Enriching the Archive
In October 2008 The First World War Poetry Digital Archive received further funding through the JISC's Digitisation Programme to enrich its content.
This new project set out to enhance the digital resources by making them more useful to practitioners and tying them in directly to curricula. Using various tools the project demonstrated curated paths through the collection, and solicited material created directly by practitioners. A range of tools were used including MIT's timelines, VUE, Flickr, Second Life, and the project's own Path Creation Tool. A small part of the budget was also used to fund the digitisation of the manuscripts of Siegfried Sassoon, who could not be included in the original project.
The project exemplified how users can utilise web 2.0 tools to visualise the archival data in new and innovative ways via:
- Providing geolinking of key historical artefacts in the archive via Google Maps and Google Earth
- Create historical timelines via applications such as MIT's Similie.
- Create mindmaps using Tufts University's Visual Understanding Environment (VUE)
- Using Google Groups to set up an 'ask the expert' facility.
- Expose a series of items from the Great War Archive to Flickr to encourage debate and discussion.
- Create a series of 'curated collections' or 'structured paths' using the project's Path Creation Tool.
- Podcasting of content as an open educational resource for use in teaching via applications such as iTunes and iTunesU.
- The creation of a 3D virtual exhibition in virtual world software Second Life.
The project was directed by Dr. Stuart Lee and managed by Kate Lindsay. All documentation supporting the project can be found on the documentation page.