Over the summer we welcomed 59 interns to the Information Services Group to work with us between May and August. We had a variety of internships from students working on the Learn Ultra upgrade to a student designing a colouring book, celebrating women in STEM, to unveil on Ada Lovelace Day, to a student working with Chat GPT and Open AI. Our interns worked across many of our directorates such as Learning Teaching and Web, Library and User Collections, and the User Services Division to name a few. Read on to find out what the interns worked on this summer, their end of internship presentations, achievements, and the training and development sessions which they attended.
What did our Interns get up to?
Alongside their day-to-day work, our interns were able to attend a range of training and development workshops throughout the summer. These sessions included Equality Diversity and Inclusion in Tech, An Introduction to Wikipedia and Open Education, and An Introduction to Project Management.
During the Introduction to Project Management session, our interns were able to learn the fundamental steps when managing a project, such as creating a project brief. They were then able to work in small teams to create a project plan for an event. Based on our survey, students felt that the skills which they were able to develop during this session, such as planning and organisational skills, were vital as they could be used in real life and transferred to projects at work or at university.
Alongside our training and development sessions, we hosted social events, including a welcome lunch, a Therapets session, a baking lunch, and a tour of St Cecelia’s Hall. These events allowed the students to connect with interns within different departments which they may not have had a chance to interact with during their day-to-day work. The Therapets session was extremely popular providing the interns with a chance to take a break and meet other interns whilst also petting these adorable dogs!
One of our summer interns, Ally, hosted workshops to gather illustrations for the We Have Great Women in STEM colouring book. Ally hosted three events during July: a digital illustration workshop, a traditional illustration workshop, and an online digital workshop. These sessions were open to all members of the UOE community and many of our summer interns attended. The We Have Great Women in STEM Colouring book, created by Ally, can be downloaded here!
Wrapping up the internships
As the internships came to a close, the cohort were tasked with completing a presentation to showcase what they had done over the summer, the skills they had achieved, and what they enjoyed most.
Some of these presentations took place in-person whilst other students recorded theirs for us to share on this blog! The following presentations showcase just a few of our summer internships: Learn Foundations Intern (Adela), Communications and Marketing Intern (Zofia), Online Education Research Intern (Ashlin), Charles Lyell Project Transcription Intern (Harriet), and Open Content Curator Intern (Mayu and August).
We really enjoyed these presentations and seeing what our interns got up to over the summer! Many of our interns also wrote their own blog posts during the summer period. These blog posts showcase a variety of our summer internships including Adam’s experience as a Data Production Intern, Jasmine’s experience as a Digital Preservation Intern, and Wietske’s experience as a Chat GPT and Open AI Intern.
After our internships came to an end, the Information Services Group hosted the Staff Recognition Awards. Our Open Content Curator Interns, Mayu and August, were nominated for the Student Staff Member of the Year award. Congratulations to Mayu and August for being nominated, this was a great achievement and we are so happy to see that our summer interns are being recognised for the amazing work which they do! Mayu and August published a range of Open Education Resources over the summer which you can find here!
We also want to congratulate Ruby Imrie, our Witchfinder General Data Visualisation Intern, who won the Student Staff Member of the Year award at the Staff Recognition Awards! Over the summer Ruby worked on a map of accused witches, updating the information on the website, and fixing bugs, to make the website ready for release. Throughout the summer Ruby wrote a blog, showcasing what she was getting up to during her internship. If you would like to read Ruby’s blog and find out more about her role as a Witchfinder General Data Visualisation Intern click here!
We hope that all of our interns had a great summer and thoroughly enjoyed their experience working in ISG. To those of you reading who may be interested in a summer internship based on the experiences of our 2023 summer interns, please do look out for our summer 2024 internships which we will be sharing more information about in January!
