The Oxford Stories platform was created to support multiple and new narratives of our shared histories. This project is a collaboration between GLAM (led by Pitt Rivers and the GLAM IT team) and TORCH (Humanities Division).
This web-app platform was created so that people could create their own ‘app’ to showcase their research narratives. The idea came about following similar projects across GLAM and the Humanities: the TORCH ‘Gaps Between’ project which included 18 people and places of Oxford that show the alternative modern story of Oxford. The Pitt Rivers Museum wanted to create a platform where students could create their own ‘museum trails’ giving their own ‘labels’ to the objects in their trail. You can hear more about the aims of the project and how it contributes to diversifying stories in this video with Research Libraries UK on Oxford Alternative Stories: Diversifying the University Voice.
As part of the creation, the variety of media was an important factor – each trail included several ‘stops’ known as places. These then had ‘stories’ attached to them. Linking them all together creates a ‘trail’. There can be multiple trails within each app. The platform created can, in turn, support multiple apps. The various places and stories can also be used across all the apps on the platform, therefore, sharing information and expertise across organisations and disciplines.
The platform is a web link, which has web-enabled apps – for this reason, they function on handheld devices (smart phones and tablets) rather than laptops.
Funded originally by a grant from the IT Innovation Challenges Fund.
