Overview
Digital Scholarship Summer Graduate Internships are summer term paid graduate student appointments within the University Library System’s Digital Scholarship Services (DSS). This program provides designated time for graduate students to gain experience in the skills of contemporary digital scholarship through project-based work and make a public presentation of their work. Additionally, the Graduate Interns will develop skills in project management, teaching, and mentorship by helping to guide a cohort of 2-3 Undergraduate Interns participating in “Research and Development in the Open Lab” - a new collaborative DSS/OL undergraduate research opportunity for 2024.
Blending work experience and professional development, Digital Scholarship Graduate Internships are intended to prepare students for more independent digital project work through a combination of professional mentorship and self-directed exploration of digital tools and methods. This internship is designed to be a shorter and more independent experience than the Digital Scholarship GSA that runs through the Fall and Spring terms.
Details
Graduate Interns commit to work 20 hours a week during the Summer term, with approximately 8-10 of those hours spent performing operational support for DSS departmental activities, including leading Undergraduate Intern cohort meetings and working sessions. The remaining 10-12 hours each week will be spent on guided and independent digital project development.
The internship will center the Graduate Intern’s interests and learning goals related to digital scholarship, supported and structured by a cooperatively designed project. This project must emphasize one or more of the following:
- Use of ULS collections in digital scholarship (example project: creating a small digital exhibit for a collection of oral histories);
- Contribution to a digital project hosted by or affiliated with the library (example project: creating a digital map related to a collection of theater programs);
- Development of library support for digital scholarship tools or methods (example project: developing an online guide or tutorial for open-source qualitative data analysis software).
Past intern projects include:
Graduate Interns will make a public presentation of their work at the end of the internship. Graduate Interns will receive public credit and recognition as contributors to any library-affiliated projects they work on.
During the internship, DSS staff will provide Graduate Interns with individual or small-group training on digital scholarship skills, such as:
- Coding and computational methods
- Critical and ethical perspectives on digital scholarship
- Data acquisition, manipulation, analysis, and visualization
- Digital project management and collaboration tools
- Digital storytelling
- Digitization and digital creation
- Mapping, geographic information systems, and spatial analysis
- Multimedia and web-based scholarship
- Research data management
- Text mining and analysis
- Scholarly publishing (basics of copyright and licensing, principles of open scholarship)
Supporting Resources
On-campus resources:
- The Open Lab @ Hillman provides support and resources to anyone in the Pitt community interested in incorporating emerging technology into their teaching or directly engaging in hands-on exploratory learning. Technologies in the Open Lab include 2D scanning, 3D scanning, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), 3D printing, vinyl cutting, laser cutting and engraving, virtual reality, and more. The Open Lab @ Hillman is a collaboration with the Center for Teaching and Learning.
- ULS Distinctive Collections including Archives and Special Collections, Frick Fine Arts Library, Finney Music Library, Center for American Music, and other collections of archival, unique, and/or specialized materials.
Online resources:
- ULS Digital Collections and Repositories include Historic Pittsburgh, D-Scholarship@Pitt (the university’s institutional repository), the Archive of European Integration, and the PhilSci Archive, and the Contemporary Chinese Village Gazetteer Data (CCVGD 数字村庄) project.
Eligibility
- Graduate student in any school at the University of Pittsburgh.
- Completed at least two full semesters of graduate coursework.
- Must be able to commit to a hybrid work schedule of 20 hours a week during the summer term.
- May not hold any other university employment during the summer term. This includes stipend payments from the university paid over the summer. Speak with your graduate program administrator if you are unsure about your appointment status.
- No prior digital scholarship experience required.
Selection Criteria
Applications will be assessed by the DSS team, using the following criteria to evaluate and rank submissions:
- The clarity of applicants’ responses in describing how their research interests and personal/professional goals align with this internship opportunity, and
- The feasibility and potential impact of the applicants’ proposed work during the internship with the identified library collection, project, or service.
Hourly Rate
$20/hour, 20 hours per week May 20 – August 9, 2024
Application Submission
Submit your application by filling out the form at the following link: pi.tt/dss-gsa-2024apply. Please direct any questions about this opportunity or the application process to ULS-DigitalScholarshipServices@pitt.edu.
Priority will be given to applications received before April 1, 2024.
