Model a 3D festive decoration

Tuesday 9 December 2025 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Get into the Christmas spirit with our hands-on Design Your Own Digital Christmas Decoration workshop at the Creativity Lab!

Learn basic 3D modelling skills and bring your festive ideas to life by designing your own Christmas decoration 3D model. We’ll show you how to turn a 2D object into 3D and give you information on a range of free-to-use 3D modelling tools & software. You will also take a tour of our 3D printing makerspace, YorCreate to learn how 3D models come to life as 3D prints.

IMPORTANT: Please note, for health & safety reasons a separate 1-hour induction is required to use the YorCreate 3D Printing space outside of this session. You can book your YorCreate induction place separately here.

Go to event

PGT Dissertation Writing: An Introduction

Tuesday 9 December 2025 12.30pm - 2pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Postgraduates

This workshop is for postgraduate taught students only. It will define what a dissertation is and show how it differs from other assignment types. It will then go to look at the opportunities writing a dissertation offers students and the academic skills that are needed to write one. Finally, it will briefly look at the different sections/chapters that can be included in dissertations and what type of information these sections/chapters typically contain.

Go to event

Learn to code: Fun ways of coding with Python

Tuesday 9 December 2025 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Want to get started learning to code with Python, but not interested in focusing on data analysis?

In this introductory workshop, we will write Python code to tell simple jokes, calculate expenditure, and make quizzes, all to help us learn important Python concepts and syntax. We will also look at how you can use Python libraries to build even more functionality with Python, like connecting to AI services, making games, and generating Pokemon.

Coding Practical Guide

Go to event

Reading More Effectively: Comparing Traditional and AI Strategies

Wednesday 10 December 2025 10.30am - 12pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Can generative AI enhance our reading efficiency? This workshop will compare traditional academic reading strategies with techniques for utilising generative AI tools to support with reading.

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Data visualisation: All I got for Christmas was this stupid graph

Wednesday 10 December 2025 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How you present your data has a massive impact on audience understanding and engagement. Using different data visualisations can also provide you with new insights into your data findings.

In this workshop we will take a festive look at some of the main principles for working with data, from cleaning messy data and getting it into a processable state to the creation of effective charts and infographics.

Data: Data visualisation

Go to event

Getting Started with RStudio

Wednesday 10 December 2025 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: LFA/144 Academic Skills workshop room (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

This workshop will introduce you to the RStudio interface, and writing R code to import, manage and plot data. Suitable for people who have not done any computer coding before, but would like to use RStudio in the future to carry out statistical analyses.

Go to event

Creating Interactive Graphs in RStudio

Friday 12 December 2025 12pm - 1pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

This session will cover how to make interactive graphs in RStudio. You will learn how to go beyond simple bar or scatter graphs, and make them more interesting, such as animating a graph, building 3D graphs, and creating a moving gif of your graph. Suitable for people who have used RStudio previously and would like to create interactive graphs from their data in the future.

Go to event

Exam Revision: Science/Maths

Wednesday 17 December 2025 10am - 11am

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Strategies for effective revision skills that will work for you. We will cover revision skills hints and tips, useful resources and time management specifically for Science, Maths and calculation-based questions.

Go to event

Exam Revision: Short Answers and Essay Questions

Wednesday 17 December 2025 11am - 12pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Strategies for effective revision skills that will work for you. We will cover revision skills hints and tips, useful resources and time management specifically for essay and long-answer questions.

Go to event

Essential Podcasting (Online)

Tuesday 13 January 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Essential Podcasting

Let’s make some noises. Then record them, publish them, and distribute them online. This two hour online workshop will introduce you to the fundamentals of podcasting, going over some of the basics of podcast production, and looking at how an idea turns into an audio file that can be shared online. We’ll explore podcast formats and how to generate ideas along with our top recording tips. No prior knowledge of audio production or media creation is required. This workshop is perfect for you if you are interested in making a podcast yourself but aren’t sure where to start, and to find out more about podcasting facilities here at the Creativity Lab. This session runs alongside our other '10 tips for Audio editing' session (bookable separately), which will delve into the practicalities of editing audio.

