Microsoft Excel Tips and Tricks (Part 2)💡

Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

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I published Part 1 of this blogpost earlier this week, where I introduced you to 5 tips and tricks to help you make the most of Excel, and this blogpost contains 5 further tips! If you want to learn more about Excel, please visit my new Excel LinkedIn Learning collection.

Tip 6: Adding in multiple rows or columns at once

If you want to add more than one row or column in one go, this tip will save you the time of having to do this one row at a time.

  • Highlight the number of rows or columns you want
  • Right-click on the highlighted rows or columns
  • Choose Insert from the drop-down menu that appears

Tip 7: Adding bullet points

Finding the button to add these is not as easy as on Microsoft Word but luckily there are a couple of different ways to do this.

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Microsoft Excel Tips and Tricks (Part 1)💡

Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

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Feel a sense of dread whenever you have to use Excel for your degree? Well, we’re here to help! Many degrees will require the use of Excel at some point for data analysis, maths calculations, graph or chart creation, project management and much more.

Excel can seem complicated and daunting to some, particularly if you are relatively new to it, so I’ve put together a list of tips and tricks as well as a new Excel LinkedIn Learning collection to help you out.

Keep an eye out on our blog later on this week as I’ll be publishing the second part of this blogpost, which will include 5 more tips and tricks on using Excel!

Tip 1: Useful keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts involve pressing more than one key simultaneously and if memorised can save you a great deal of time. For example, use CTRL+A to select all the cells in a spreadsheet. Take a look at the following list of good ones to learn:

Ctrl + NCreate a new workbook
Ctrl + OOpen an existing workbook
Ctrl + SSave the active workbook
F12Save the active workbook under a new name, displays the save as dialog box
Ctrl + WClose the active workbook
Ctrl + CCopy the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + XCut the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + VPaste/insert the content of the Clipboard into the selected cells(s)
Ctrl + ZUndo your last action
Ctrl + POpen the Print dialog
Alt + HOpen the home tab
Alt + NOpen the Insert tab
Alt + POpen the page layout tab
Ctrl + SSave a workbook
Ctrl + 9Hide the selected row(s)
Ctrl + 0Hide the selected column(s)

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Resources to help you prepare for your exams

As we near towards the start of the Semester 2 examinations, we’ve put together a range of resources to help you make the most of technology as you prepare and revise for your exams.

Yellow and Blue banner with laptop, AU logo, and the text Digital Skills Library

Student Digital Skills Library

There are resources in each of the 6 collections that will support you in making the most of technology as you prepare for your exams

This collection has some tips and advice to help you revise and study for your exams

Exam season can be a challenging time for students, this collection gives you some strategies and advice for managing your stress levels around exams

Please also take a look at the general FAQ’s for exams, and if you have any questions about any of the resources listed above, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).  

Online Scams: Identifying Scam Emails and Texts

Blogpost by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)

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The Internet is a great place to connect with friends, work on projects, and even make money. However, there are some who will use the Internet to try and make money from YOU! Unfortunately, scams are becoming more and more advanced but thankfully I’ve got you covered! In this blogpost I’ll go over scam emails, what they are, how to identify them and what to do when you find them.

Make sure to read the Aberystwyth University page on spam emails before reading this blog post.

What is a phishing email?

A phishing email is an email that is designed to obtain sensitive personal data from you. This data may come in the form of your address, credit card information, or even your bank details! Phishing emails are usually disguised as legitimate business emails like the example below.

Screenshot of a Phishing Email from TustedBank
Image from Wikimedia Commons

It’s easy to see how one might fall for a phishing email like this. Firstly, the email notifies the victim that their bank account may have been compromised which prompts them to act urgently. Secondly, there is nothing suspicious about the link at first glance. So how can you tell the difference between a legitimate email and a phishing email?

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Introducing new features in LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform which all students and staff at AU have free access to, have recently released three new and exciting features. Take a look at the information and guides below to learn how to make the most of these new features.

New feature 1: Role Guides

LinkedIn Learning have recently released Role Guides. These will enable you to explore and find content related to a wide variety of career paths. For example, if you aspire to become a Data Scientist, you can follow the Data Scientist role guide to find courses, learning paths, skills insights, and community group spaces related to this specific role.

Take a look at the below video (no audio) to learn how to access Role Guides, and you can also find out more about them through this LinkedIn Learning Role Guides help guide.

New feature 2: GitHub Codespaces

LinkedIn Learning have also released GitHub Codespaces, allowing you hands-on practice to master today’s top computer programming languages and other related topics such as Artificial Intelligence (AI).

