Robyn Keetley
Student spotlight details
Driven by a desire to make historical video content both accurate and engaging, Robyn, a Digital Content Producer, enrolled on our part-time online Advanced Diploma in Local History to strengthen her research skills and deepen her understanding of historical storytelling.
'As a Digital Content Producer specialising in historical video production, I wanted to learn how to research and interpret historical information to aid my work. I make a variety of factual content for heritage sites, museums as well as charities but I wanted my work to not only be entertaining, but a reliable source of information and research for viewers. Studying for the Advanced Diploma in Local History taught me how to find interesting stories from the past and contextualise them with relevant evidence, an invaluable skill I can now use when producing historical content. The course taught me that there are various ways to approach the interpretation of data and sources – considering when they were produced, the influence of the socio-political climate and who the author was.
'There was a lot of freedom on the course to choose the topics that interested me the most in the early-modern period, create questions around them and then expand on my research and data throughout an assignment. It was amazing to have access to the University’s extensive Bodleian library and online resources for all the assignments and I found myself reading through hundreds of articles and books, sometimes to aid me with course assignments and sometimes just for fun!
'Some of the assignments were more challenging than others; especially projects that required me to compound data into tables but with the help and patience of my course tutor through weekly live chats, I was able to learn how to use software like Microsoft Access to create databases and queries to support the historical interpretation and theories in my essays. It was also nice to have an active and supportive online group of other students to compare and discuss work with.
'I plan to use the skills I learnt whilst earning my diploma to inform my historical documentary and video projects moving forward. I have already put my research and interpretation skills to good use on videos for The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and an independent documentary about the Knights Templar and their presence in the local Leicestershire and Derbyshire areas. I would highly recommend this course to anyone hoping to expand their historical research and interpretation skills, especially those trying to research into more obscure, local history as the course was very beneficial in suggesting places online to find information you may not have considered or looked at before.
'Being able to study for the Diploma remotely part-time, fitting it around my job and other commitments, was also vital to me being able to complete the course and is a big reason I would recommend it to anyone wanting to expand their history skills whilst still working.'