Go to event

Take a break: LEGO Fun

Wednesday 14 January 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Need a break from study or work? Come and join us for a Lego challenge! In this fun session, we'll complete a number of Lego building challenges, such as building towers and navigating an obstacle course. There'll also be some programmable motors and sensors to build our own creations. This session is here for anyone looking to take a break, bring your friends too.

Go to event

Essential Video Editing

Tuesday 20 January 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Want to be able to edit video content?

Video is a really useful medium for storytelling, educating, and sharing your ideas. Whether you're making a longer film, or short videos for social media, we'll cover tips on many types of video. Based in the Creativity lab, this session will go through key video editing concepts and techniques to help you get started, from gathering your material to exporting your completed video. We’ll explore top tips for recording video and sound, along with how to put everything together using video editing software. During the session, you'll have a go at editing pre-recorded footage using some recommended tools and you will be able to begin your own creation.

Go to event

YorCreate: Digital cutting with Cricut

Wednesday 21 January 2026 12pm - 1pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/132 YorCreate (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Digital cutters allow you to create digital designs on a computer and then have the machine cut out that design on your material of choice, like card, vinyl, and iron-on transfers. These creations can then be added to other things, for example adding a vinyl transfer to a mug or an iron-on transfer to material like a t-shirt.

In YorCreate we have a Cricut Maker 3 which you can use once you've had a YorCreate induction (though you don't need to have had an induction to come along to this session). In this session we'll look at some approaches you could try, and offer a demonstration of how the cutter works.

Go to event

Editing and Publishing your Podcast

Thursday 22 January 2026 10am - 11.30am

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Are you starting a podcast and want to know how to get your podcast idea out there? This session focuses how to edit podcast recordings, and getting them ready to post publicly online. We'll look at using free editing tools like Audacity to learn the key editing skills. Then there will be a demonstration of how to host your files online, plus lots of useful tips and advice for picking up new listeners.

This session will be recorded and sent out afterwards to everyone signed up.

Go to event

Creating accessible Docs

Friday 23 January 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

An online workshop demonstrating how ‘universal design’ can help everyone, not just those with an accessibility need. This session will consist of 1 hour 30 minutes of taught content, with an optional extra 30 minutes for questions & discussion.

Accessibility Skills Guide Learning Technology: Accessibility Creating Documents

Go to event

Get started with 3D modelling

Thursday 29 January 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: staff/Students/research graduate

Let's explore the world of 3D models. In this introductory online session, we'll quickly share our top tips for getting started with designing and creating a 3D model from scratch. We'll show you a few useful tools, which are useful for different purposes such as 3D printing, or for games/digital experiences.

Open for everyone, we'll get practical with some easy-to-use free tools to help you get started with modelling your own creations. 3D models are great for 3D printing, using in a virtual environment and sharing ideas. They are also an interesting way to help explain a topic or engage people with your work. Feel free to come along with an idea of your own!

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: An introduction to useful digital tools available at York

Wednesday 11 February 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/144 Academic Skills workshop room (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

At York you have access to a wealth of software, from general 'Office' applications like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 through to more specific programs to help you be organised or be creative. This session (aimed at all members of the University, however long you've been here) will provide an overview of some of the digital tools available that you might find useful, with a particular focus on applications for organising information, keeping track of your notes, working collaboratively, and keeping up to date. We will share some of our tips for making the best use of technology, and there'll be time to ask questions and share any of your own IT tips.

'You don't know what you don't know' Skills Guide

Go to event

Learn to code: Introduction to coding

Thursday 12 February 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Want to know more about what computer coding is, how it works, and how you can start learning to code?

This introductory workshop is for anyone who is new to writing computer programs or learning coding languages. The workshop will look at useful coding concepts and some basics of the coding language Python to demonstrate these, and will cover:

• How computers work and how this applies to coding
• What are coding languages?
• Key concepts in coding, such as variables, loops, and data types
• How to get started with learning coding.

