Mapping and evaluating dRTP’s contributions to computing skills’pedagogies
On the 29th of June, we will be giving a lightning talk and a poster presentation at STEP-UP London Conference 2026, the 7th regional community conference for digital Research Technical Professionals (dRTPs) in London and the South East, supported by STEP-UP, a UK-based research project funded under the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)’s 2023 Strategic Technical Platforms call.
Abstract:
Our research – funded by the UKRI’s DisCouRSE+ network - seeks to map and analyse the provision of digital research competencies (DRC) which are led by or involve dRTP’s across Higher Education institutions in the UK. The teaching of computational methods has spread across disciplines, spawning numerous pedagogical approaches and a wide variety of methods, software, products, and environments. However, the role of dRTP’s in the proliferation teaching DRC remains unclear. dRTP’s responsibilities are primarily focused on research and infrastructure and expectations around involvement in training and teaching vary widely across the sector. Furthermore, choices as to which approaches and delivery modes to adopt in teaching and training are often driven by trends, licensing constraints or trainer’s familiarity rather than pedagogical criteria or context suitability.
Our research, therefore, seeks to investigate what training and teaching is being delivered by dRTP’s? What skills and competencies are being taught? What pedagogical approaches are being taken? How does thisdiffer across audiences, infrastructures, and institutions? We will use this lightning talk (and the poster we are also proposing) to report on our preliminary findings from a survey we have been running and audit of curricula and training involving dRTP’s listed on university websites and to further develop conversations with the dRTP community over their involvement in education and training.
Slides
I am an interdisciplinary researcher whose research articulates around how physical and digital infrastructures, especially those that are commonly produced, respond to and are shaped by societal challenges. I’ve worked as an architect, drupal developer, project manager, lecturer, data scientist, and currently as Principal Research Software Engineer.
My research interests revolve around the social aspect of technology and methods to surface the world-views that are invariably embedded in technical artefacts such as cities, software or platforms. To do so, I use mixed methods with a preference for digital methods, participatory methods and data visualisation and a keen interest in EDI and open research best practices to make research Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable