University Oxford Blog

Nowadays information technologies become more and more popular and develop with each year. It refers also to the educational sphere. As a result of such development, University of Oxford initiated in 1998 study program which lasted nine months and involves digitization activities of past, present and future. This study program became well known as ‘Scoping Study’ and was completed by July of 1999. In this article main result of the study program is described.
One of the main goals of the organizers of the project was to coordinate the level of digitalization with real demand on contemporary technologies in the educational methods of Oxford University and educational system of US at all. To ascertain it the organizers held a poll among the university staff.

In the result of interviews the researchers understood the Oxford University shows high level of digitalization. For example, 11 majors who are provided in this university have won several grants on the sum about £2.2 million for educational purposes. Majority of the projects are connected with the digital activities. After receiving of the grants sum in the university appeared many digital resources, systems and services. Besides other advantages these projects became a good base for the further projects, researches concerning the digitalization.

Moreover, as a result of researches there appeared several new areas for further investigation. They are:

Access v Preservation: majority of the interviewed people mentioned that main benefit of the digitalizing projects is that there appeared huge potential for further development of new technologies and wider access to the items. New technologies allow making education process more convenient, fast and flexible.

Accurate Knowledge of Collections: In the past accessing to the individual items through the large collections was very difficult.

Central Advisory Service: besides there is a need of digitalization services in the university, there is also a need of central digital service to coordinate local services.

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