Coding Practical Guide

Go to event

10 tips for Video Editing (Online)

Thursday 12 February 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

10 tips for Video Editing

In this quick-fire online webinar, we'll be going over our 10 ten tips for creating and editing videos, from creating and gathering video material to exporting a completed project. Whether you're creating videos for social media, making films to promote your work, or working with short videos for any other purpose, come along to this session to learn about our recommendations for how to get started and what to remember. We will also signpost further resources and training available from the Creativity Lab.

Go to event

Learn to code: Introduction to programming with Python (a 2 week course)

Friday 13 February 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Looking to start learning Python?

This introductory hands-on 2 week course gets you familiar with the coding language Python and using Python for basic data analysis and visualisation. Over the two 2-hour long sessions, you will learn the basics of how to:

• Start using Python in notebooks
• Create variables and work with data types
• Process data, from analysis to data visualisation
• Repeat actions with loops and use decisions in your code
• Use functions to improve your programs
• Deal with errors

Go to event

3D capture with Photogrammetry

Tuesday 17 February 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Have you ever come across a detailed 3D model of a real object and wondered how it was made? In this hands-on session, you’ll discover how a series of standard photographs, combined with some software magic, can be transformed into a 3D digital model—a process known as photogrammetry.

We’ll start by photographing a university sculpture and sharing some top tips for capturing great images. Then, you’ll get a chance to process the photos yourself. Along the way, we’ll explore what to do when things don’t go quite as planned and share helpful tricks to refine and tidy up your model for viewing.

This session will show you how to digitize objects related to your work or study and demonstrate how 3D scans can captivate and engage audiences with the unique aspects of your research or interests.

Go to event

Academic posters: Designing posters in PowerPoint

Tuesday 17 February 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Informative posters are a popular way to share research findings and other information at conferences and exhibitions. There are many desktop publishing applications you could use to design posters but in this session we'll demonstrate Microsoft PowerPoint: although intended for presentations, it shares many features with other publishing applications and generally has the advantage of familiarity, making it a popular and effective choice for poster design.

In this session we’ll look at the design principles behind what makes a successful poster, and how to configure PowerPoint for the creation of both large-format printed posters and virtual poster presentations. We'll look at how to plan your layout, and how to make best use of images and text in your design.

Academic Posters Practical Guide

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Learn to code websites with HTML & CSS

Wednesday 18 February 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Do you want to build a website? If you want to have full control over your web pages you really need to know HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). We go back to basics to give you the essential building blocks of web design, whether you want to build a site from scratch or customise a site built in a website editor.

Coding Practical Guide

Go to event

Wrestling with your reading list: How to read online books and articles

Friday 20 February 2026 1pm - 2.30pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Whether preparing for your seminar, revising for an exam or researching an assignment, you're likely to have to do some reading. And that means dealing with your reading list, the library catalogue, a publisher platform - or all three! If this seems daunting - don't worry, we're here to help. This session is designed to help you understand your reading list, get the most from the library catalogue and learn how to use publisher platforms to get the texts you need in the file formats you prefer.

Go to event

Blender: Part 1 & Part 2 (ONLINE)

Tuesday 24 February 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Interested in how more complex 3D models are created from scratch?

Blender is a free, open-source and advanced tool for creating detailed 3D models and is widely used for many purposes, from video games to 3D printing. In this two-week course, we will explore how to get started with this tool and explore some of brilliant ways it can be used to help your study, teaching or research. We will cover:

• Key tools and keyboard shortcuts for getting started
• Using automated tools to make changes to models
• Lots of practice in creating your own objects from scratch
• Creating a number of parts and putting them together

On signing up to this session, you are signing up for two two-hour sessions, with the second session held the same time the following week:

Session 1 takes place on Tuesday 4 November 2025, 3pm - 5pm Session 2 takes place on Tuesday 11 November 2025, 3pm - 5pm

Go to event

Organise your life with Google!

Tuesday 24 February 2026 1pm - 2.30pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Sort your life out!

Join us for this session as we share tips on how to use Google’s tools to help you stay organised. Whether it’s using note taking apps to stay on top of your to-do list, managing your time effectively in Google Calendar, staying on top of your emails or organising your files in Google Drive, we’ve got you covered.

