Jessica Barraclough: BA in Film & Media Production, Digital Media & Informatics Stream

Jessica Barraclough signed up for Information Systems as part of her Bachelor of Arts degree through the Centre for Film and Media Studies, and studied databases, how information systems are designed and developed, and how to code.

As part of the Digital Media & Informatics Stream, Jessica took Information Systems to a level where it was just one or two courses short of a full Information Systems major.

“We learnt how to code HTML and CSS. A lot of the focus was on interactive media, so we did a lot of data journalism. We had to create our own visualised, interactive data articles,” says Jessica.

For example, Jessica and a team compared the city’s budget against the average income per ward and then found some interesting discrepancies. Another example was an interactive children’s storybook in two languages, learning about access and inclusivity on the Internet.

For the third-year research project, which involved creative teamwork, Jessica and a few classmates made an interactive documentary. Queer me out was published online. Jessica did the coding and layout, while other classmates handled the video and editorial content. The project looks at how different languages approach words that describe sexuality and includes video interviews. The team continues to add to the project over a year later. They feel that it is not as polished as it could be given the time restraints but it continues to interest them.

“Digital media was very interesting and useful for employment,” says Jessica, who found freelance work with a start-up as a result of the portfolio she developed during the course.

The Digital Media and Informatics Stream is a fairly structured programme and it provided many of the skills have been very useful in Jessica’s professional work, including the course she did in IT project management. She also learnt several programming languages, including C# and SQL, and developed an understanding of how business and information systems work.

Despite the structure of the programme, these is room for a few electives that help students expand their other interests and find out if they are heading in the right direction. Jessica took gender studies and English. She found the practical skills learnt very useful but the course also developed her creative leanings.