing. During the workshop you will also have an opportunity to set up your own blog.
Library Bitesize Sessions (Students Only)
Launched at the start of the academic year, the half-hour Library Bitesize sessions have expanded to cover a total of 12 unique topics in Semester 2. These sessions cover different aspects of using the library, including finding specific literature, referencing, copyright, and more. Sessions are held during teaching weeks:
Every Tuesday 13:15-13:45 in the Noreen & Kenneth Murray Library (King's Buildings), Study Room 1
Every Thursday 13:15-13:45 in the Main Library, George Square, Digital Scholarship Centre (6th floor)
Focus on Projects: SAP BusinessObjects 4.2 (Staff Only)
In December 2018 the BI Suite reporting and analytics tool was upgraded and renamed SAP BusinessObjects 4.2. A member of the Digital Skills team led the training workstream of the upgrade project, which included creating a series of short videos to introduce users to the new interface.
The 'Getting Started with BI Suite' classroom course and workbook have also been updated and renamed to reflect the new version:
Celebrate International Women's Day on 8th March with Lynda.com
With International Women's Day just around the corner, we have decided to celebrate the occasion by highlighting three popular Lynda.com courses authored by some of our favourite females. Scroll down to find out more.
Pick 1 - Photoshop CC 2019 Essential Training: The Basics
In this course, Julieanne Kost filters out the noise and complexity often associated with Photoshop and empowers you to quickly get the image results you want. Julieanne reviews the basics of digital imaging—from working with multiple images to customizing the Photoshop interface to suit your needs. She shows how to use different Photoshop tools to crop and retouch photos, while always maintaining the highest-quality output.
Julieanne is responsible for fostering relationships with customers through meaningful and inspirational Photoshop and Lightroom instruction. As a highly sought-after speaker for the industry-standard digital imaging franchise, she devises and presents motivating and educational training sessions, sharing original techniques and tutorials worldwide.
Course Duration: 4hr 54mins | Level: Beginner
Pick 2 - Python for Data Science Essential Training
By using Python to glean value from your raw data, you can simplify the often complex journey from data to value. In this practical course, you will learn how to use Python for data preparation, data munging, data visualization, and predictive analytics. Instructor Lillian Pierson, P.E. covers the essential Python methods for preparing, cleaning, reformatting, and visualizing your data for use in analytics and data science. She helps to provide you with a working understanding of machine learning, as well as outlier analysis, cluster analysis, and network analysis.
Lillian equips working professionals and students with the data skills they need to stay competitive in today's data-driven economy. Lillian has recently become a data science instructor for multiple courses on Lynda.com. She's also the author of several highly-referenced technical books and has spent the last decade training and consulting in the private and public sectors.
Course Duration: 6hrs 32mins | Level: Beginner
Pick 3 - Effective Listening
Listening is a critical competency, yet surprisingly relatively few people have ever had any formal training in how to listen effectively. In this course, communications experts Tatiana Kolovou and Brenda Bailey-Hughes show how to assess your current listening skills, understand the challenges to effective listening (such as distractions!), and develop behaviors that will allow you to become a better listener—and a better colleague, mentor, and friend.
As a faculty member of the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Brenda teaches undergraduate communication courses, Kelley Direct MBA consulting and global leadership courses, and works on the Executive MBA partnership program between Kelley School of Business and Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Professor Bailey-Hughes is an advocate of teaching global perspectives in the business environment and is a licensed mentor for students and business professionals seeking to improve their international competencies.
Tatiana teaches business communication and cross-cultural effectiveness. She consults with executives and teams at large companies to develop effective communication skills for the global enterprise.
Course Duration: 1hr 8 mins | Level: Intermediate
Digital Skills Framework
Developing the digital skills of our staff and students is at the forefront of University strategy and underpins many of the University’s activities. Included in this is the organisation’s digital transformation drive towards a culture where every student is a digital student, every educator is a digital educator and everyone is constantly planning and updating their digital skills.
The Digital Skills Framework is a tool to help staff and students evaluate their current levels of digital capability, reflect on development needs, plan a development path, and find ways to develop digital skills. It provides access to over 500 resources and training courses, offering a variety of learning methods gathered from over 30 providers. The resources are either provided by the University, or are open and freely available. Students and staff can filter them according to their role, the type of skills they want to develop, or their preferred delivery method and level of difficulty.
We hope you enjoyed the first issue of the Digital Skills Newsletter. Keep an eye out for the next issue in April. If you no longer want to receive the Digital Skills Newsletter, find out how to unsubscribe from the mailing list.
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Credits:
Created with images by Nilotpal Kalita - "Mac" • StartupStockPhotos - "startup business people" • Eliabe Costa - "book girl" • 6689062 - "financial analytics blur" • 821764 - "portrait model studio" • darksouls1 - "gothic goth steampunk" • geralt - "woman stylish network" • rawpixel - "untitled image" • StartupStockPhotos - "student typing keyboard"