We will look at helping you get organised with:

• Gmail
• Google Calendar
• Google Keep
• Google Tasks
• Google Drive
• Google Chrome
• Google Contacts.

Google Workspace: a Practical Guide

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: A student’s guide to using generative AI at York

Wednesday 25 February 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Generative artificial intelligence (or AI for short) is being talked about and used all around us, including in universities. In this hour-long bitesized session, the first in a series of AI-related sessions, we will take a look at what generative AI actually is and which generative AI tools are available for students to use at York. We’ll then delve into the advantages, disadvantages, and ethical conundrums that have arisen from generative AI, including false authorship, copyright, and training data. Can we trust the outputs that generative AI gives us? And is it going to take over the world?

This session will be particularly useful for taught students but is open to anyone at the University.

Generative AI: a Practical Guide

Go to event

Digital skills for research: Searching the literature

Thursday 26 February 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

It's important to do the reading, but literature searching itself can be a hassle. In this session, aimed predominantly at PhD research but applicable to other large-scale research projects, we look at the stages of the literature search process, from planning and preparing your search, developing an effective search strategy, and utilising specialist search skills, through to accessing the texts that your search finds.

Searching for information: Search skills

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Creating accessible presentations

Wednesday 4 March 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Whether you are presenting in-person, online, or just creating slides for learning materials: it's important to consider the elements and faux pas that can render your presentation inaccessible. Join us to look at the key universal design principles to consider when using Google Slides and PowerPoint in your work and practical tips for when presenting both online and around the University.

Go to event

Create a 3D-printable part

Wednesday 4 March 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

This in-person interactive workshop is intended for anyone who would like to come and try out 3D modelling, and learn a new digital skill. Even if you're not sure what you would use it for, come along and we will share lots of ideas that relate to your own study, teaching or research.

Have a brilliant idea for a 3D design? Let's sketch it and then turn it into a digital 3D model. In this practical session, we'll look at using Computer Aided Design (CAD) software to learn how we can design our own models and how we can alter our designs ready for 3D printing. No previous experience needed, we'll show you how to get started in a modelling tool and work through some of the key tips. We'll include information at the end of the session how you can then get access to our YorCreate makerspace to 3D print your design. Please note: to use our YorCreate 3D printers, you must also attend a separate safety induction before or after this session, see the YorCreate webpage for upcoming dates

Go to event

Designing presentations in PowerPoint and Google Slides

Thursday 5 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How can you create presentation slides that are memorable and impactful while also being accessible? PowerPoint and Google Slides include many under-exploited features that can help you create more effective presentations (as well as other resources). This session explores the principles of designing presentations, including templates, animation, accessibility principles, and working with media. We'll also look at presentation features in these tools that can help you as you convey your material to an audience.

Presentations Practical Guide

Go to event

Designing surveys

Friday 6 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Let's make badly designed forms and surveys a thing of the past!

In this session, we'll take a look at the principles of survey design, from what kinds of questions to ask to get the data you're looking for to how to choose question types and use logic. We'll then consider how put them to practice in the two main survey tools we have at York: Google Forms and Qualtrics.

Data: Gathering data

Go to event

360° Filmmaking

Tuesday 10 March 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Ever wondered how a 360° video works and where the camera operator is hiding?

In this practical session in the Creativity Lab, we’ll explore and play with 360° cameras. Tops tips will be shared around capturing (including how to hide), followed by a chance to capture your own footage. You will learn about some practical considerations when you’re trying to film a whole space in one go and how to go about planning for a video. We’ll explore basic editing and how to compile your 360° videos, along with what to do with them once completed.

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Microsoft Word for dissertations and theses

Wednesday 11 March 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

When producing a long piece of academic writing such as a dissertation or thesis, you will save time and effort if you take advantage of the most appropriate features in Microsoft Word. In this session we'll explore approaches to using Word that are particularly important when you need to produce material as efficiently as possible to match academic guidelines. We'll explore the power of using styles to make it easier to add outline headings, tables of contents and to make your document accessible. We'll also look at making the most of the tools available, such as adding automatic page numbers, tables of contents, and captions.

