Beyond the academic world, the Gateway project will potentially benefit libraries (including archives), museums, as well as NGOs concerned with fair trade issues affecting the developing world, and that carry out awareness-raising educational work on these issues in the UK.
Following productive conversations with these organisations, the Gateway project will embark on collaborations with the British Library and Oxfam Education.
The British Library is currently developing a long-term digitisation programme for dispersed Indian archival collections around the broad theme of ' science and the changing environment in India 1780-1920' and it is envisaged that the research of Gateway project scholars will identify many of the relevant collections and sources to be digitised. Potential impacts that might arise from this are
-providing expert knowledge on crucial collections and sources to be digitised
-long-term engagement with education institutions in India, thus strengthening international relationships
Oxfam Education aims to introduce a global dimension to classroom education so as to help school students understand their world and make a positive difference to it. Discussions have focused on collaboration in jointly identifying digitised resources relevant to the thematic areas of 'fair trade', 'food' and 'global conflicts' arising from the competition for certain commodities. These will be primarily targeted at 16+ students. Potential impacts might include
-using digital media to raise classroom awareness of how food is produced and consumed globally in the contemporary world, and of associated sustainability issues
-using digital technologies to set up joint projects involving schools in the UK and in the developing world
-developing the knowledge and experience of Oxfam educators, particularly in relation to digital media
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AH/J004049/1
The Commodities Gateway is an on-line research resource, providing the user with access from a single platform to an extensive range of digital materials relating to the history of commodities originating in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America. These are regions whose global economic significance, based largely on the continuing production of and trade in commodities, is set to rise over the next few decades; yet they are currently under-represented in both scholarly historical research and public information available on the internet. The Gateway project and the external partnerships it will engage in will seek to contribute to redressing this situation.
The Gateway will embody new ways of working that will enhance both research creativity and public access. Hosted on the Open University's web server, the web-based platform will present users with a map-based interface comprising GIS-enabled visualisation of the data and a flexible federated search facility linking the Gateway to other archival and library catalogues. This will enable them to access a wide range of documents, either internally available or externally linked; the Gateway will provide open access to these resources, together with an original capacity for non-linear navigation and exploration, as it is one of the projects chosen for 'linked data' technology experimentation by the OU's Knowledge Media Institute in the context of the latter's JISC-funded 'Linking University Content for Education and Research Online' (LUCERO) project. While the long-term intention is to include a broad range of commodities, the Gateway will initially concentrate on four historically significant ones, cotton, silk, sugar and tobacco. In addition, it will use the interactive and networking possibilities of the digital medium to enable researchers to produce collaborative on-line essays on these commodities. Finally, through external partnerships with the British Library and Oxfam Education, the project will identify further crucial sources to be digitised in the context of the former's long-term digitisation strategy for dispersed Indian archival collections, and contribute to the latter's new departure in its UK educational work with schools through the use of digital media.
The Gateway will be developed through the setting up of a research network via two workshops (School of Advanced Studies, London, September 2011 and International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, June 2012) that will bing together digital humanities scholars, commodities historians, external collaborators from the British Library and Oxfam Education, and representatives from interested museums. The network will enable the sharing of state-of-the-art knowledge on the application of digital technologies to humanities/historical projects focused on the non-European world, promote interactions across a range of boundaries (disciplinary, national, higher education/public sector), and fine tune the modalities of the envisaged external partnerships. Throughout the period of the award, there will also be ongoing development of the Gateway website and platform led by the co-ordinator. This will culminate in the public launch of the project in September 2012.
Commodity Histories 1800-2000. A Gateway to Digital Resources
http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk:80/projects?ref=AH%2FJ004049%2F1
Commodity Histories 1800-2000. A Gateway to Digital Resources