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Intense Data and Other Student Opportunities: Digital Competencies September '18 Newsletter

August 28, 2018 Beth Seltzer
Colorful abstract data cloud

Bryn Mawr College's Digital Competencies Program helps students build the digital skills and critical perspectives on technology needed for success in the digital age.

Welcome to a new year at Bryn Mawr! In this newsletter, we'll share some of the digital accomplishments of the Bryn Mawr community, and highlight upcoming opportunities for students to develop their digital competencies: the digital skills and critical perspectives on technology and data essential for leadership in the 21st-century. 

Our new student-created video gives the same quick introduction to the competencies that you'd get if you worked with us in person. 

Icon for 3.3, Cleaning, organizing, and managing data shows stylized graphic of a list sorted by…
Each newsletter will also feature a Competency of the Month. This month, in honor of the upcoming Data Intensive course, our featured competency is 3.3 Cleaning, organizing, and managing data. While this competency isn't the flashiest, it includes essential skills like back-up and version control, to help you organize spreadsheets and manage data without danger of losing or overwriting it.

What We Did Last Summer

Summer is always a lively time for digital work for students working with LITS. This summer, undergraduate students in the Liberal Arts from across the state gathered to share their research and work in the Digital Scholarship Student Symposium. (Read more.) 

Students gather by a screen at the Symposium kick-off.
The July Symposium brought in students working on digital projects from across PA.

Presenters included the Educational Technology Interns, who worked this year on digital curriculum, audiovisual production, and information security projects. Over the course of the summer, we tracked their competencies development, and students especially showed growth in the areas of Project management, Design thinking, and Audiovisual analysis and production. (Read more.)  These students will be presenting at a Tech Talk on September 11. Attend to get ideas for interactive games and assignments, and to hear more about the process of applying academic work in fields like film and computer science to hands-on projects that support the College.

Digital Scholarship Summer Fellow gather around looking at a computer
The Digital Scholarship Summer 2018 Fellows
This year’s Digital Scholarship Summer Fellowship Program ran June 4 to August 10, and was primarily focused on working on the pilot site for the History of Women in Science Project, a digital project that aims to use 3D technology to reconstruct the places where women practiced science in the past. Building upon the work of the 2017-18 Digital Scholarship Research Assistants, the DSSF cohort (Elia Anagnostou, Tanjuma Haque, Arianna Li, and Linda Zhu) used Unity 3D and SketchUp to create a working prototype of the Advanced Biology Laboratory in Dalton Hall c. 1904. To do this, they researched the physical spaces in Dalton Hall, women’s historical scientific practices, material culture, and the curriculum at Bryn Mawr College; the summer program emphasized the integration of digital and historical skills for historical inquiry. Additionally, the students participated in a number of activities and field trips to aid with their professional development. These included an immersive week at ILiADS at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and a trip to make photogrammetry models at the Library Company of Philadelphia. The DSSF cohort also participated in the Symposium on Bryn Mawr’s campus, where they demoed the Advanced Biology Lab and discussed their work on the project.

Want to hear more? The students will be presenting at a Tech Talk later in the fall--keep an eye on the newsletters for details! 

Students also developed their digital competencies through work on many of the new LITS Digital Bryn Mawr Seed Grants. In the 2017-2018 academic year, 19 grants were awarded for projects spanning different methodologies and disciplines; as projects finish up, we'll feature many of these the Digital Competencies website. Digital Seed Grants are open to faculty, staff, and graduate students across the College, and there are multiple deadlines throughout the year. (More information.)

Featured Opportunities

New! Interactive Videos, Online Anytime: Get a crash course on the competencies and get instant feedback on your skills and interests in less than 10 minutes with our new student-created videos! Read about the student's process or skip right to the videos on Moodle. The only question--do you prefer the animated bear or the robots? 

Digital Competencies Workshop, September 23: Give yourself a rare hour just to practice talking about your digital skills! This standalone workshop on articulating digital competencies to various audiences may be of particular interest to those interested in applying for internships and jobs with a tech bent (even if you're not in a "tech" major). Pre-register here. 

Data Intensive, September 29-30: Considering an academic project or career involving data? In this mini-intensive you will develop competencies needed to critically, responsibly, and effectively work with data, and will also have an opportunity to meet alumnae/i and other professionals and learn how data-related competencies relate to their work across a range of academic disciplines and professional fields. This intensive is appropriate for students with some previous experience working with data, or no previous experience but a strong interest in working with data and learning the necessary tools and skills. The application deadline for this intensive is Monday, September 17. Apply here.

Educational Technology Services Office Hours, Mondays 3:30-5pm in Canaday 315: Interested in developing a new digital assignment or learning a new technology? Educational Technology Services holds open office hours for faculty, staff and students to consult on their educational technology needs, including Moodle, digital assignments, class websites, and more. No appointments needed!

Upcoming Events

See the full events calendar.

Questions? Comments? Want to get involved? Email us at digicomp@brynmawr.edu.