Creating documents

Go to event

Critically evaluating information: What makes a credible source?

Thursday 12 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

In this session we'll think broadly about what makes a reliable source of information. We'll start by considering online sources and how, given so many voices, and the growth of generative artificial intelligence, we can possibly hope to tell truth from lies. We’ll explore frameworks for evaluating information and determining credibility, and we'll consider why some sources are considered more reliable than others. We'll also start to look at how we might use such sources in support of an academic argument.

Being critical: Evaluating information Searching for information: Academic sources

Go to event

Writing effective prompts for generative AI with Gemini and NotebookLM

Friday 13 March 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Generative AI tools can be used effectively to work through problems or to develop your understanding of a topic, but you need to think carefully about the ‘prompts’ (the questions and commands) you're using if you're to get good quality results. In this hour-long bitesize workshop we will explore how to craft effective and safe prompts for the main AI tools we have at York — Google Gemini and NotebookLM — and how this compares to more traditional ways of finding academic information. We will also consider how to adapt and interpret your outputs, and how to make best use of advanced models and features within the tools.

This session will be particularly useful for taught students but is open to anyone at the University.

Generative AI: a Practical Guide

Go to event

Reference management

Tuesday 17 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How do you manage your reading and keep track of the material you find? In this workshop, we'll take a look at how managing your reading fits into the academic reading and citing process, reflect on what might work for you, and explore options for keeping track of your reading. We'll then look at how reference management software can help you store, organise, and use citation information, looking at how specific features of Zotero and Paperpile can be used for this process.

Reference Management Practical Guide

Go to event

How to run better Zoom meetings

Wednesday 18 March 2026 12.30pm - 2pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Whether you are using Zoom for meetings, interviews, teaching sessions or looking to generally improve your video-conferencing skills: join us to look at all the settings and best-practice to follow to make your Zoom sessions run smoothly with confidence.

We will look at:

• Setting up your Zoom calls with confidence
• Managing participants, keeping on top of the chat and being a responsive host
• Common faux-pas, issues and troubleshooting
• Managing hybrid meetings effectively
• How to record and share your meetings
• Following accessibility best-practices

Video conferencing

Go to event

Explore handheld 3D scanning

Wednesday 18 March 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Let's create a high-quality digital twin of a 3D object. Starting with a chance to try out dedicated handheld 3D scanner, we'll then look at the considerations and challenges of trying to create a digital replica. We'll also share a whole host of ideas for how you could use 3D scans in your study, work or research; like animating them, or even 3D printing them. This session is open to anyone, including those who are interested in seeing how 3D models can help people engage with your work or area of study. If you have your own portable item you'd like to scan, bring it along!

Go to event

Finding academic literature - going beyond your reading list

Thursday 19 March 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

When you do a Google search or a search of the Library's resources, you will potentially be faced with a massive reading list. How do you choose which are the best texts? Who do you trust? Where do you get the most reliable data from? In this session you will learn some of the best places for finding academic information and how to select the most appropriate reading for the task you have to complete.

Being critical: Evaluating information Searching for information: Academic sources

Go to event

YorCreate: So you want to 3D print a D&D miniature?

Thursday 19 March 2026 5pm - 6.30pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/132 YorCreate (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Have you ever wanted to create your own custom miniature figurines for tabletop gaming? In this session we’ll look at how you can digitally design a 3D miniature for Dungeons & Dragons and similar games, and we’ll share our advice for how to most-effectively 3D print your miniatures. We’ll also consider what other peripheral items we could print, such as dice towers and dungeon tiles.

Go to event

Create a simple 2D platformer game

Tuesday 24 March 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Let's make a simple platform game. Games can be a brilliant tool to aid learning, or share your study/research.

Using a tool called Gdevelop, we'll look at the beginner steps to build your first simple game, with step-by-step instructions and lots of time to have a go yourself. We'll look at some of the key areas of game mechanics, and have some time to plan out our ideas for a simple game. No coding knowledge is required. This is an in-person session in the Creativity Lab.

