The CEDAR Project Approach to Bringing Together Dispersed Digital Content to Create a Resource for Teaching and/or Research

The major focus of the CEDAR project was to increase the usability and impact of East London Theatre Archive’s (ELTA, www.elta-project.org) content. In order to achieve this there was a need to build more content which could be embedded at the University of East London and in its partners’ teaching and learning curriculum. The project added more relevant content from Hackney Empire and Gay Sweatshop Archive and also linked to the Mapping the Moment Archive of Nottingham University thus creating a new web resource, the Online Theatre Histories Archive – OTHA (www.otha.org.uk). This content was enriched through user-added content using Bossa software. The website has gone through rigorous testing and has been improved through constant development. The project has produced four case studies on the usability of the content. There have been challenges, particularly related to collaboration and the perceptions of archives, but the CEDAR project has successfully delivered a tool which enhances the learning opportunities of not just users within higher education but also the wider community.

Citation:
Sandhu, G. and Homer, L. (2011) ‘The CEDAR Project Approach to Bringing Together Dispersed Digital Content to Create a Resource for Teaching and/or Research’. In Clustering and sustaining digital resources: the JISC eContent programme 2009-11, London, Bristol: JISC..