The UK's Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has announced that it has funded a project to make 6,500 newly digitised objects from University College London and the University of Reading's diverse museum collections openly accessible to students, teachers and the public at large. The objects include rare Ancient Egyptian artefacts brought to life in 21st century 3D, digital images of zoological specimens in glass jars, strange and beautiful anatomical prints, 16th century portraits and intriguing 19th century scientific gadgets. The digital artefacts encompass a range of disciplines from sciences to the arts.
In addition to the digitised objects, which can be freely viewed, downloaded and used on a Creative Commons licence, the two museums have also produced a range of Open Educational Resources (OER) such as videos and worksheets to support object-based learning. The interdisciplinary nature of these resources is said to make them particularly versatile for online learning and suitable for the growing number of initiatives such as Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
The digitised objects, which will add to a bank of 150,000 already existing digital resources from the two museums, are available through Culture Grid, the UK gateway to heritage resources. The OERs can be accessed through JORUM, the online educational resource sharing site, using the search term OBL4HE.
