History of Art
The History of Art Department is a teaching and research department within the History Faculty which is part of the Humanities Division at the University of Oxford. In addition to its full-time academic staff, there are more than fifty associated academic staff across the University with interests in the History of Art and Visual Culture. These colleagues contribute to the teaching programmes and reinforce the Department's dynamic interdisciplinary approach.
For further information about the Department and its activities, see http://www.hoa.ox.ac.uk/
The Department currently offers fourteen undergraduate (BA History of Art), twenty taught graduate (MSt History of Art & Visual Culture) and up to ten research graduate (DPhil History (History of Art)) places per year. All students attend lectures, seminar and classes and benefit from the Oxford tutorial system. Even though seminars and classes are taught by cohort, and tutorials given one-to-one or in pairs, because of the small student numbers in the Department, much activity within the Department also runs across year groups, bringing the undergraduate and graduate communities together. The Department uses the virtual learning environment as a platform to facilitate this.
‘Course' in this context refers to the teaching activities of the Department as a whole and covers multiple sites: the main History of Art site holds a series of teaching sub-sites. Where we refer to ‘WebLearn', this is the Oxford ‘Sakai learning environment'.
Co-creator and site maintainer: Ms Vicky Brown
Course convenors (academic staff responsible for coordinating individual course): Professor Craig Clunas; Dr Hanneke Grootenboer; Dr Sarah James; Dr Gervase Rosser; Dr Alastair Wright
Research student rep: Ms Kerry Gavaghan
Computing Services adviser: Mr Fawei Geng
Up until 2008, the History of Art Department had been using another VLE which had many restrictions and which had essentially become a repository for course documents. The Department wanted an interactive platform to engage students and enrich teaching both inside and outside the classroom.
Simultaneously, Computing Services adopted Sakai as an alternative VLE. The Departmental Administrator and Visual Resources Curator (henceforth referred to as the site maintainers) rose to the challenge of participating in the Oxford pilot and worked in partnership, taking responsibility for the planning and designing of the History of Art presence, according to local teaching needs, and arrived at the current site structure and hierarchy following prolonged discussion with Computing Services staff and consultation with the Department. It was trialed by core academic staff, visiting researchers and student representatives.
The main History of Art site is a container for 27 sub-sites. This includes the HoA Centre for Visual Studies site, which fulfils a departmental objective to bring together colleagues across the University with an academic interest in the History of Art and builds on the annual interdisciplinary workshop that is organised by the Department to showcase the variety of work being undertaken. These sites, together with the HoA Visual Resources Centre site, which relates to the departmental image collections and the use of digital images in teaching and research, are searchable and joinable by anyone with a University log-in, so members become part of an online Oxford History of Art community; History of Art students are automatically made members of these sites. The HoA Staff site, which can only be accessed by History of Art core staff, is used for administrative purposes, for example, the annual calendar, student database and room bookings, which are updated daily. Contingency documents, for example, the disaster recovery plan are also posted here, so that they can be accessed remotely. The HoA Student site contains sub-sites by cohort which in turn hold teaching sites maintained by respective course convenors. Teaching sub-sites are restricted to members only: departmental staff, librarians and enrolled students, replicating the small class sizes, creating online communities and extending the learning experience outside the classroom. Other students can request to be made members via the site maintainers and relevant course convenors.
Involving staff and students from the outset helped encourage commitment and interactivity from all: course convenors have taken responsibility for populating their own areas and students are engaged in contributing to site content and making suggestions for further developments based on their own technological ability. Academic staff and students all agree that the interface is aesthetically pleasing, flexible and intuitive. This was especially important due to the poor take-up of the previous VLE and given our preponderance for all things visual.
The Department went live with Sakai this academic year and is still exploring the full potential of the system, and is gathering feedback as part of course evaluation and in consultation with student reps and staff, so this is still very much a work in progress.
