AUT maintains subscriptions and licences for a number of software packages and online services to help you upskill. The university pays for these services to help you learn the skills you need to succeed in your programme – and that’s one great way to use them.
However, you can also use these services to upskill in ways that have value beyond your programme as well, and can benefit you in your subsequent career. With many researchers currently experiencing COVID-related disruptions and downtime, this could be a good opportunity to make the best of your time by learning something new. It makes sense to take advantage of these opportunities while they’re free to you!
LinkedIn Learning
LinkedIn Learning (formerly Lynda.com) is a collection of over 15,000 online courses, usually consisting of instructional videos and accompanying exercises. You can use LinkedIn Learning to teach yourself a huge range of business, creative, and technological skills – things like coding, design thinking, animation, database management, quantum computing, business analysis, and loads more. Many courses are directly relevant to postgraduate research (e.g. Microsoft 365 Essential Training; a huge range of Data Science courses; Writing a Proposal; Quantitative and R Essential Training options, and so on.) But if there are any skills that you anticipate needing in your post-AUT career, you can use your AUT sign-in to upskill with LinkedIn Learning while you’re covered under our institutional subscription.
Using Library databases to upskill
We’re all familiar with using Library databases for research purposes. But you can also use them for the purpose of broader upskilling. There are some highlights in the database collection that are perfect for this:
- The Kanopy database is a streaming service that is a bit like an educational version of Netflix. Their ‘Instructional Films and Lessons‘ category is full of opportunities to upskill — and you can watch a huge range of documentaries, indie flicks, and international films too.
- SAGE Research Methods is a database devoted to methodological resources. You can use it to get a sense of different research methods, narrow down your choices, and study your chosen methodology in-depth. If you’re planning an academic career, you can also use it to become familiar with related methods that you may need for future research.
- Also from SAGE, the SAGE Business Cases database is full of information that could be useful to those planning careers in industry, commerce, finance, management, or entrepreneurship. Learn from cases of real businesses that succeeded (or failed) in ways that give the rest of us some takeaway lessons.
- Those in health and education fields can find instructional videos in a variety of databases under the Alexander Street umbrella. Their collections include Sports Medicine and Exercise Science; Counselling & Therapy; Dance; Education; Ethnography; Health and Society; and Nursing Education.
NVivo & SPSS – free online drop-in sessions & webinars
Our friends at Academic Consulting Ltd run workshops and webinars on NVivo and SPSS data analysis software. AUT PG research students can access these free of charge by viewing the options and booking on eLab. There are also some free drop-in sessions happening over July where you can meet the team online and ask any questions you may have about NVivo, SPSS, or data analysis more generally. This Zoom link for drop-ins will be active at the following times – just click into the meeting to join the waiting room.
Thursday 9th July @ 11am
Wednesday 15th July @ 1pm
Tuesday 21st July @ 11am
Friday 31st July @ 10am
