Course 1: Archives & Records Information Management

Aims

This course gives students a thorough understanding of the principles behind archives and records management practice. It underpins the rest of the MSc programme by giving students a comprehensive insight into professional principles and concepts, and by providing them with a sound foundation from which to begin their professional practice. The course also outlines the compliance and regulatory requirements of the creation, management, and disposal of records.

Assessment

• 50% Essay 1
• 50% Essay 2

Course 2: Records & Evidence

Aims

Records & Evidence examines the ways in which evidence is deployed in support of discourses across the humanities, how it is validated and what assumptions are made in its synthesis. It will review the way evidence is treated from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Different types of evidence and records will be considered from a number of disciplinary perspectives, including texts, music, images, numbers, artefacts, and architecture. Traditional views of what constitutes 'texts' will examined alongside contemporary concerns about their migration into digital format. Visits to a number of specialist repositories and institutions will enable records to be placed in context and provide first hand experience of the building blocks of any discipline.

Assessment

• 60% Essay
• 20% Seminar participation
• 20% Peer assesment

Course 3: Description, Cataloguing and Navigation

Aims

This course reviews the principles of ordering and describing information and knowledge - archival, bibliographic, and object description, with emphasis on international standards and the problems relating to the methods of navigating digital resources to retrieve information and knowledge. Particular attention will be paid to International Standards such as ISAD (G) and ISAAR (CPF), and the use of Encoded Archival Description (EAD) to implement these standards. The taught course will be supplemented with one weeks practical placement in a repository, which will provide students with an opportunity to create an archival finding aid for a collection.

Assessment

50% peer review of collection catalogue (to be undertaken on listing placement) as displayed on-line 50% collection catalogue (as amended in the light of their peer assessment).