several fireworks explode, reflected in a lake

January 18, 2019, by Erin Snyder

New Year’s Update: 2019

It’s on into the New Year, and I’m welcoming back our student volunteer group of 2018/19 and wishing them well as they head into their exams! Once exams are over, the Digital Transformations Hub will officially open for the second semester with the aid of our fabulous volunteers.

This semester sees a few new things starting, and a lot of ongoing work as we carry on the DTH projects we started early in the autumn. We’ve got a number of student projects making great strides, from digitising paper archives to digitising dresses, working with 360 video and 3D visualisations.

In addition, as part of a marketing project, we’ll be reaching out to students in the Faculty of Arts to take part in contests using our equipment and software. Our goal is to raise awareness among students of all the ways the DTH can help them during their course. More details soon, but gift cards to Blackwell’s are at stake!

To support students participating in the contests, we’ll be rolling out some new workshops for undergraduates this semester, covering Photoshop, graphic design for posters, and 3d scanning with our new (free to borrow) suite of Structure Sensors and iPads. These will sit alongside our expanded programme of Research Methods workshops for research students and staff, Digital Research in the Arts and Humanities. We’re also working with research projects in the Faculty to put on some more specialist seminars and training events.

On a similar note, the Digital Tools for New Audiences project is rolling rapidly toward closure, although we’ve still got a lot of workshops and consultancy to offer small and medium-sized businesses in the region before the end of March! Our next workshop, on spreadable marketing, will be on the 24th of Jan, so if this piques your interest, why not come along?

In the midst of the grey skies and rain and chill of winter, it’s heartening to me to take a moment and consider the wide range of projects we’ve got on the go, the great work our students are doing, and all the ways in which the intentions we set at the beginning of the academic year have grown and flourished, occasionally in directions we couldn’t have foreseen.

We’ll be celebrating all of it at a DTH year-end party in May, where we’ll be showcasing the work of our student volunteers and revelling in an opportunity to look back over the academic year and remind ourselves just how much we’ve accomplished.

Until then, though, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get back into the work!

Posted in DTH DirectorDTH Projects