Museum ethics, display design and object-based research are some of the areas for which online resources are being developed in a JISC-funded project between the University of Reading, University College London and the Collections Trust.
The project, called Object-Based Learning for Higher Education, prioritises usability and aims to make the resources part of syllabuses. On the Reading side the resources are primarily designed for the new Museum Studies joint honours due to start at Reading in October 2013, based at the Museum of English Rural Life.
The skeleton in the picture on the left is from the collection at the Cole Museum of Zoology part of a resource on display ethics, looking at how museums make decisions about displaying human and animal remains.
In February 2012 we carried out a small-scale research study into students’ preferences regarding online learning, which found that the most important consideration for students was that online learning resources are relevant to course tasks. The report is here online learning preferences research report.
In addition, as part of the project many collections at the University’s museums are being digitised, adding images of objects and documents to the museums’ online databases.
For more information, visit the project blog at http://blogs.reading.ac.uk/oblhe/ or contact Rebecca Reynolds.