I’m a former CUNY faculty member back to a great resource and seeking some discussion.
I’d really like to know what folks are doing with Omeka in undergraduate classes.
I’ve gone back and forth on a platform for an archival/curation project in a DH course I’ll soon teach. I know WP and we “could” use it, but I also think Omeka has more of the archivist/curator/DH knowledge worker thinking baked into it. This makes it potentially quite valuable (professionally) for our humanities students.
We’ll be documenting uses of a historically significant waterway. I have environmental science colleagues who have collected considerable data on the current health of the waterway, plant/animal species, etc. They’ve also done a lot of work with local residents/commercial interests to educate and explore sustainability on the river, including some interviews, public forum transcripts, etc. And the local library has a large archive of historical photos of the area, and a set of maps of the area running back to the seventeenth century.
That’s the raw material for a planned hands-on DH project that will bring this material together in a web-based exhibit. (This may be more of a HASTAC project than a strictly DH project since it actually bridges historical, visual, and scientific communities.)
Omeka seems tailor made for this sort of project: geolocation of historic and contemporary images in a google map. I’m guessing we’d also be able to import some .kml data from the scientists to fold in what we know about invasive species, native species, nesting grounds.
My question: What are some of the barriers for students when they engage Omeka? I’ve read the blog post by Miriam Posner and get the point about handouts/tutorials. But I’m looking for a bit more on the learning curve, the quantity of work generated in such projects, etc.