The Department uses WebLearn for providing teaching materials for students, pre- and post-class. Because each teaching site needs to perform a core function and provide essential information, a basic template was conceived for consistency, so that all students on all courses benefit equally from WebLearn. Each teaching homepage has an image, name of course convenor, course description and HTML links to resources, as well as key tools and Weblinks.
Academic staff manage their own teaching sites, uploading syllabi, reading lists, bibliographies, weekly handouts, presentations and relevant Weblinks in the Resources tool: they create HTML links to these from the home pages. The site maintainers monitor teaching sites termly for uniformity and to ensure material is up-to-date and accessible to site members. Sites have developed and been augmented as staff have experimented with more sophisticated tools according to teaching styles. This is a collaborative and progressive development approach.
All students have access to resources from the main HoA Student site, including programme specifications, course handbooks, forms for essay submission and other essential information; having them online means they are readily accessible to all and, from an administrative point of view, can be kept up-to-date, preferable to producing multiple hard copies.
The Department has a rich range of visual resources including a slide collection and photographic archive: WebLearn serves as a platform for promoting these for teaching and research purposes. As digital technology is more commonly used, WebLearn also serves as a means of disseminating advice regarding the use of images from web and subscription sources. The HoA Visual Resources Centre site also contains links to digital image resources, including OXCLIC (in-house image database) and ARTstor (subscription image database).
As well as using the Resources tool for uploading course documents, other tools currently adopted for departmental needs, with examples of their application, are as follows:
Announcements - for alerting site members to additions to sites, e.g., new applications, departmental events and news - an online noticeboard;
Assignments - for submitting course papers;
Chat Room - adopted for examination revision, open discussion between all site members; particularly useful for larger cohorts who are taught in separate class groups;
Forums - for obtaining feedback on site development; for submitting class papers and generating peer response; exchanging information on conferences, funding opportunities, internships and jobs;
Mailtool and Email Archive - a further overarching influence on the creation of the hierarchy is the ability to group e-mail members of sites: this allows academic staff to target specific groups of students in their communications;
News (RSS) - ARTstor newsfeed announcing additions to collections;
Schedule - for logging and alerting members to adhoc events and meetings;
Site Stats - used by site maintainers to monitor access to sites and use of tools;
Weblinks - to key sites including the graduate online handbook on the History website, online instructions to candidates for examinations, ARTstor, SOLO (Search Oxford Libraries Online), iTunesU, and Facebook;
These are constantly updated, augmenting class teaching and reflecting the ‘live' activities taking place, keeping our site members informed and involved and reinforcing the sense of community.
The Sakai structure lends itself well to inter-departmental interaction with associated academics and the wider art-historical community at Oxford who can be members of the three main sites: this was not possible in our previous VLE. Whilst the main HoA sites allow for general communication with anyone with an interest in History of Art at Oxford, the teaching sites are more subject specific and targeted at enrolled students.
Teaching sites are members only; these small communities are encouraged to contribute to content in a safe environment, for example, some teaching sites have made use of the Forums tool for sharing papers & readings prepared by the students in advance of a class. This also facilitates collaboration amongst the students after a class, building on discussions.
The Forums tool has also been adopted on the HoA Student site for sharing conference, funding, internship and job and key website information and related discussion with peers, for example, who is attending, who is presenting papers, who has applied to specific funds:
As the Research Student Representative in the History of Art Department at Oxford, I worked with our administration to develop forums on the Department's WebLearn site where students would be able to share information about conferences, funding, and internships in the field of Art History. WebLearn, being a user-friendly tool to which all of the students have access, provided a convenient platform which has facilitated a level of connection and discussion on these topics that would not have otherwise been possible. Kerry Gavaghan, research student rep.
Mailtool is also used by staff and students to communicate within site communities, for example, arranging revision classes and rescheduling meetings. The presence of photos of site members allows everyone to more easily identify each other - staff, students and associated academics - consolidating the community.
