{"id":23,"date":"2013-09-13T13:43:52","date_gmt":"2013-09-13T13:43:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/?p=23"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:20:03","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:20:03","slug":"digital-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/2013\/09\/13\/digital-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Video to kill the long project report? or, the potential use of Digital Storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently spent an interesting day at Newcastle University at a Jisc NetSkills course intriguingly titled \u201cStorytelling Techniques for Project Dissemination<\/i><\/strong>\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yes, the title baffled me too.\u00a0 It did however lead to this:<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A tin of waffles on a cushion<\/p><\/div>\n

I will explain later.<\/p>\n

For the last year I have been working on a data management research project funded by the Jisc Transformations programme. A benefit of this has been that I was guided towards things, including attendance at this event \u2013 that otherwise I probably wouldn\u2019t have seen, or thought about.<\/p>\n

The particular link to my research project was the following funder requirement:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201c\u2026required to create a brief audio and\/or video description of their project; what it has achieved and the main findings from their work by the Business Change Manager\/Project Sponsor.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\n

As it transpires I\u2019m pleased I went to Newcastle.<\/p>\n

Initially it was the best chance that I\u2019d had to that point to talk face to face with others running projects within the same programme and to share experiences. From that opportunity for example it became clear that it was far from unusual to find that such a project (based on the use of technology to create change, or a transformation) had unearthed a broader\/greater\/longer-term theme or challenges\/problems that there was a need to look at. The flip side of this positive was of course the challenge for a Transformations project manager to try to reign in enthusiasm<\/i> – to remember what the original project was, and what they were expected to deliver in 12 months.<\/p>\n

Anyway\u2026 the Digital Storytelling course itself.<\/p>\n

Usefully, the research programme manager (Lawrie Phipps) was present for part of the day and brought in the perspective of someone who has to wade through long project reports which often struggle to shine light on matters such as what the projects are actually about, why they exist and what they have actually changed. The purpose of the course was therefore to present an alternative (or of course complementary) approach of using stories \u2013 in the form of short audio\/image\/video products \u2013 as a communication device.<\/p>\n

To be honest this was initially a bit of a challenge for me, and as a number of attendees had journalistic experience I did wonder what I would get out of it.<\/p>\n

By the end of the day however I had concluded that there is definitely a point to this. Having spent so many years around IT folk, and more recently with researchers, a purely personal view is that \u2026 I have to say \u2026 communication with other humans\/the non-IT world is often not a strength (diplomatic enough?<\/i>).<\/p>\n

From a personal perspective, I must admit that I enjoy writing long reports (worse still even when I know I will probably be the only one to read them).\u00a0 Often they are what is demanded or expected \u2026 but equally I recognise that this is not always the right or only communication tool.<\/p>\n

So, whilst some of the terminology in the course made me wonder a little (identifying the \u2018dragon you have slayed\u2019 etc.), I agree sometimes, in 2- 4 minutes, with audio, images and video you can communicate far more effectively and add so much more.<\/p>\n

The process of creating my data management story<\/strong><\/em>
\nOne of the benefits of using this approach is that you need to think about what, in succinct, easy to understand terms, your work is about – what it adds, what change it results in etc. The challenge is to create something that in a couple of minutes will engage someone who knows nothing about the work, and then hold their interest.<\/p>\n

This was particularly difficult for me as whilst I had ideas about what I wanted to include I didn\u2019t have the skills or equipment to tie these elements together into a coherent story.\u00a0 Equally I wanted to include music or background sound but didn\u2019t really know how to make that work or fit alongside recorded speech.<\/p>\n

The challenge to produce this (rather than just an audio file of me reading a script) was met as I was able to work with Andrew Williams, a contact made as he works with the Space Research Centre.\u00a0 I could say \u201cI want zeroes and ones falling off the screen<\/i>\u201d and that\u2019s what he produced.<\/p>\n

Also I am grateful to four people: Jo Brewis, Jim Pearson, Kay Phelps, and Martin Stannard, who agreed to be interviewed and photographed, and to talk about research issues from their own perspective. As a result I had contributions from each of the 4 Colleges.<\/p>\n

So, the end result is now available on YouTube as \u201cWhat is the link between a tin of Dutch waffles and the success of your research?<\/a>\u201d and also via the Research Data Management website \u2013 www.le.ac.uk\/researchdata<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Where Now?<\/strong><\/em>
\nWhilst this method may replace some long reports I think it has value independently of this as another method of communication.\u00a0 Typically we work with researchers who have a range of requirements and want a range of IT based facilities, such as public facing websites, blogs, wikis, internal project information sharing etc. as well as traditional IT products such as a databases.<\/p>\n

I think this has potential general value for researchers who want a method to generate interest and engagement, and describe what the research will be\/is\/was.<\/p>\n

To do this of course we need the means to create digital stories.\u00a0 To that end I will soon be attending a training course and hope to make the required support and equipment available so that others can create their own digital stories.<\/p>\n

Oh, the image above.\u00a0 Well, if you watch the digital story – \u201cWhat is the link between a tin of Dutch waffles and the success of your research?<\/a>\u201d – then it will make sense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently spent an interesting day at Newcastle University at a Jisc NetSkills course intriguingly titled \u201cStorytelling Techniques for Project Dissemination\u201d.\u00a0 Yes, the title baffled me too.\u00a0 It did however lead to this: I will explain later. For the last year I have been working on a data management research project funded by the Jisc […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/rdm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}