The growth of Digital Humanities places increasing demands on postgraduate researchers to develop skills beyond their disciplinary boundaries. We will present the experience of developing a DH training programme for students of the Consortium of the Humanities and Arts South-East England (CHASE), a Doctoral Training Partnership comprising nine UK universities, organised around a three-day residential school followed by a series of optional one-day workshops and a two-day residential school across two locations, the Open University in London and the University of East Anglia in Norwich. We will reflect on three key issues for designing a cross-institutional DH training programme.
DH tools and methods are not embedded in undergraduate or postgraduate syllabi at most CHASE institutions, and many students embark on PhDs with limited awareness of them. AHDA addresses this, but it exists alongside training provision in CHASE universities, is not formally accredited, and requires a high level of commitment. These factors result in a high participant attrition rate. We will invite discussion on how to use AHDA as a springboard to develop a holistic programme of DH training covering the student journey.
We will outline the aims, content and structure of the programme and the affordances offered by including a residential and group work element in the programme. We will discuss the rationale behind the choice of sessions with particular reference to the need to support Early Career Researcher development in both Digital Literacy and DH.
Finally, there is a significant opportunity afforded by the programme’s ability to foster closer collaboration with CHASE partner institutions in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums sector. In particular, we will discuss how our collaboration with the British Library in 2014/15 led to the active participation of BL doctoral students and staff in the 2015/16 iteration as both participants and teachers.