Digital tools for creation of academic content

There are so many! So, where to start? I think all of us have preferred tools for different tasks. And, for me, these change over time. I seem to have a preference for open source tools. I think it is because I am a bit of a geek and like to learn from a community of others and customise my digital tools for what I want them to do.

But, that approach does not suit everyone. If you are not very confident in the creation of digital assets, using more user-friendly software and hardware can be beneficial. You may find some frustration in not being everything you want to do, but this is offset by the fairly steady learning curve within this software. There is a slow and steady approach to learn how to use advancing tools in MSFT Word, compared to the steep initial learning required to even write the header element on a LaTeX document.

You might not like Microsoft, but this is really where they have got this right. It is ‘bloatware’ if you are not using everything in it, and if you want just a simple word processor then there are other (including free) options. But as you develop and want to use more, you can learn more. Writing your thesis? Many would recommend LaTeX, and I would say have a go. But if it doesn’t work out I wrote my doctoral thesis in Word. Admittedly with all the figures it used a lot of RAM and I ended up writing a chapter at a time and wish I had started it in LaTeX but it is possible. If this is the way you want to go I would recommended looking for a course on writing large documents, as there are tools within Word that you probably don’t use and should. This is partly why it is considered bloatware, is that at the beginning you will not use much of it and hopefully as you develop so will the use of all the additional bits to it. There are limitations, and this is where Word allows for plugins like Zotero even though it offers its own (fairly poor) citation manager.

That’s fine for document creation, and the Office 365 package offers enough to meet most requirements. Again, there are alternative and still plenty of free options out there. But, if you are here as a student or an academic, there is a good chance that you have access to Office 365 through your institution.

One thing about Office is that Publisher and Access has pretty much gone. If you want to create an image or diagram then I do find PowerPoint to have all the tools now to do this. If you want a database, then Access is still around but I think that the ‘misuse’ of Excel and turning it into a database rather than a spreadsheet by pretty much everyone who uses it has resulted in its expansion into fulfilling this too (think pivot tables as a replacement for database reports, and mail merge for invoicing etc.).

For creating video content, I do like a bit of opensource and use OBS. This does not have a steep a learning curve as LaTeX, but it can be a little more advanced than something like Panopto. But, then, it potentially offers so much more if you need it and the plugins can be really useful.

So even though there is a lot out there, it is all down to what you want to learn and how motivated you are to use something new and take the time to explore and play with a digital tool. YouTube is amazing for all levels of digital literacy and exploring new software, or looking at more advanced features in ‘comfortable’ software. If time is short, #1MinuteCPD is invaluable and well worth a look aiming at developing digital skills and there is a lot there for academia (I find the tags the most helpful when trying to navigate around the massive bank of content on there).