The Digital Commons has announced a number of fall workshops and panels for faculty interested in learning how to use digital tools and platforms in their scholarly work.
“We are partnering with groups around campus to offer a variety of professional development opportunities for faculty,” said Derek Bruff, assistant provost and interim director of the Digital Commons, a new initiative of the Vanderbilt Libraries. “We’re hoping these events will be useful to faculty and will provide a sense of the ways the Digital Commons can help faculty learn new tools and technologies.”
One theme of the Digital Commons’ fall programming is helping faculty develop and enhance their digital presence, with three events planned.
- On Sept. 15 from 3 to 4 p.m., Andrew Wesolek and Steven Baskauf from the Office of Digital Scholarship and Communication will lead a workshop on understanding and enhancing one’s research impact through the use of impact metrics and research aggregators. The workshop will be conducted via Zoom.
- On Sept. 29 from 11 a.m. to noon, Jaclyn Antonacci and Lacy Paschal from Vanderbilt Communications and Marketing will lead a workshop for faculty interested in using websites and social media to promote their work, connect with potential collaborators, and reach key audiences. The workshop will be conducted via Zoom.
- On Oct. 7 from 3 to 4 p.m., the Digital Commons will host a panel on academic podcasting featuring Ed Cheng, Hess Chair in Law; Kate Stuart, assistant director, Office of Career Development; and Amy Hill, doctoral student in German and comparative media analysis and practice. The panel will be conducted via Zoom.
The Digital Commons is also planning a series of “spotlight” events featuring faculty using technologies that have broad applicability to research and teaching across the disciplines. The first “spotlight” event, set for Sept. 21 from 3 to 4 p.m., will feature political science faculty members Brooke Ackerly and Kristin Michelitch sharing their experiences teaching with Wikipedia. The event will be held at the Digital Commons, located at 1101 19th Ave., Room 200.
“Wikipedia is a valuable source for information, but it also has systematic knowledge gaps and biases,” said Michelitch, assistant professor of political science. “We’ve been working to address this by teaching our students how to contribute to Wikipedia. This has high pedagogical benefit to the students, and it’s surprisingly easy with the instructional resources provided by the Wikipedia Education Program.”
Other Digital Commons events are still being planned for the fall, including workshops on citation management, sessions on presentation and poster design, and a faculty panel on text analysis and natural language processing. For information on Digital Commons events and to register, visit the Digital Commons website.