Junior Video Assistant Opportunity (Modern Apprentice)

Posted on 13/09/2018 by Aldona

To apply for this post, please submit your CV and Covering Letter, with details of your motivations for the role, to YouthTalent@ed.ac.uk

What might a typical day in this job look like?

Under the direction of Senior Digital Content Officer (Media) the typical duties will include:

• Assisting with filming short videos (promotional, educational, documentary)
• Scheduling projects
• Editing videos using Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects
• Transcribing videos
• Archiving and tagging video/audio files with the appropriate metadata
• Assisting with recording podcasts
• Uploading media to different platforms

What will I learn?

The successful applicant will gain experience of:

• Multimedia skills as part of a talented and committed digital development team within a large organisation
• Working with Adobe creative suite , particularly Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
• Working with a broad range of academic and support staff across the CAHSS, increasing communication confidence and interpersonal skills electronically, by telephone and face-to-face interaction.
• Working accurately and methodically with due attention to detail.
• Gaining confidence working within a team environment, and develop problem solving and customer service skills.

What qualification or qualities are required?

• We are looking for an individual who is proactive, friendly, and flexible and understands the importance of team work.
• Ideally a HND or HNC in Television or Audio Visual Technology with some demonstrable experience of related work outside of this qualification.
• National 5 or above in English and Maths required.
• A working understanding of IT packages or similar e.g. Excel, Microsoft packages.
• A demonstrable interest in digital development
• A demonstrable interest end experience of filming and/or editing video
• A willingness to learn and develop new skills.
• A willingness to participate in a Modern Apprentice programme.

Please see the full details: https://www.apprenticeships.scot/vacancy-details/?refCode=117801

Regional Ethnology of Scotland | New site

Posted on 27/06/2018 by annharrison

Delighted to announce the publication of a new website for the Regional Ethnology of Scotland research group in collaboration with European Ethnology Research Centre.

http://www.regionalethnologyscotland.llc.ed.ac.uk/

This site was developed and designed by the Digital Innovation team using Drupal 8 and Bootstrap , as a visually pleasing and interactive reference guide for the activities of the Centre as it extends it reach from Dumfries and Galloway to the whole of Scotland.

The site has been revamped visually and structurally to support the user to refine geographically, and direct towards different media content. Rich media content in the form of an interactive map, oral history recordings and image and video content support the Centre in showcasing research output in a user-first approach.

“I just wanted to thank you on behalf of the EERC for all your work in creating the Regional Ethnology of Scotland website. Its comprehensive search facility and straightforward navigation is a real boon; it also looks fantastic. All in all, it’s the ideal platform for both promoting the project and disseminating its various outputs.

I’d also like to add a note of personal thanks to Ann and Gavin, who at all times have been happy to share their expertise and ideas, and to answer any questions – all in a way that made it understandable to someone who knows little about computing.”

Kenneth Veitch, EERC

#cahssdigitalinnovationteam #eerc #killingit #giveusashout

The Space and The Place | Creative Industries Interdisciplinary Conference

Posted on 27/06/2018 by annharrison

This week the Centre for Research Collections hosted a conference bringing interdisciplinary world class scholars from various institutions together to discuss state of the art research on creative industries with a focus on the relationship between space and place.

Looking at the relationship between space and place, the Digital Innovation team were tasked with developing an asset suite and a narrative direction for the conference artwork, tying together the Edinburgh Futures Institute redevelopment with innovation and interdisciplinarity.

Edinburgh Futures Institute building video shot

Creative Industries Interdisciplinary Conference

Rachel Hosker, Louise Williams and Clare Button from CRC could not have been more generous with their time and knowledge as we were putting together ideas and suggested some excellent candidates: Conrad Hal Waddington, Norman Dott, Gertrude Helzfeld and Isabella Pringle. All associated with the Old Royal Infirmary on Lauriston Place and all alumni or former employees of the University of Edinburgh.

Barry Topping, College videographer put together a video, we created take-home postcard sets from vintage ORI images from the Lothian Health Services Archive (thanks Louise!), a digital timeline of the history of the ORI and a set of posters.

Take a look at the timeline here

https://time.graphics/line/103130

(TIP: you can shrink the timeline down using the minus arrow to see it all on one screen!)

#killingit #getintouch #CAHSSdigitalinnovationteam #efi

Excel at Drupal 8 structuring

Posted on 06/06/2018 by Gavin

For large-scale Drupal projects, one of the tools we use at the requirements-gathering stage is a build spec document. Previously, we used the one from palantir.net’s blog post. But with the arrival of Drupal 8, having Media in core, and the Paragraphs module, we needed an updated version.

