Tinker, the new Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Data-Enhanced Virtual Lab (HASS DEVL), promises a workbench environment for accessing digital tools, a data curation framework, all supported by a national skills and training framework. This project aims to aid a diverse research community in accessing new tools and research methods, realising their research ambitions, and increasing their confidence with data and digital research methods.

This workshop will articulate the latest developments behind Tinker; We'll discuss our community building approach, focusing on tools as a shared resource for the creation of communities of practice.

Presenters will share our project experience to date, including the barriers and challenges we’ve encountered, what we learned as we tested those assumptions through delivery of the project, and the outcomes of our consultations with researchers.

Workshop attendees will tackle an interactive design challenge by working in groups to apply elements of the Tinker framework, challenges and solutions to their own institutional and professional communities. In so doing, this workshop aims to harness eResearch community involvement to gather feedback and ideas as well as to promote collaboration.

In closing, participants will learn about our skills and training approach, which aims to empower the community, facilitate peer network education, and lower the barriers to entry for digital tools and research methods.

Come and Tinker with us as we learn, build and test new approaches to digital research.