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Working with data in spreadsheets

Wednesday 25 March 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

It's one thing getting some data; it's another thing knowing what to do with it. In this session we'll take a look at methods for finding, importing, and cleaning up data, and performing simple analyses in a spreadsheet. We'll also consider principles for structuring data, and how you can reshape it to suit different needs.

Essential Spreadsheets

Go to event

How to read an academic article

Thursday 26 March 2026 1pm - 2pm

Organiser: Academic Skills
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Where do you start when looking at academic literature? How can you successfully engage with the literature you find?

You don't need an AI summary tool to understand most journal articles — there's usually already ways for you to get to the important information quickly. This bitesized session will explore the structure of academic articles, show where to look to check the validity of findings, and offer tips for navigating online texts.

This training will be delivered online via Zoom.

Being critical: Reading academic articles Searching for information: Academic sources

Go to event

Essential Spreadsheets (a 5 week course)

Tuesday 14 April 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

In these sessions you will learn how to exploit the capabilities of both Excel and Google Sheets for storing and analysing data, including features that are particularly helpful when working collaboratively.

All five sessions take place over five weeks, on Tuesday afternoons.

This course will take place online via Zoom.

Essential Spreadsheets: a Practical Guide

Go to event

3D capture with Photogrammetry

Wednesday 15 April 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Have you ever come across a detailed 3D model of a real object and wondered how it was made? In this hands-on session, you’ll discover how a series of standard photographs, combined with some software magic, can be transformed into a 3D digital model—a process known as photogrammetry.

We’ll start by photographing a university sculpture and sharing some top tips for capturing great images. Then, you’ll get a chance to process the photos yourself. Along the way, we’ll explore what to do when things don’t go quite as planned and share helpful tricks to refine and tidy up your model for viewing.

This session will show you how to digitize objects related to your work or study and demonstrate how 3D scans can captivate and engage audiences with the unique aspects of your research or interests.

Go to event

Essential Video Editing

Thursday 16 April 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Want to be able to edit video content?

Video is a really useful medium for storytelling, educating, and sharing your ideas. Whether you're making a longer film, or short videos for social media, we'll cover tips on many types of video. Based in the Creativity lab, this session will go through key video editing concepts and techniques to help you get started, from gathering your material to exporting your completed video. We’ll explore top tips for recording video and sound, along with how to put everything together using video editing software. During the session, you'll have a go at editing pre-recorded footage using some recommended tools and you will be able to begin your own creation.

Go to event

Get started with 3D modelling

Friday 17 April 2026 10am - 11am

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Let's explore the world of 3D models. In this introductory online session, we'll quickly share our top tips for getting started with designing and creating a 3D model from scratch. We'll show you a few useful tools, which are useful for different purposes such as 3D printing, or for games/digital experiences.

Open for everyone, we'll get practical with some easy-to-use free tools to help you get started with modelling your own creations. 3D models are great for 3D printing, using in a virtual environment and sharing ideas. They are also an interesting way to help explain a topic or engage people with your work. Feel free to come along with an idea of your own!

Go to event

Academic posters: Designing posters in PowerPoint

Tuesday 21 April 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Informative posters are a popular way to share research findings and other information at conferences and exhibitions. There are many desktop publishing applications you could use to design posters but in this session we'll demonstrate Microsoft PowerPoint: although intended for presentations, it shares many features with other publishing applications and generally has the advantage of familiarity, making it a popular and effective choice for poster design.

In this session we’ll look at the design principles behind what makes a successful poster, and how to configure PowerPoint for the creation of both large-format printed posters and virtual poster presentations. We'll look at how to plan your layout, and how to make best use of images and text in your design.

Academic Posters Practical Guide

Go to event

10 tips for better engagement in Zoom presentations

Wednesday 22 April 2026 3pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How can you make your Zoom sessions more interesting than just a simple video call? Whether it’s for a meeting, presentation, teaching session or interview: Zoom has a huge range of features that can make your sessions more dynamic with added interactivity and engagement.

We will look at tips including:

• Using whiteboards and annotation tools to collaborate and brainstorm in real-time

• Boosting engagement through interactive polls and surveys

• Creating and managing breakout rooms

• Elevating your presentations with advanced screen sharing and remote control (no more "next slide please!")
• Capturing your content by recording, pausing, and sharing your sessions efficiently

Video conferencing

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Data visualisation & infographics

Wednesday 29 April 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How you present your data has a massive impact on audience understanding and engagement. Using different data visualisations can also provide you with new insights into your data findings. In this workshop we will cover the principles for working with data, from data cleaning to visualisation.

Data: Data visualisation

Go to event

Essential Podcasting (Online)

Friday 1 May 2026 1pm - 3pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Essential Podcasting

Let’s make some noises. Then record them, publish them, and distribute them online. This two hour online workshop will introduce you to the fundamentals of podcasting, going over some of the basics of podcast production, and looking at how an idea turns into an audio file that can be shared online. We’ll explore podcast formats and how to generate ideas along with our top recording tips. No prior knowledge of audio production or media creation is required. This workshop is perfect for you if you are interested in making a podcast yourself but aren’t sure where to start, and to find out more about podcasting facilities here at the Creativity Lab. This session runs alongside our other '10 tips for Audio editing' session (bookable separately), which will delve into the practicalities of editing audio.

Go to event

Designing presentations in PowerPoint and Google Slides

Tuesday 5 May 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

How can you create presentation slides that are memorable and impactful while also being accessible? PowerPoint and Google Slides include many under-exploited features that can help you create more effective presentations (as well as other resources). This session explores the principles of designing presentations, including templates, animation, accessibility principles, and working with media. We'll also look at presentation features in these tools that can help you as you convey your material to an audience.

Presentations Practical Guide

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: Framing your research question

Wednesday 6 May 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

In this session, focused primarily on postgraduate research but applicable to any research project, we'll consider how to come up with a workable research question with regard to available literature: is there enough information to provide a suitable background? What limits will you need to set? We'll explore how to scope a range of different sources, including academic, government and organisational literature.

Searching for information: Framing your research

Go to event

Create a Graphic in Adobe Illustrator

Thursday 7 May 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: LFA/103 Creativity Lab (Harry Fairhurst Building, Campus West)
Open to: Everyone

Interested to try out a graphic designer tool for the first time?

Using the Creativity Lab's access to Adobe Illustrator, this practical session will guide you through creating your own graphic design. We will focus on the most useful tools and hacks to create a logo or clipart illustration, with a useful step-by-step written handbook that we will share with you during the session. No prior knowledge is required. We will also share information on other alternate tools that can be used.

Go to event

DIGITAL WEDNESDAYS: An intro to NVivo

Wednesday 13 May 2026 2pm - 4pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

NVivo is a qualitative data analysis (QDA) software package. It has been designed for qualitative researchers working with very rich text-based and/or multimedia information, where deep levels of analysis on small or large volumes of data are required.

In this introductory session we will cover the basics of importing files into NVivo, data coding and classification principles, and basic data analysis and visualisation.

Data: Qualitative data analysis

Go to event

Editing and Publishing your Podcast

Thursday 14 May 2026 1pm - 2.30pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

Are you starting a podcast and want to know how to get your podcast idea out there? This session focuses how to edit podcast recordings, and getting them ready to post publicly online. We'll look at using free editing tools like Audacity to learn the key editing skills. Then there will be a demonstration of how to host your files online, plus lots of useful tips and advice for picking up new listeners.

This session will be recorded and sent out afterwards to everyone signed up.

Go to event

Microsoft Word for dissertations and theses

Tuesday 19 May 2026 10am - 12pm

Organiser: Digital Skills & Creativity Lab
Location: online
Open to: Everyone

When producing a long piece of academic writing such as a dissertation or thesis, you will save time and effort if you take advantage of the most appropriate features in Microsoft Word. In this session we'll explore approaches to using Word that are particularly important when you need to produce material as efficiently as possible to match academic guidelines. We'll explore the power of using styles to make it easier to add outline headings, tables of contents and to make your document accessible. We'll also look at making the most of the tools available, such as adding automatic page numbers, tables of contents, and captions.

Creating documents

Go to event