Suite Discoveries

This integrated project consists of three sub-projects that support the student-oriented use of the collections and tools: MAKE, TRACE and DISCERN. They allow for an overarching view on source exploration, storytelling and curation as well as tool-criticism and how digital infrastructures like the Media Suite change perceptions and habits of doing research.

About the projects

MAKE: Multimodal storytelling

Project MAKE teaches students in the international classroom to use English-language collections in the Media Suite for creative multimodal storytelling projects: students research, contextualize and share the Media Suite's cultural heritage content to engage users with it.

This project has a three-pronged approach – focusing on the interaction of (a) content, (b) platform, and (c) user – to dig into and understand Media Suite use for multimodal storytelling purposes. Understanding storytelling in various forms as a sense-making practice and as a socio-technical practice, this project combines platform engagement analysis with user analysis, both via survey analysis and co-creative user-laboratory sessions.

This approach triangulates insights into perspectives on digital storytelling and media use with first-hand observations of Media Suite use, to create (make) new creative storytelling products or experiences. It uncovers how students in the international classroom perceive the Media Suite platform as an effective storytelling tool.

TRACE: Select, appraise & curate

Project TRACE teaches students to apply different research modes when selecting, appraising and curating sources in intermediated archival infrastructures such as the Media Suite. With Google as the default space for tracing digital resources through simple keyword searching, students have become accustomed to ‘disintermediation’; it is not so obvious for them to find sources via professional intermediaries such as traditional libraries or archives, or for that matter, explore new types of intermediaries such as the Media Suite. This makes the Media Suite a perfect space to challenge students to acquire skills that represent different modes of archival research and digital curation.

This project aims to develop four modules that will equip humanities students with skills to understand which (faceted) research practices are suited best for working in online media archives in order to 1) create meaning and generate different readings of selected materials, 2) develop skills with regards to searching, comparing, and curating archival sources, 3) critically engage with (inter)national, public and commercial online collections and available tools and reflect on their limitations.

DISCERN: Map & evaluate

Project DISCERN seeks to train students in the assessment and evaluation of serendipitous information encountering by focusing specifically on (digital) humanities students’ interaction with CLARIAH’s Media Suite. Methodologically, students are taught how to use and develop exploratory search tasks, research diaries, and videoed search journeys as part of their own user studies. Teaching efforts culminate in student insights into how digital tools such as the Media Suite shape search and discovery processes within the (digital) humanities.

Furthermore, the project develops teaching materials to allow students to practice doing user studies and tool criticism to map serendipitous information encountering of peers (students of other humanities programmes within the University of Groningen). Deliverables include teaching materials, student blogposts and videos of use cases, and a list of user requirements based on the completed user studies.

Current developments