• AHRC ICT-Related Projects
• Digital Resources for the Humanities and Arts (DRHA)
• Virtual Research Environments

Virtual Research Environments

Building a Virtual Research Environment for the Humanities

University of Oxford (Humanities Division)

The programme proposed aims to extend the range and depth of the preliminary investigation within and outside Oxford in order to identify specific areas in which the benefits of deploying VRE tools are likely to be substantial (for example: communication, project management and design, efficiency, access to resources) and to define those where the benefits may be more marginal; on this basis to identify specific tools appropriate for deployment as demonstrators; and, in the final cycle of project activity, to implement the demonstrators and to assess their effectiveness.The duration of the project will be 18 months. It will comprise a detailed survey and analysis of a wide range of Oxford Humanities research with ICT content and links to related research activities nationally and internationally, with a view to identifying common needs, methods and objectives; the final phase of the project will be devoted to the construction of a small number of prototypes or demonstrators, together with further user evaluation. The work will be supervised and coordinated with a steering group in which other institutions will be strongly represented. The project intends to collaborate where appropriate with the AHRC-funded ICT Methods Network and the JISC-funded ICT Awareness and Training Programme for the Arts and Humanities as well as other national Humanities services such as the AHDS, Humbul and Artifact.The proposal is designed so that the outcomes will be relevant for VRE deployments being proposed both within Oxford and nationally. In particular, the project will collaborate with the JISC-funded Integrative Biology VRE. It is proposed that applications developed as part of the demonstrator workpackage will be available locally in the first instance and, if appropriate, exposed for integration into national or inter-institutional VREs.

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