Sustainability

Happy World Digital Preservation Day!

We work on lots of exciting digitisation work in the Digital Humanities Lab, and our wonderful undergraduate interns have put together a video to give you a snapshot of just some of the materials we have made digitally available.

Just some of the materials and techniques we work with in the DH lab

But how do we make sure that the resources we create will be usable in 5, 10 or even 100 years time? Digital content can be extremely ephemeral, and is vulnerable to being irreplaceably lost if we’re not careful – just think of how many floppy disks and CDs most of us have that are no longer supported by our current computer. So while we’re creating new content through digitisation in the lab, we’re also working hard with colleagues around the University to plan for the longer-term future of the materials we create, as well as supporting the preservation of digital resources in the University collections.

A lot of digital preservation goes on behind the scenes, and isn’t always as obvious as some of the other work we do, so World Digitisation Day, run by the Digital Preservation Coalition is a great opportunity to stop and celebrate what we do as well as see how much else is going on around the world!

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Digitally enhancing the Humanities learning experience

The new academic year has arrived and a lot has been going on behind the scenes to enhance the learning experience of on-campus and remote learners in 2020/21 and for years to come. With the majority of staff and students working from home, much of university life – from seminars, working groups and research conferences to team meetings, cake breaks and crafternoons – has essentially become virtual. Could this be an opportunity to explore new ways and new tools to teach that can bring real value to the future student experience and enables students around the world to continue to study and engage in a learning community? The answer is yes.

Creative and tech-savvy Digital Learning Developers have collaborated with lecturers to prepare engaging teaching resources and module pages on the Exeter Learning Environment (ELE) across all colleges and subject areas. Module conveners took the opportunity to design clear, informative and streamlined content and revamp course material through personal videos, image galleries, cloud documents for collective editing and virtual activities such as weekly Q&A chats, quizzes and virtual gratitude walls to foster class spirit.

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