Sharpen Your Skills Workshops

In response to a multitude of requests for additional training from former participants in our popular "Getting Started" workshop, the Institute for Oral History began offering advanced online workshops once or twice yearly on high-demand topics. These workshops feature a single three-hour session that expand upon facets of the oral history process.

The next offering in our series of advanced online workshops titled "Sharpen Your Skills” will focus on advanced interviewing and prepare those with a basic understanding of oral history to enhance their in-depth interview approach with narrators to accomplish their research objectives more successfully. Topics for this workshop will include preparing interviewees, cross-cultural interviewing, redirecting narrators, handling difficult interviewees, and managing the interviewer-narrator relationship. We will also address dealing with difficult topics as well as the dynamics of distance interviews.

Registration for the Sharpen Yours Skills E-Workshop: Advanced Interviewing Techniques is now closed. Check back this fall for information about our next advanced workshop!

Purpose
Our advanced E-workshop is designed for the oral historian who is looking to get a in depth look into specific area of oral history. The workshop is primarily an advanced course for oral history interviewers who have conducted an oral history interview in the past and are looking to refine their skills and practices. We also welcome participants who are new to oral history.

Topics
Topics covered in the workshop are offered on a rotating basis, with new topics occasionally offered as well. Below includes a list of workshops that we have offered in the past.  

• Turning Oral Histories Into Radio Dramas (May 2021)
• Advanced Interviewing Techniques (November 2015, May 2020)
• Managing an Oral History Project (February 2016)
• Processing and Outcomes in Oral History (November 2016)
• Advanced Interviewing Techniques (May 2017)
• Digital Tools in Oral History (May 2018)
• Protecting Your Project and Participants (May 2019)

Faculty
Your instructors are faculty and staff members of Baylor University Institute for Oral History, with an accumulated record of more than fifty years of experience with oral history interviewing, training, and administration.

Format
The three-hour workshop is in one session, presented in the morning, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm CDT. We allow ample time for questions and comments at the end of the session and make ourselves available as consultants for the duration of your oral history project. Sample forms and documents related to oral history workshop topic, as well as additional resources, will be made available to workshop participants through Baylor's online file sharing system.

Online Connection
The Zoom-based class will include  lecture, Q&A,  discussion, and interactive exercises The workshop requires  preparatory reading on your part and an assignment. All readings and resources are provided to registrants from about one week before the workshop through two months after the workshop.

Outcomes
Participants receive 1) the recorded session of the live workshop; 2) topic resources; 3) course evaluation form; 4) additional oral history support

More Information About Our Advanced Workshops

If you have questions, or would like to be added to our waiting list, please email buioh@baylor.edu.