Background

A body of expertise in the material culture of Central and Eastern Europe was identified in art history departments at the Universities of Glasgow, St. Andrews and Aberdeen. However, the introduction of new courses in this area was hindered by a lack of sufficient teaching resources. In response a plan was drawn up to pool resources, both in terms of staff and images, and to generate a teaching initiative that would make previously inaccessible material available to students.

Aims and Objectives

Develop a collaborative project between the three universities to develop teaching resources and an academic network of specialists dealing with the material culture of Central and Eastern Europe. The project involves developing an innovative web-based teaching resource with the assistance of HATII (the Humanities Advance Technology Information Institute), and a new team-taught Honours course.

The web-based resource will consist of around 1000 digitised images with accompanying metadata and captions written by the staff. The system will allow Art History students to access images by a wide variety of search mechanisms and to group images and write essays about them. Their work can be saved so that it is viewable by both staff and students.

The resource will be available to art history students at the three universities and will be accessed by a password and user name. The resource may also be made available to GLAADH members who can apply for a password and user name.

The new Honours team-taught course will be taught at the three universities by members of the consortium, initially at Aberdeen and St. Andrews. It is also hoped to run a field trip for students to parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The course will provide a model of innovative teaching practice in areas where the available literature and primary resources have hitherto been inadequate.

Resources

The images which form the web-based resource have been collected by staff at the three institutions. Information about the images will be provided by the staff and made available on the web-based resource in the form of captions and longer essays about groups of images. The project draws on the expertise of a recent University of Glasgow MSC graduate who has developed a bespoke image database. Considerable support and technical input has also been provided by the HATII (Humanities Advance Technology and Information Institute) in the University of Glasgow.

Timescale

Groups Affected

A team of academics at the three participating universities. Art history students at the three universities.

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