Drupal 8 Build Spec 1.0

Although this is a technical document, mainly for use by developers, producing it at an early stage helps to inform the whole project by raising questions about how the system will work. For example:

“What page templates do we need?” – By listing likely content types, as well as views, we have an idea of what templates will need to be designed, and what fields are likely to appear.
“Is this vocabulary really a content type?” – If you find that a vocabulary is being given fields and is likely to have its own templates, you might consider making it a content type instead.
“Should the banner image in news/events items be mandatory?” – If clients don’t have appropriate images, will they be able to use default images, or will the design need to accommodate items without images?
“Can programmes belong to more than one theme?” – If the design uses colour-coding, what happens if an item can have more than one theme attached (or none)? Can the design accommodate this?
“How will the site be structured and what should URLs look like?” – In addition to sitemaps, there’s a philosophical question of how to structure paths and where each item of content should live. By nesting destination pages under a theme, you risk limiting the flexibility of these pages and creating unwieldy URLs. Defining simple paths based on content type is often cleaner and more flexible.
“Should this intro text include HTML?” – The intro text in a design may be plain paragraph text, but will users want to use simple formatting?
“What image styles do we require?” – How should the system scale and crop images, and will content editors need to find images in specific dimensions?

This is a sample of the types of question that are prompted by filling in the spreadsheet, and all require input from clients, copywriters, designers, and front-end and back-end developers. For this reason, it’s useful to complete the spreadsheet early in the process. Whilst the document itself is technical and geared towards Drupal developers, it can be shared with all parties, alongside other requirements documentation such as a more traditional functional specification document (with MoSCoW prioritisation) or user stories.

The CAHSS Web Team is now the Digital Innovation Team

Posted on 09/05/2017 by Aldona

It is official – the Web Team is now the Digital Innovation Team.

Firstly, colleagues from the Digital Scholarship Team have joined our office – so a big welcome to Helen Bradley and Emma Cockburn who are the Digital Scholarship Assistants.

More information about their work in the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences can be found on the Digital Scholarship website.

I think we can justify why “digital” rather than “web” easily. For the past few years, we have refined our process of designing for mobiles and tablets as well as desktops. Services provided by the team include multimedia design, digital publications and infographics, intranet applications, online chat, social media and email marketing. Quite a diverse remit for a relatively small team.

Now, how about “innovation”? I agree that this is an ambitious title. It is also aspirational. Not every single aspect of our work is necessary innovative, and we are not setting ourselves apart from other digital teams claiming that our processes or products are somehow more cutting-edge. This would be a tall order. We do however get the opportunity of working on a very diverse set of projects across the College and the opportunity to grow and develop our skills.

What is required of us is the understanding of how the latest technologies can support research. By listening to and supporting our academic colleagues in CAHSS we are hoping to collectively find (and share) novel approaches and novel solutions. Funding bodies such as the Arts and Humanities Research Council place a high value in innovation: http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/innovation/.

We will also need to be more aware of the interesting work created by Information Services and other digital teams in house and in a wider context.

The next months will see further communications about this change with more details to follow.

The University of Edinburgh Open Knowledge Network #uoeokn – Event 2 (28 April 2017)

Posted on 01/05/2017 by Guillaume

# uoeokn 2: a great day to catch up with what colleagues have been working on in this expanding field of ‘open knowledge’.

A morning of lightning talks

First, all morning lightning talks emphasize the natural and ever-present connections between research and teaching, and how they cross-fertilize.

Colleagues from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences point out key aspects and issues associated with adventuring into open knowledge territory. Challenging and fascinating question arise from the School of Divinity, Edinburgh College of Art, and Moray House School of Education.

University colleagues beyond bring a lot to the conversation on open knowledge too. They contribute valuable projects and resources to increase the University’s impact. Great things happening in Information Services and the School of Informatics.

Workshops on data use

Finally, the afternoon workshops focus on two different tools. DataShare and WikiData focus on using research data and opening them up to the widest audience possible.

Find out more about the University’s Open Knowledge Network

National Association of Disabled Staff Networks (NADSN) – Spring Conference

Posted on 21/04/2017 by Aldona

The NADSN Spring Conference was hosted in a nicely renovated and accessible Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation http://edinburghcentre.org/. I thought it would be interesting to attend not only from a personal angle but really useful in my role as a line manager.

In the world of web development, we are all very familiar with the concept of web accessibility. Still striving towards it rather than 100% compliant we are at least very aware of the possible issues and barriers and the good practice guides to overcome these. Web accessibility in the context of student or outreach materials has had a lot of publicity over the past 10 years or so (for a good reason of course).

Currently, UoE is also investing a lot of money to get rid of the physical barriers, adapting the old buildings particularly as part of improving the student experience.

