The aim of Masters of Digital Humanities and Public Culture is to develop cohorts of students who have the skills to critically engage with the digital world regardless of their academic background. To show students the value of cross-disciplinary skills Katrina and Terhi created a program where they work directly with the cultural heritage sector to solve problems focused on public engagement, education and museum accessibility. They learn collaboration through group work and acquire transferable skills that prepare them for working life. 

Partnerships with museums and archives allow students to understand the value of both humanities and digital expertise by applying it to problem solving in a real-world context. At the same time, a selection of student projects from Katrina and Terhi’s award-winning courses have become public facing projects via the National Museum of Australia and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia; they also have won an award for our teaching from the British Library (UK). 

Katrina and Terhi have designed practical assessments based on building digital prototypes (games, apps, websites), presentation skills and planning rather than essays and exams. They value research that is publicly engaged and have worked with a wide range of partners across the ANU campus, in various places in Australia and internationally.  

They encourage students to value the different kinds of knowledge and expertise they and others bring to their teams. As advocates for a more diverse workforce in digital technology fields they go the extra mile to ensure gender, cultural and language diversity is supported in our student cohort and is visible in the resources that our students work with.

Katrina and Terhi seek to instil in our students a sense of confidence when encountering the digital, a sense of curiosity and respect for cultural heritage, and the skills to successfully navigate an increasingly computerised world.

[The] support of self-directed learning is unparalleled in quality and effort. The course has a unique structure…It combines genuine academic efforts (not just rephrasing papers into essays) with the creation of a meaningful and useful piece of work, resulting in a feeling of genuine contribution to both the academic and cultural sphere which few courses ever manage.

Student comment, 2020