LinkedIn Learning have developed over 50 courses which include hands-on practice through integration with GitHub Codespaces, which is a cloud-based development environment. You can access all 50+ courses here, or start by looking at the selection of courses below:

Screenshot of Hands-On Introduction to Python course
Screenshot of Practice It: Java Course
Screenshot of 8 Git Commands your should know course

New feature 3: Setting Career Goals

You can personalise the content that LinkedIn Learning recommends to you even further by setting Career Goals for yourself. The two main benefits of setting career goals are to:

  • Connect you to career development opportunities based on the goals that you have set yourself
  • Help you to build a variety of skills that will help you to achieve your goals

Set your Career Goals by clicking on My Learning and then My Goals, and take a look at this useful guide to help you make the most of this new feature.

Screenshot showing the Career Goal function and the questions asked

For any support or queries about these new features, or for any general questions about LinkedIn Learning, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).

Explore our new Digital Skills collections in LinkedIn Learning

Do you want to develop your digital skills further? Are you struggling to find courses and videos from LinkedIn Learning related to those specific skills you want to develop? If so, our new digital skills collections may be just what you need!

All students and staff at AU have free access to LinkedIn Learning, an online learning platform. Read our previous blogpost to find out more about the platform.

We have developed 30 new collections (15 for students and 15 for staff) to support you to find the most appropriate content from LinkedIn Learning so you can develop a range of digital skills. Each collection contains 9 resources and these can range from short 3-minute videos to more in-depth courses.

Here’s an example of 6 resources you’ll find and which collection they come from:

Editing and Proofreading made simple (39-minute course)

Collection: Information Literacy for Students

Distractions caused by devices (4-minute video)

Collection: Digital Wellbeing for Students

SPSS Statistics Essential Training (6-hour course)

Collection: Digital Proficiency for Students

Organising your Remote Office for Maximum Productivity (26-minute course)

Collection: Digital Productivity for Staff

Foundations of Accessible E-learning (51-minute course)

Collection: Digital Teaching for Staff

Team Collaboration in Microsoft 365 (1.5-hour course)

Collection: Digital Collaboration for Staff

If you want to find additional resources to help you develop your digital skills, take a look at our student Digital Skills Library which we launched last week (please note that the staff library will be available in June 2023).

If you have any questions about these LinkedIn Learning collections, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).  

What can I learn in the new Digital Skills Library?

We wrote a blogpost earlier this week introducing you to our new Digital Skills Library. The Digital Skills Library contains six collections of AU and external resources to support students at Aberystwyth University in developing a range of new and existing digital skills.

We have been launching these collections on our IS social media channels throughout this week, but you can also take a look at the images below to find out the range of digital skills you could learn in each of the six collections.

Please note that the Digital Skills Library for staff will be launched in June 2023. If you have any questions or problems accessing the Digital Skills Library, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).  

Introducing the Digital Skills Library! 💻🔎

Yellow and Blue banner with laptop, AU logo, and the text Digital Skills Library

We have been working on bringing together a collection of AU and external resources for all students at Aberystwyth University to help develop a range of new and existing digital skills. These resources include teaching you about your digital footprint; and helping to improve your digital identity and wellbeing through providing resources to help with exam stress and information on ‘netiquette’ (online etiquette).  

In addition to this, our Digital Skills Library contains resources to help with your digital learning and development. We have resources available on using specific software, for example how to code using Python, as well as using graphic-design and image-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop and Canva.

We have also kept in mind that there may be some digital skills that you would like to enhance and so we have made sure to include resources to help you learn new tips and tricks in familiar software like Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and much more!  

Visit the student Digital Skills Library today and you can also visit our stand on Level D (ground floor) of the Hugh Owen Library this week if you want to learn more.

Please note that the Digital Skills Library for staff will be launched in June 2023. If you have any questions or problems accessing the Digital Skills Library, please email digi@aber.ac.uk.  

A second opportunity to discuss digital skills at the LTEU’s Academy Forum

We are very pleased to have been welcomed back by the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (LTEU) to deliver a second session on digital skills as part of their Academy Forum programme this academic year.

The Academy Forum provides a platform for staff and students to share good practice in learning and teaching. For announcements and more information about upcoming sessions, you can follow LTEU’s Academy Forum Blog.

We delivered the first session on 7 December and you can read a summary of our discussion. During this second session, taking place online on Wednesday 19 April ’23 (10:00-11:30), we will build on our discussions from the first session and further explore how we can support our students to make the most of technology.

Please visit the Staff Training Webpage for further details and to register your place. For all enquiries, please contact the Digital Skills Team (digi@aber.ac.uk).

RB&I Seminar (28 March): Mobile apps for research, assistance or profit

Person Holding Silver Android Smartphone with apps displayed on the screen

On Tuesday 28.03.23 (12:00-14:00), the Research, Business and Innovation department have arranged an in-person seminar to help researchers decide whether their app idea is feasible and how to go about making it happen.

The seminar will be led by Professor Chris Price from the Computer Science Department.

For further information, and to book your place, please visit the event page.