As interest in digital pedagogies and technologies in the classroom continued to rise in 2023, ECDS saw a total number of 1112 consultations conducted by full-time faculty and staff, graduate trainees, and graduate fellows for over 51 different departments, programs, & centers across the Emory enterprise. Whether one-on-one or in a group, scheduled or walk-ins, the Center’s team advises on digital projects or problems with the technologies they specialize in, which include audiovisual production, monograph & journal publishing, data visualization, & mapping.
The Digital Scholarship Training Program (DSTP) is a paid training program for Emory Graduate Students from any department or academic discipline. It presents a unique opportunity for graduate students to learn digital scholarship skills, theories, and methods relating to research and pedagogy.
Students work with faculty, staff, and students on digital research and pedagogy-related questions. They are also paired with ongoing projects in their area of interest and learn the necessary skills while gaining valuable experience in digital scholarship.
The ECDS program offers opportunities for advancement, increased responsibility, and substantial CV-building. The program’s training and professional development aspects are designed to prepare all ECDS students to be successful in careers within, alongside, and beyond academia. ECDS is committed to supporting graduate students in their career trajectory. To this end, the Center hosts a variety of professional devolvement workshops over the year. In 2023, offerings included workshop seminars on grant writing, job applications, finding funding opportunities, and preparing for alt-ac careers.
In addition, the graduate coordinator regularly met individually with students for one-on-one career counseling and to support students in developing their grant application materials.
In 2023, fifteen graduate students participated in the DSTP. Our students came from four different schools (LGS [90%], Medicine, Public Health) and represented a wide range of disciplines: English, Sociology, Environmental Sciences, Philosophy, Religion, History, Physical Therapy, Comparative Literature and more.
Since the Summer 2023 semester, ECDS also offers one-semester experiential internships that allow students to explore alternative career paths.
ECDS conducted a series of 9 workshops across Spring and Fall 2023, spanning the following topics:
214 people RSVPed to this synchronous line-up, averaging 24 people per class. Workshop recordings were also hosted on the ECDS Workshop Scholarblogs page for continued asynchronous reference material.
Emory Foundations for Online Teaching (EFOT) is a professional development opportunity for graduate students offered through a joint partnership between the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence and the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship. Emory graduate students from any school are welcome to enroll. EFOT introduces best practices for online teaching and is designed for graduate students who are preparing to TA or teach partially or wholly in an online environment. In 2023, the six-week EFOT course welcomed six students from English (LGS), Physics (LGS), Cancer Biology (SOM), Historical Studies in Theology and Religion (GDR), Islamic Studies (GDR), and Hebrew Bible (GDR).
ECDS offered Technology, Pedagogy, Curriculum + Research Program as a six-week TATTO extension from February 7th- March 23rd, 2023. Five students from the Laney Graduate School (Sociology, Philosophy, Development Practice), and a faculty member from Emory’s Nursing School took part in the 2023 TPC+R. It was taught by Kaelyn McAdams as the lead Instructor and Ekram Towsif as the Teaching Assistant.
Participants familiarized themselves with digital tools, discussed practical and theoretical models for digital scholarship, and received assistance in developing materials for their own courses and/or research. Digital tools addressed in this course included low-bridge technologies (JS Timeline, StoryMaps, Piktochart), textual analysis software (Voyant), data visualization software (Tableau), and presentation tools (Canva). As a final assessment of learning, students created their own professional WordPress website with a portfolio of digital artifacts including a digital assignment sheet for a class they would teach, an artifact exemplar of that assignment, and example instructional slides.