JISC

Start date: 1 September 2000

End date: 30 September 2003

Funding programme: Learning and Teaching (5/99) programme

Project website: http://artworld.uea.ac.uk/

This project is part of the images project cluster in this particular programme. The main focus for projects in this cluster is on the creation and use of still image collections for learning and teaching.

Background

ARTWORLD has arisen from a need to address some of the most persistent problems in learning and teaching from world art and archaeology collections; objects are often widely dispersed, out of context and too fragile to interrogate effectively. Recent developments in technology have made it possible to solve these problems. Digital recording and the latest broadcast media allow intense scrutiny of otherwise inaccessible objects to a greater number of people whether learners or teachers.

The project involves collaborative working across a partnership of museums, art galleries and academic departments within HE and will be designed to facilitate access for students and teachers to primary visual resource materials. Partners include: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts and the Sainsbury Research Unit; School of World Art Studies and Museology; Durham University Oriental Museum; Departments of Archaeology, Anthropology and East Asian Studies, University of Durham; and the Far Eastern Department, Victoria and Albert Museum. The Sainsbury Centre and its partners are ideally placed to carry out this project given their wide experience, innovative teaching methods and strong interest in new technology.

Aims and Objectives

The overall aim of the project is to develop digital resources for the enhancement of learning and teaching in world art studies. The specific objectives are to:

• Improve digital resources relating to art and archaeology collections held within two UK universities and associated academic departments and institutions for the enhancement of learning and teaching in world art studies
• Involve a network of academic partnerships in the processes of data management and resource gathering in order to begin development of materials for application to teaching across a range of disciplines and to ensure that the teaching programmes are grounded in up to date research
• Make the collections better known and used in order to widen access to collections of diverse materials held between geographically distant institutions and to present them within a broad cultural framework
• Develop programmes which make use of appropriate technology, including video and digital surrogates, to enable online intense scrutiny of objects that are normally too fragile to be handled
• Develop uses of multimedia resources to demonstrate ARTWORLD’S innovative cross-disciplinary approach to the historical, cultural and aesthetic presentation and study of visual material
• Make the collections databases and resources applicable for independent use in lifelong learning
• Link up with other online museums collections databases with related aims and other appropriate networks of digital resources
• Initiate a programme of assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes and integrate educational research and evaluation as part of the development and continuation of the project

Project design

ARTWORLD will be phased over 3 years. In the first year, the two main partner institutions will consolidate their data and create digital images of objects in the collections to form the basic digital resource. Pilot work in the first phase will concentrate on developing the techniques required to develop learning and teaching packages from this resource. This will be shaped by formative evaluation including user testing by student evaluators. During the second year, further development of the basic resource will be informed by previous evaluation. Victoria and Albert Museum collections data will be used to extend resources for specific academic teaching and learning projects. The focus in the second year will move to refining academic projects. There are currently a number of potential areas for research including new approaches to teaching in an electronic environment, online seminars, thematic programmes exploring single subjects or groups of objects and close scrutiny of single objects. The third and final stage of the project will focus more heavily on practical application of the academic projects based on the evaluations from year two as well as continuing development of learning and teaching packages.

Outcomes

As the teaching material is used as part of taught courses it will be necessary to look more closely at the student experience. How do students learn in the face of this material? How does use of the material relate to assessment? How do the materials relate to course structures and subject boundaries? What are the implications of teaching with material of this kind for students who go on to do research degrees? In order to begin asking questions about educational effectiveness it will be necessary to build up case records in relation to each programme. These records will include course documentation, interviews with students and staff and observations of teaching. The project will also need to consider how the material is used outside formal courses by other users, namely adult education, schools and the public.