There is a bit of a contrast though in a way the HE addresses issues of disabled staff. Stephanie Millar, Senior Policy Advisor, Equality Challenge Unit in her very informative keynote quoted that only 3.3% of the University Staff disclose a disability. This can be compared with around 18% of the interviewed general public.

The reasons for this huge discrepancy may be many. Fewer disabled staff being employed in HE but also much fewer wishing to disclose their condition for the still very much alive fear of stigma.

Generally speaking, everyone wants to be seen as a fully productive and able member of staff rather than a “problem”.

The non-disclosure is one of the reasons why it may be easy for the institutions to ignore the issues. Departmental culture plays a very significant role in the treatment and policies around the disability of staff. This created many inequalities how for example special adjustments or disability leave is treated. It is through networks such as the NADSN that the slow change in attitudes is beginning to emerge.

Thank you to the brave speakers who are coming with the personal stories as well as the knowledge of the field.

EdGEL…what EdGEL?

Posted on 07/04/2017 by annharrison

Jokes. Well, half jokes.

Last week, the CAHSS web team attended a hands-on co-creation workshop on how to improve the EdGEL website, with a long game of increasing awareness and implementation of the GEL and standardising our digital output using best practice and GEL standards.

So, EdGEL.

For the uninitiated, EdGEL is Edinburgh University’s Global Experience Language: a set of digital design and development standards, built to ensure that anyone who uses any of our digital services has a consistent experience. An unbelievable amount of work has gone into creating the GEL but it has not been widely adopted. This workshop was part of a plan to redress the balance.

Discover EdGEL as it currently stands
Some of the University of Edinburgh’s finest minds in digital led the workshop, otherwise busy with content editors, designers, developers, project managers and project sponsors (forgive me if I have excluded anyone from the list!). Everyone at the workshop was keen to make a success of the GEL (this is actually the most crucial element of adoption in my view – the desire to implement).

Our tasks in the workshop were to define
• What is the EdGEL website for?
• What content should it have?
• Design a front page of the website as a screen design (including navigation and content)

And to try to answer some key questions
• How can the website facilitate adoption?
• How can the website support adoption?
• What content should the website have?
• Should the website become a destination experience?

After lively and intelligent debate, across a spectrum of skillsets, we presented our ideas informally for consideration.

It is this type of engagement, that will keep EdGEL alive and it is our responsibility to use it to inform our design and development, whilst EdGEL’s new site is being developed. We look forward to a new-look, updated site, which supports our aims of creating usable, accessible digital output that reflects our needs as digital support staff.

In the meantime, asset creation, guideline consideration and examples of the flexibility of EdGEL principles in situ are being curated: watch this space!

Add a new page to your Intranet site

Posted on 07/03/2017 by Guillaume

Let’s see how to add a new page to your Intranet site, when you have the right permission level.

We take the Intranet site of the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (CAHSS) as an example.

Go to the Intranet site in which you want to add a new page

Watch out for sites and sub-sites. Check the Intranet site URL and see which level you are at.

For example, the College’s Intranet site is at https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/hss/ . The ECA’s Intranet site is at https://uoe.sharepoint.com/sites/hss/eca/ . Like all other CAHSS school’s Intranet sites, it is a subsite of the CAHSS top-level site.

Similarly, you will have many sub-sites locally, and sub-sites of sub-sites.

Add a new page to your Intranet site, in four steps

The sequence of screen capture images below will take you along the process to add a new page to your Intranet page.

TIP: If you click on one of the images, you will see a full size version of the image. Press the back button in your browser to come back to where you were.

1 – Start from your Intranet site’s homepage

Once you’re on the homepage of the Intranet site in which you want to create a new page, click on the ‘Page’ tab in the top left corner.

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Listen to our 10 most popular 2016 sound-tracks

Posted on 09/01/2017 by Guillaume

For the first time, in 2016, the SoundCloud account for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh attracted just under 100 likes, and over 3,000 plays.

A wealth of resources

Our SoundCloud account hosts a wealth of resources. With over 200 sound tracks, this is as many opportunities to enrich your content with digital scholarship, for instance for learning and teaching.

Access the SoundCloud account for the College

New 2016 voices in this top 10

Three new voices made it up to the top 10 most popular tracks for the whole 2016:

Maddie Long, a PhD student in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. Maddie talks about her experience preparing for the 3-Minute-Thesis competition. Congratulations to Maddie who won the 2016 UK final of the 3-Minute-Thesis competition (12 September 2016).
Vladimir Alpatov, of the Russian Academy of Sciences, speaks on historical attempts to replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin one.
Kenny Beaton discusses the Tobar an Dualchais/Kist o Riches website. Kenny focuses in particular on tracks Calum Maclean collected himself. He also picks a couple where Calum is also the contributor rather than his usual role of being the collector.

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