New platform for history students: access to scientific work!

New platform for history students: access to scientific work!

Bochum, Deutschland - On January 28, 2025, the new Blog Campus-Stage was presented, which enables students of historical science to publish their scientific work online. As the Ruhr University Bochum news.rub.de , this blog was created as part of the project researching research with oral history in historical science (flea) and offers a platform for publication Various formats. These include homework, theses, podcasts and graphic novels.

The goal of campus days is to give student work visibility and make them accessible to the general public. The online publication also has the opportunity to use their work for future scientific references. The blog also accepts older work that helps students reflect and classify their earlier work.

integration of oral history into teaching

Since 2022, the project has been working to integrate the oral history method into the history courses of the Ruhr University Bochum. Teachers are provided with designed and tried and tested teaching materials that contain technical, organizational and legal information, as the website floh-ichte.de . These materials are freely accessible as Open Educational Resources (Oer) and enable teachers to apply them directly to their content issues.

Together with students, extensive interview material has already been generated, which is available in audio (visual) form and in transcribed version. Access to this material takes place after registration on the oral-history.de platform. Developed teaching units and materials include fundamental introductions, the didactization of thematic questions and instructions for the collection and evaluation of interviews.

platform for audiovisual interviews

An essential part of the project is the Oral-History.Digital platform, which enables the curating and research of audiovisual narrative interviews. This platform is not only accessible to researchers, but also for educators and the public. Current statistics show that the platform has 39 archives, 183 collections and 3685 interviews. Users can access audiovisual material and also have the option of annotation in a workbook.

Thanks to the differentiated right -wing management, the privacy of the interviewed people is preserved, while the infrastructure of the platform ensures long -term archiving and constant availability of the content. This is done in cooperation with numerous partner institutions and under the financing by the German Research Foundation (DFG), since 2020 and in the second funding phase from 2023 to 2026.

The Ruhr University Bochum is an important example of the linking of teaching and research with its commitment in the area of ​​oral history, which contributes not only to the promotion of student work, but also to further develop historical methodology.