DISCIPLINE
History

DURATION
Entire length of subject/unit/course(24 weeks of 1 hour per week).

ICT USED
CD-ROM

DELIVERY CONTEXT
Mixed mode: Optional face-to-face for external students through an optional residential school; compulsory face-to-face with internal students through lectures and tutorial; optional online discussion groups for external (and internal) students; printed Study Guide and Resource Materials; CD-ROM.

TARGET AUDIENCE
First year undergraduate history students with varying levels of prior knowledge and experience, of varying ages (school entry and mature age), and a mixture of on-campus and distance education students.

COHORT
Originally designed to accommodate increasing enrolments (from 50 to over 200). Able to accommodate more than the number enrolled.

BROADER CONTEXT
Sources for Courses provides an essential grounding in ways to identify, reference, read and evaluate historical sources. The content focuses on Australian history, the skills have a far broader application. To this end, the learning design provides an important part of first year undergraduate introductions to history. The template could be adapted and used with other course content (e.g. late modern European history, world history). The emphasis on introducing and/or improving essential skills provides a foundation for other learning tasks in the unit: short written exercises, tutorial presentations, formal essays, class discussion.

The emphasis on the variety of sources, approaches to, and uses of history is also important in establishing the types of work in which historians of the 21st century are engaged. Through Sources for Courses students become aware of museums, historic sites, landscape, film, novels as providing both sources for understanding history and different ways of presenting history.

History research is underpinned by an understanding of the differences between primary and secondary sources, and of the layers of meaning which can be discerned in different types of sources. Sources for Courses aims to assist students to improve their skills in identifying, referencing, interpreting, analysing and using a variety of historical sources.

Sources for Courses also intends to improve students' written communication skills, especially their ability to write concisely and analytically about the messages and uses of different historical sources.

IMPLEMENTATION OF ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES
Currently, the key assessment strategy requires students to submit examples of written annotations of selected sources at different stages of the unit. It is an individual assessment which is assessed against the following criteria (the criteria are included as part of the study materials):

• Clear explanation of why the source is a primary or secondary source.
• Afocused and short summary of the contents and arguments contained in the source .
• An evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the source, and of how the particular source has contributed to the student’s understanding of the specific topic.
• Clear and grammatically correct expression.
• Accurate and consistent bibliographical details.

IMPORTANCE OF ASSESSMENT STRATEGIES USED
The annotated sources assessment tasks assist students to develop skills in identifying, referencing, 'reading', discussing, analysing and writing about different types of sources. These are essential skills in history and also contribute towards the development of specific generic attributes of University of New England graduates in the areas of communication skills, information literacy, life-long learning and problem solving. They are also skills which are essential for a variety of other learning activities and assessment tasks including, for example, researching and writing formal essays, developing research proposals, writing well substantiated reports, and preparing analytical seminar presentations.

WHY ICT IS USED
The approach and design of the database evolved as a response to difficulties among first year undergraduate students in history to access and read a variety of sources, to understand the messages in them, to appreciate the various ways in which the sources are interpreted by historians, and to summarise their critical reading and thinking concisely and in a focused way. It also evolved in response to the need to provide students with the time and resources to become familiar with these sources and the issues involved in using them for historical research and writing at their own pace and in independent learning environments.

The variety of resources and learning tasks imbedded in the database mean that students can locate the same source in a variety of contexts and with a variety of readings. They can then build on the examples provided to identify and read other, similar sources. They can also view sources or parts of sources, they can become familiar with the ways of referencing different types of sources, and they can do a great deal of their learning at home or in a private study environment.

HOW ICT USE HELPS
The multimedia capabilities of the database on CD-ROM provide the means to offer a far wider range and diversity of sources: there are printed documents, and there are images, sound, film clips, etc.

The storage capabilities enable the provision of a far larger amount of material (sources, reading guides, topic guides and exercises etc) than is financially viable through printed resources. The ability to update and add to the database relatively easily also make it more viable than printed material.

CD-Rom is more appropriate than the other obvious ICT online format. Not all students have unlimited time access to the computer facilities required to spend time browsing and using the database. The cross-platform CD-ROM is more accessible.

The relational features of the database remove the forced linear format of printed materials. On the CD-ROM students can move across and between topics, sources, types of sources, and seek out different combinations. It invites a more imaginative approach on the part of both students and lecturers.

MOST IMPORTANT ICT CONTRIBUTION TO LEARNING DESIGN
The most important aspect of using ICT is the ability to include a variety of media, to mix and match between databases, to provide readily portable material which can be accessed in private study environments. Also, the ability to update and add to material relatively easily and in a cost effective way.