JISC

Start date: 1 August 2000

End date: 31 July 2003

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

Project website: http://ihr.sas.ac.uk/search/

The Institute of Historical Research (IHR) has been running a history gateway and server since July 1993 with the primary aim of promoting high quality resources for the learning and teaching of history in the UK. The current project to develop History On-Line for Learning and Teaching will build on existing resources and relationships to establish a comprehensive service for the UK further and higher education community, with information not only about online resources for historians, but also about the history profession (books, journal articles, current research and teaching, lecturers and seminars). All of the information catalogued as part of the project will be made freely available on the IHR website and will also form a substantial part of the history content of the Humbul humanities hub, part of the Resource Discovery Network.

Aims and Objectives

The overall aims of the project are to:

• Enhance the history content on the Humbul humanities hub
• Contribute to the development of a cross-searchable, interdisciplinary service for further and higher education in the UK
• Develop existing online databases for the purposes of learning and teaching
• Undertake a programme of resource discovery aimed at students and teachers of history

The specific objectives are to:

• Substantially increase the number of online resources catalogued
• Annotate each resource catalogued in a way that will facilitate its use for learning and teaching and make the information more accessible
• Consult users about the usefulness, type and extent of the introductory information provided for each resource
• Extend the comprehensive classification scheme developed by the IHR, based on type of history, geographical area and period, to all new resources catalogued as part of this project

Project design

The project involves the cataloguing and evaluation of online resources and their integration with existing IHR online databases. The selection criteria will be those established by Humbul, but decisions about the types of records to be catalogued will be informed further by the experience of the many specialist historians working in the IHR and shaped by the requirements of the history subject community.

The project will serve the needs of the community of historians within further and higher education in the UK. The IHR communicates on a regular basis with all teachers of history within further and higher education, all new postgraduate students, and historians in archives, record offices and research organisations.

Outcomes

The results of the project will be made available to users on both the Humbul and IHR Web sites as part of the RDN and will also be disseminated and publicised at conferences and workshops throughout the life of the project and beyond. The project will contribute to the development of the RDN and result in the creation of a unique resource for and about the history profession in the UK.