All posts by jwbaker

James Baker is Director of Digital Humanities at the University of Southampton. James is a Software Sustainability Institute Fellow, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and holds degrees from the University of Southampton and latterly the University of Kent, where in 2010 he completed his doctoral research on the late-Georgian artist-engraver Isaac Cruikshank. James works at the intersection of history, cultural heritage, and digital technologies. He is currently working on a history of knowledge organisation in twentieth century Britain. In 2021, I begin a major new Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project 'Beyond Notability: Re-evaluating Women’s Work in Archaeology, History and Heritage, 1870 – 1950'. Previous externally funded research projects have focused on legacy descriptions of art objects ('Legacies of Catalogue Descriptions and Curatorial Voice: Opportunities for Digital Scholarship', Arts and Humanities Research Council), the preservation of intangible cultural heritage ('Coptic Culture Conservation Collective', British Council, and 'Heritage Repertoires for inclusive and sustainable development', British Academy), the born digital archival record ('Digital Forensics in the Historical Humanities', European Commission), and decolonial futures for museum collections ('Making African Connections: Decolonial Futures for Colonial Collections', Arts and Humanities Research Council). Prior to joining Southampton, James held positions of Senior Lecturer in Digital History and Archives at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Humanities Lab, Digital Curator at the British Library, and Postdoctoral Fellow with the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. He is a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College, a convenor of the Institute of Historical Research Digital History seminar, a member of The Programming Historian Editorial Board and a Director of ProgHist Ltd (Company Number 12192946), and an International Advisory Board Member of British Art Studies.
Teaching

That was not a post about MOOCs it was a post about learning

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I posted something over on the BL Digital Scholarship blog today on learning and MOOCs. The post argues, in essence, that for the DH newcomer the DH community can offer as valuable a source of knowledge and learning as any MOOC, and that indeed the community itself represents a MOOC (if one with no end, and neither clear assignments nor measurable outcomes).

Of course, my comments on the MOOC offer something of a caricature of the MOOC. Anyone whose dabbled in this terrain knows that to say ‘the MOOC’ is to force a nebulous collection of learning materials, approaches and platforms under one bulging umbrella, and is much akin to trying to describe all education or higher education as somehow the same or containing the same philosophy. I suspect, though I left this out of the post, that the trajectory of ‘the MOOC’ will be to disrupt our education system by forcing many small or unimaginative or inflexible institutions out of business. It is no accident that an institution such as Stanford has taken a lead, indeed we can all imagine that the conversation with benefactors went something along the lines of: “giving away education for free online could put us out of business, so give us the money to make MOOCs so we can become invaluable in MOOCland before someone else starts making MOOCs and puts us out of business”. Thereafter, in whatever HE landscape is left post-MOOC (I suspect pretty healthy), the MOOC will become an embedded part of a truly global HE system: with the ghastly acronym ‘MOOC’ safely pensioned off.

We can but hope.