As part of the MSt methodology course, which is taught in two groups because of class-size limitations, as a means of bringing together all of the students, Chat Room is being used for revision purposes at the end of the course.
Academic staff agree that WebLearn has enriched departmental teaching by extending the learning experience - and exchange of knowledge - outside the limited realm of the classroom, both to continue discussion beyond the hour-long class and to develop themes. It has also proved a key platform for unifying the art historical community and collaborative research activities.
Much thought was given to the design of the sites both for intuitive use and visual appeal, as the discipline of History of Art is very much based on the visual. We have ensured consistency across all sites, the provision of clear information, including course outlines, course convenors' names and HTML links to resources, which can also be located via the Resources tool: these include lecture lists, course syllabi, reading lists, prescribed images and their metadata and presentations (PowerPoint, ARTstor Offline Image Viewer and podcasts). Because sites are constructed from a standard departmental template students can readily navigate around all with equal ease. Course convenors can opt to send notifications when new resources are added and the Announcements tool is used to draw attention to new resources and adoption of new tools. Students can contact convenors direct if they feel that any course content is missing.
Roles are clearly delineated across all sites: site designers/administrators are ‘maintainers', academic staff, librarians and student reps are ‘contributors' (a halfway house between maintainer and accessor, so they are able to change content but not the design of sites), and all other students and visitors are ‘accessors'. As well as controlling access and permissions levels, this rationale has created sub-sets by status, making it easy for students to identify their peers; staff - and students - to target these sub-sets for emails via Mailtool; viewing site membership via Site Members and Site Info.
As members of HoA sites, students can view the courses they are enrolled on by easily viewing their course sites via My Active Sites - all with the HoA prefix. However, there are multiple ways of navigating between sites, for example, via the sub-sites menu, so different navigational preferences, as well as learning styles, are accommodated.
Course goals are communicated in the introductory course documents, circulated to students, reinforced in the handbooks and programme specifications and posted electronically as resources in WebLearn. Cohort meetings at the start of each term also provide opportunity for students to clarify their understanding of course requirements and course convenors to direct students to specific tools that will be used to support their studies.
Teaching at Oxford is predominantly class and tutorial based, with students resident in colleges during their studies. WebLearn augments and enriches the learning experience by encouraging interaction and developed thinking on themes, in between scheduled teaching sessions. As a specific example, one of the graduate option courses has adopted the forum tool for uploading student reports on selected topics which are peer reviewed in preparation for class meetings, allowing the class to cover a wider breadth of material than would previously have been achievable in a two-hour class. This also encourages self-reflection as well as critical thinking and active engagement by all.
Course convenors use Mailtool to communicate informally with students, for example, organising class visits to museums, suggesting further reading, and informing students of exam revision sessions. Student reps use Mailtool to gather feedback from their cohorts prior to departmental meetings and students are also encouraged to use Mailtool to communicate with their peers.
Further tools have been investigated and implemented based on the developing needs of individual courses and their cohorts, e.g. the two groups using Chat Room for revising the MSt methodology course.
Formal assessment at Oxford currently precludes us from using the Assignment tool for submission of work that counts towards their final degree, but we are investigating using this tool in conjunction with Turnitin for future years: this is in line with University policy.
Careful planning and consultation with staff and students over the design, development and structure of the HoA sites and their hierarchy has ensured that they are intuitive and easy to navigate. A template was created and key tools were employed for each site so that there is consistency across all areas, both for administrative and teaching sites. Relevant images have been selected to illustrate all sites to enhance the aesthetic of the overall History of Art presence.
Students are first made aware of WebLearn as part of their introduction to Computing Services and are then given a thorough introduction to the HoA WebLearn sites and their functions as part of their departmental induction programme. They are also encouraged to feed back throughout their studies and site maintainers and contributors respond to individual requests on an adhoc basis. Site contributors (mainly course convenors) are given one-to-one tuition by the site maintainers (administrators) on how to populate their sites, and to ensure continuity and accessibility for students. Students were also asked to upload "good likeness" photographs in their WebLearn profiles so that site members can easily identify one another. This avoids the creation of a separate anonymised web community and encourages crossover between class-based and WebLearn based learning.
