Archiving for the Future Conference
Archiving for the Future: using archives to enhance learning and teaching in drama and theatre studies
Event Description:
This event is being organised in conjunction with the Institute for Performing Arts Development at the University of East London and the CEDAR (Clustering and Enhancing Digital Archives for Research) project: a unique approach to clustering and enhancing digital theatre archives through a collaboration between UEL, Royal Holloway, Sheffield and Nottingham universities as well as Kings College, London.
The day will consist of a series of presentations of good practice in using digital archives with undergraduate and postgraduate students.
It will include an opportunity for delegates to experiment and reflect on the use of archives for their own practice.
The target audience for the event is: drama/theatre studies lecturers, researchers, theatre historians, digital and web-practitioners, archivists, library and learning support service staff.
Topics covered will include:
- The use of the East London Theatre Archive for undergraduate theatre students;
- The connection between archives and web-based platforms for learning;
- Making archives ‘living’ through the user-interface.
The event aims to provide an opportunity for the sharing of teaching pedagogies and an open forum for the discussion of methodological and other concerns.
More details are available from the event Programme
From Botanical Research to Murder Most Foul: 11 new e-Content Projects begin
The 14-15th October saw the first Programme Meeting for the 11 new projects that from the new e-Content Programme.
The meeting is an opportunity for projects to meet each other and share ideas and inspirations, as well as an opportunity for programme managers to meet all the projects in one space.
Meeting the Projects
The day began with a JISC Quiz and the projects delivering a 3 minute presentation outlining the work they’re doing.
These included the fascinating GrassPortal which demonstrated how being able to plot the spread of invasive grasses can help save rare topical forests from fires, through to Connected Histories which used the example of William Payne of Bell Yard to show the importance of being able to bring together disperate historical resources for the benefit of researchers and teachers.
Embedding and Sustaining Projects
Hilary Grierson from Strathclyde University gave a very imformative presentation on how projects can align the work they are doing to institutional strategies.
JISC and Project Management
After lunch Poala Marchionni, JISC Programme Manager, gave a presentation on what JISC expects from projects and what projects can expect to recieve from JISC.
Alastair Dunning, JISC Programme Manager, then gave a very innovative presentation on some of the lessons learnt from the phase two digitisation projects. These lessons include: Cool URLs; design for websites, and usability testing.
Alastair’s presentation can be found here.
Comms and Marketing
Finally, Jane Charlton, JISC Communications Coordinator, gave a presentation on Communication and Marketing for the projects, and what support and guidance JISC can give projects.
To find out more about the 11 projects that make up the eContent Programme you can visit the eContent webpage.
Mathematic Content in Electronic Media
A recent workshop held on the 9th September 2009 at the Open University discussed the issues that surround mathematical content in digital form.
Bringing together leading mathematicians and practitioners involved in the digitisation of mathematical content, the workshop addressed areas such as: collaboration, standards, improving practice, and reuse of software, in relation to mathematic content in electronic form.
The workshop had three aims:
- Content related technical problems in supporting eLearning in mathematics
- Standards related to digitisation of mathematics research literature, and:
- Formulas and equationsin otherwise non-mathematical content
The workshop has now produced a range of slides and video and a final report which are available from the Workshop website.