Blogpost by Joel Williams (Student Digital Champion)
One focus for the Student Digital Champions this year is to explore strategies and programs we’ve used to increase our digital wellbeing. This series will explore what digital wellbeing is and will consist of posts and infographics discussing reducing eyestrain, digital detox, working environment and much more!
This information will be posted throughout the year with several seasonal posts, including challenges for Christmas and Easter. You can also use the LinkedIn Learning collections we’ve curated if you want to find out more in between posts, and you can stay up to date with all new posts within this series through this page on our Digital Skills blog.
To accompany this introductory blogpost, we’ve created A student’s guide to defeating computer eyestrain! (text version and clickable links below visual)
Week 3 is our interview with Stephanie who works for TSB Banking in Mortgage Servicing and feels she got a pretty good grip of data literacy while at AU but wished she’d learnt more about her digital identity and wellbeing.
Our second graduate in our Digital Skill Profile Series is Korneliusz who has been working on a portfolio of work for a career following on from his degree in Film Making at AU. He wished he had been made more aware of the importance of your digital footprint while at university and next week on Wednesday 9 November we have an event on Improving your digital footprint and your online shadow as part of our Digital Skills Festival (6-10 November 2023). For more information, and to book your space on any event at the festival, please have a look at the programme.
*Please click here to read all of the other posts in our AU Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series*
Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)
*Please read my first blog to learn more about our AU Graduate Digital Skills Profile Series*
Our first graduate interview is with Francesca who now works as a support secretary within the NHS and wished she had been able to improve her knowledge and proficiency using MS Excel before she graduated.
Our Digital Skills Festival (6-10 November 2023) has two events on using Excel for both everyday use as well as working with more complex data sets. For more information, and to book your space on any event at the festival, please have a look at the programme.
A warm welcome to our Student Digital Champions who joined the Digital Skills Team at the start of September! They will be working with us throughout the academic year to encourage students across the university to develop their digital skills and to provide valuable insights into what support students want.
Noel Czempik
“Hi! I’m Noel, I’m an undergraduate Genetics student with a particular interest in personalised medicine. I’m also a musician and enjoy being creative at work, whether in a lab or a recording studio. My hobbies include painting, interior design, live music, road trips, nature walks, foraging and cooking. I also collect records and ghost figurines.
I applied for the Student Digital Champion role to engage in creative and meaningful work and further develop my digital skills. I’m passionate about the student experience at university and curious about the health and social implications of digital living. I look forward to supporting the Digital Skills Team, particularly in advocating for digital wellbeing.”
Joel Williams
“Hi, I’m Joel Williams, I am a 3rd year student studying geography. My areas of interest are volcanology and the impacts of climate change, focussing on how both impact people. I applied to become a Student Digital Champion because it gave me the opportunity to build upon my own digital skills, whilst also improving the student experience at Aberystwyth University for others.
Since my second year I have been an Academic Rep for my department. I have really enjoyed this role as it enabled me and my peers to voice our opinions to University and then see the tangible results of this. My hobbies include, photographing landscapes and wildlife, Swimming (normally in a pool), and until recently I played American Football for the University.”
Laurie Stevenson
“Hi, I am Laurie and I am in my fourth year of a Wildlife Conservation degree. I am looking forward to working with the Digital Skills Team again this year as a returning Student Digital Champion. I really enjoyed the role last year and how it helped me to develop skills in communication and digital creativity as well as pushing me out of my comfort zone in leading focus groups and conducting interviews. I am hoping to continue to learn new skills this year and I am very excited to be working alongside two new champions!”
🔔 Follow our Student Digital Champion category to keep up-to-date with all the exciting content that the champions will be publishing on our blog throughout the year, in addition to across the Information Services’ social media channels!
Blogpost by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)
Like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint is another Microsoft application you’ve probably used before. Planning for delivering a presentation can be daunting and even a frightening task for some, as not only do you have to speak in front of your fellow students, but your PowerPoint presentation will also be on full display. But, have no fear as this blogpost will give you some valuable tips and tricks to help turn a good presentation into a GREAT presentation!
Tip 1: Inserting Excel data into PowerPoint
If your presentation requires you to show data from an existing Microsoft Excel document, there is an easy way to display it within PowerPoint.
On the slide you want your data to appear on, go to Insert > Object
From the Insert Object window, select Create from file > Browse > then select the Microsoft Excel file where the chart you want to include is located > OK
This will automatically insert both the data and chart from your Microsoft Excel document
You can edit this data directly within your PowerPoint document by double-clicking on the chart on your slide
Click outside of the chart when you are finished, and PowerPoint will produce a chart with your Excel data!
We are looking to appoint two Student Digital Champions to work within our Digital Skills Team for a total of 25 weeks (5 hours per week on Pay Grade 2) next academic year, starting in September 2023.
The Student Digital Champions will support the work of the Digital Skills Team through encouraging other students to take advantage of numerous resources to support them in developing their digital skills. They will also provide a valuable perspective on issues relating to supporting the development of students’ digital skill in general.
Here’s what our two current Student Digital Champions had to say about their experiences in the role this year:
“My past year working as a Student Digital Champion has been really interesting, rewarding and something completely different for me. I was looking for something to do alongside a lab-based research placement this year and despite not having any previous experience in digital skills, or even a previous digital interest, I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have really loved being able to use the job as a creative outlet and have developed my graphic designed skills, but I have also developed lots of new skills such as leading focus groups and interviews, conducting user-experience analysis, designing and producing online content for various platforms and writing blogposts. The flexibility of the job has been fantastic, and I am looking forward to continue working with the team next year (who, by the way, are an absolutely lovely group of people), as a nice accompaniment to and change of scene from my normal university work.”
Laurie Stevenson (Year in Industry student, Wildlife Conservation)
“As a Student Digital Champion, I’ve learned lots of valuable skills which will help me in my future career. Getting to know programs such as Word, Excel, and Piktochart have been invaluable to my development as both a student and as an employee. Helping with running stands and on-campus promotional events have really boosted my confidence and interpersonal communication skills. I recommend the Student Digital Champion program to anyone who has a drive to help other students, and for anyone who enjoys trying new things.”
Jeffrey Clark (3rd year student, English & Creative Writing)
Here are examples of the different activities and resources the Student Digital Champions have created this year!
Please note that the closing date for these positions is Monday 31 July 2023. For more information and to apply for these positions, please visit Aber Works. If you do not currently have an Aber Works account or if you have any queries, please contact digi@aber.ac.uk.
Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)
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.
Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)
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 + N
Create a new workbook
Ctrl + O
Open an existing workbook
Ctrl + S
Save the active workbook
F12
Save the active workbook under a new name, displays the save as dialog box
Ctrl + W
Close the active workbook
Ctrl + C
Copy the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + X
Cut the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + V
Paste/insert the content of the Clipboard into the selected cells(s)
Blogpost by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)
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.
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?