Embedded HTML links and Web Content links open in new windows so that the path they are navigating through WebLearn is not lost.
Maintainers monitor the structure and content of all sites to ensure that conformity and web accessibility is upheld, for example, giving folders and documents in Resources easily identifiable, common titles, setting up HTML links from front pages to key resources; controlling site membership and permissions levels, taking down out of date material to ensure that all information remains current and relevant and that students continue to have a reason for revisiting the sites.
Our administrators have worked to make navigation of the site easier and as a student user, I am able to find the information that I need quickly and with few issues. Kerry Gavaghan, research student rep.
New students are given a Department specific introduction to WebLearn as part of their induction at the start of their studies, and existing students are given a session on changes and developments that will impact on their courses at the start of every academic year. They are directed to the Help tool and to University user guides for general WebLearn user queries and support, for example, setting up My Workspace profiles, schedule, membership etc. The site structure is clearly explained and demonstrated with hands-on activity so that students are confident that they know where to go for specific information, for example, cohort sites for administrative documents such as handbooks and useful forms. Students are given clear indication as to who they need to contact if they have specific enquiries regarding course materials and who they should consult if they experience difficulty in accessing or navigating sites, i.e., academic enquiries are directed to the named course convenor and technical issues are referred to the site maintainers. On the fly support is provided in response to student feedback and notifications and announcements are sent to all when changes are implemented. Students find this particularly useful as they are constantly kept in the loop and can then approach staff in person or via Mailtool in follow-up.
As WebLearn has been introduced this academic year, as well as consulting students during the development stages, we actively encourage their ideas, initiatives and recommendations during the course of their studies. Maintainers, often in consultation with colleagues in Computing Services, will come up with solutions, such as the best fit tool to achieve a learning outcome: a recent example being the revision Chat room which has brought together all MSt students in preparation for their end of course examination.
The Department came to the Oxford pilot with specific objectives that we believe WebLearn has fulfilled.
The multiple site model adopted by the Department, which we believe is an innovative solution, has unified the broad and encompassing History of Art community at Oxford via the three main sites, whilst also making students active participants of smaller class-based communities contained by the teaching sites.
The ‘visual', which is integral to the Department and the discipline of History of Art, has influenced the design and content of the sites, both aesthetically and practically. WebLearn has provided a platform for extending the availability of the visual elements of teaching and learning beyond the classroom, and has proved invaluable for consolidating the visual learning experience in a way that was not previously possible.
By involving the whole History of Art community from the development stages, the success has been that, whilst the maintainers built the site structure for History of Art, staff and students have bought in and taken ownership of the sites and are in turn reaping the benefits of enhanced teaching and learning. Through this engagement, commitment and active participation, the Department is taking full advantage of the new opportunities offered by the virtual learning environment.
Having used Blackboard as an off-the-peg VLE in a previous post, I particularly appreciate the way in which the History of Art WebLearn sites have been customised to make it possible to put images at the centre of the pedagogy it enables. The facility to upload PowerPoint presentations (including student presentations), and to access a corpus of specified images (on which students are examined) in two separate ways is particularly valuable, and I make much more use of it than I did in the past either of Blackboard or of the earlier evolution of WebLearn. The site navigates much more fluently than either of these, and I find student use of it has greatly increased since its introduction. This is undoubtedly because of the skill with which faculty members were involved and consulted in the sites' design - I always feel it is there to support and not to overwhelm, and it totally lacks the superfluous features which clutter some VLE systems. I also feel, as head of department, that the ability of colleagues to have access to each other's course sites has greatly increased the coherence of our programme, and has facilitated sharing and exchange of ideas, to the great benefit of students. Craig Clunas, course convenor and head of department.
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