Digitising Source Materials:A virtual archive for Level

One Historians

Gavin RandHistory, Greenwich

aims

To develop a digital archive of ‘primary’ source material

relating to the ‘Indian Mutiny’ of 1857

To explore the educational and pedagogic possibilities of the turnitin plagiarism-detection

system

the ‘Indian Mutiny’

method

I assembled a range of original 19th century sources which I was

able to digitise in order to form a ‘digital archive’

I then devised a source analysis exercise to introduce students to the pleasures and pitfalls of

historical research

the digital archive

rationale

The digital archive allows our students do some ‘proper’

archival research…

so it includes some sources which are less relevant and a few

‘hidden gems’

All of the assignments produced by students were subject to scrutiny by

the turnitin plagiarism-detection software

The turnitin originality reports were then used as the basis of group

tutorials in which students read each other’s work to identify examples of

good and bad practice

and tune them up!

and tune them up!

outputs/legacies

Student feedback on the exercise was positive – especially re:

source analysis

The digital archive continues to grow, and I’ve just acquired a

collection of mutiny-related drawings by Indian school

children which will be used in next year’s archive

outputs/legacies

I am developing further turnitin exercises designed to foster

good academic practice, including a précis exercise set

up to invite plagiarism to demonstrate ‘what not to do…’

From next year, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences will introduce turnitin across all

of our Level One courses