Following the designation of Islamic Studies as a strategically important subject by the UK Government in June 2007, JISC commissioned a review of user requirements for digitised resources for researchers and teachers within higher education working in the field of Islamic Studies.
The University of Exeter carried out the study and in their final report made a range of recommendations:
• The creation of a authoritative gateway to Islamic Resources
• Develop digitised catalogues of Islamic manuscripts and related research material such as recent theses;
• The commissioning of a feasibility study into the creation of a corpus of interactive online education materials, which could also be hosted by the national gateway
• Continuation, and increase, of the subsidies for major online reference works in Islamic Studies.
• The archiving of the websites of UK Islamic organisations
• Subsidising the acquisition of an online collection of research monographs in Islamic Studies, should such a collection be developed by a commercial organisation.
Read the full report on User Requirements for Digitised Resources in Islamic Studies (Word) or (PDF).