1.
Teaching with MOM-CA
and Monasterium.NET
in the ENArC project
Antonella Ambrosio
Vera Schwarz-Ricci
ICARUS Didactics Group / Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Learning the past to build the future: education in the Digital Age
Archival Cooperation and Community Building in the Digital Age
Praha, 29.04.2014

2.
Teaching with Monasterium in Europe
Icarus Didactics Group (since 2011)
• aims at stimulating teaching with Monasterium and –
more recently – with digital technologies in general and
at exchanging and disseminating these experiences
Courses took place in
• Austria
• France
• Germany
• Spain
• Italy
Digital Technologies
E-Learning
Monasterium and MOM-CA

3.
Teaching with Monasterium in Naples
Courses in Diplomatics, Palaeography and Digital
Resources for Humanities (since 2009/2010)
• Master Degree in History
• Master Degree in Administration of the Cultural Heritage
• Master (postgraduate) in Library and Archival Sciences
• PhD in History / Information and Library Sciences

4.
Monasterium in teaching:
different uses for different users (I) …
Platform MOM-CA:
• Online repository of historical sources, different types of
documents and documentary scripts
• For archivists: a digital archive

5.
Monasterium in teaching:
different uses for different users (II) …
Editor EditMOM:
• For diplomatists: Analysis of external and internal
features of a charter and markup
• For palaeographers: Image tool for script analysis

6.
… but common educational goals
 Understand a virtual digital archive
 Apply the methods of traditional diplomatic analysis
using Monasterium.Net and the XML editor of MOM-
CA, Edit-MOM
 Apply the methods of traditional palaeographic
analysis using the Monasterium.Net Images Tools
 Investigate the transformations set off by new tools
in particular

7.
Different users – different learning
behaviours, favourite features and
opinions
Younger students
curiosity and interest
in using New
Technologies
search feature of
Monasterium
positive: Livens up
“dead” disciplines,
more accessible
Graduates
a certain resistance
to using New
Technologies
charter description
feature
negative: Loss of the
archival context of
the sources

8.
On the one hand: advantages of
Monasterium …
• simple and intuitive
• perfect for putting theory into action (“learning by
doing”)
• flexible
1. computer lab: group activity and community-centered
learning
2. at distance: individual work on a charter

9.
… and on the other hand: disadvantages
• Students are not able to work on the same charter
(limited community experience)
• Students have no possibility to interact on the
platform (limited exchange)
• Teacher: Limited evaluation of learning results on
MOM-CA

10.
What did we change in consequence? (I)
To improve social learning and to get evaluation tools:
• Collaboration with pedagogues
• Combination of Monasterium with an e-learning
platform (Moodle) and Social Media (FB Group)

11.
What did we change in consequence?
(II)
To abolish decontextualization:
• Historical and archival framework of the charters (visits
to original production site and conservation sites) and
only then computer lab working on MOM-CA

12.
… and how did Monasterium.Net change?
Due to students’ suggestions, proposals of the Didactics
Group and collaboration with MOM-CA Technical Group:
• Image tools and their integration with the editor
• New mark-ups: tag for formula
• Improvement of Italian translation (usability)

13.
Future prospects
 To involve students in research projects with
Monasterium.net, i.e. a digital edition
 Our future in co:op: educational activities with
Monasterium to further relations between archives,
universities and the public

14.
And your experiences?
Thank you for your attention!
Antonella Ambrosio
Vera Schwarz-Ricci
(Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II)
antonella.ambrosio@unina.it
vera.schwarz@monasterium-italia.net