I recently completed my internship at GhentCDH in the spring of 2024. In this blogpost I want to reflect on my experience, activities and lessons learned.
My internship was part of the Advanced Master of Digital Humanities program at KU Leuven. As a research-internship in function of my thesis. I wanted to focus on Omeka S, IIIF and digital storytelling for students and historians. As a history alumna at Ghent University, I was already in touch with GhentCDH through previous internships and student jobs. GhentCDH’s role as digital humanities research centre offering educational assistance to the faculty offered a unique opportunity for me. Knowing that my research interests aligned with those of GhentCDH, I reached out to them for this internship.
During my internship I assisted with Omeka S assignments in three courses of the history program: Schrift, bestuur en administratie van de Middeleeuwen en Vroegmoderne tijd (SBA), Historische Praktijk 2 (HP2) and Norine Couture (Art History). I worked in close collaboration with the teachers to set up the Omeka S backend and assist them and the students with any technical issues. I also gave workshops to the students on how to use Omeka S. By the end of the internship I knew the ins and outs of Omeka S, how to manage digital humanities and educational projects, as well as how to collaborate with different stakeholders.
I also conducted research for my thesis. The students of SBA and HP2 participated in a survey about their initial impressions of Omeka S and digital storytelling, before attending the workshop. At the end of the semester, after completion of the Omeka S assignments, I also hosted a focus group in collaboration with Lise Foket. Both research activities as well as my general impressions during the internship formed the core of my thesis research.
The research conducted during my internship will also help GhentCDH in supporting Omeka S assignments in the future.
In general, I had a really nice experience and enjoyed my internship. GhentCDH is a supportive environment, and I want to thank Fien Danniau and Lise Foket for their guidance and help. GhentCDH gave meI had the freedom to conduct my research, and they trusted me to support the Omeka S projects as I saw fit. The skills I learned and network I built will undoubtedly benefit me in my future career in Digital Humanities.