​The Covid-19 global pandemic has greatly impacted all walks of life, including students gaining work experience within the creative industries. This free online masterclass looks at how alternative digital internships allow students to learn skills, gain knowledge, and makes social connections that can shape careers and enhance your employability. Led by four University of South Wales interns on the Audience of the Future Wallace & Gromit: The Big Fix Up AR project (partnering with Fictioneers in collaboration with Aardman), this event is highly valuable to both students and staff. The class provides first-hand experience of the processes of applying for digital internships, the interns’ roles and experiences on the project, what internships provide outside of a degree programme, and how teaching staff can facilitate these opportunities for their student cohorts. There will also be a chance for the audience to ask questions and get tips and advice from the presenters during a live Q&A session.

Dr. Helen Davies and Dr. James Rendell, Audience Research Leads on the USW Audience of the Future Demonstrator Challenge Programme introduced undergraduate students at London South Bank University to the various approaches to researching audiences for the development of Augemented Reality media, centring on two key aspects: usability and immersion.  The talk looked at traditional face-to-face methods, and also considered how the use of digital software for remote testing - Lookback - also facilitated research during the pandemic, and what this meant for conducting ethical studies.Online, Oct 13, 2020