April 24, 2007 -- Online collaboration has become ever more common in daily life, yet colleges and universities have sometimes lagged in maximizing the potential of this new communication medium to enrich teaching and learning.

The final colloquia in a series on research and digital scholarship at the University will explore how the university classroom experience can be enhanced by online interaction and collaboration. Scott Nesbit of the history department and the Virginia Center for Digital History will discuss “Digital Collaboration in the Classroom: Teaching Humanities with Computers,” and will introduce the Southern History Database as an example of a collaborative research database project in development at the University of Virginia.

This colloquia will be held from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25, in the Scholars' Lab in Alderman Library (fourth floor). All are invited to attend, and no pre-registration is required. Snacks and drinks are provided.

The Southern History Database is an experiment in collaborative history developed by the Library and the Virginia Center for Digital History. This innovative research and teaching tool allows students to collaborate with one another, building upon the quality of each other’s data collection and research. By compiling the research of undergraduates into a single comprehensive database, the SHD provides students and teachers access to a wide-ranging portrait of life in the nineteenth-century American South.

“This type of online collaboration takes teaching and research to a whole new level,” noted Nesbit.

The event is sponsored by the Library and the Department of Information Technology and Communication.