Slides from a workshop on using Omeka in the college classroom. The workshop, held on November 17th, 2014 at Northeastern University, was run by Jim McGrath, Dave DeCamp, and Amanda Rust. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Digital Scholarship Group and the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks. For more information about the DSG, please visit dsg.neu.edu. For more information about the NULab, please visit nulab.neu.edu

1. Digital Tools in The Classroom
Omeka Workshop
November 17th, 2014
Northeastern University

2. Workshop Leaders
Dave DeCamp (Doctoral Candidate, History)
Jim McGrath (Doctoral Candidate, English)
Amanda Rust (Research and Instruction Librarian,
Snell Library)

3. Workshop Sponsors

4. Introductions
Who are you?
Why are you interested in
using Omeka?

5. Workshop Objectives
• Provide an introduction to Omeka
• Highlight some of its plugins (exhibits)
• Discuss local experiences with Omeka in
the classroom
• Brainstorm uses of Omeka in your own
classrooms & collaborations

6. Omeka
omeka.org

7. Dan Cohen on Omeka
Omeka introduced in February 2008
by the Center for History and New Media (GMU)
“Projects such as the September 11 Digital Archive and associated
work with institutions such as the Smithsonian and the Library of
Congress made us realize how much work – and how much money –
it takes for institutions (and individuals) to mount high-quality and
flexible exhibits online, and to manage the underlying collections.”
“Omeka aims to simplify this entire process, save valuable resources,
and create a free and open platform that the museum and library
community, and anyone else, can enrich by developing themes and
plugins.”

8. What is Omeka?
• “WordPress for museums”
• web publishing platform for items, exhibits
and collections
• designed with scholars, librarians,
educators and archivists in mind
• aims to be easy to use & implement
• emphasizes curation and metadata’s role
in archiving and curation
• ability to contextualize items & bring them
in conversation with one another

9. Advantages of Omeka
• Easy to create and update metadata
using Dublin Core standards
• Long-term aspirations: digital projects can have afterlives
• Exhibit templates are useful in classrooms
• Easy to geotag / use geotagging (creation of maps)
• Flexible (can create new pages / code via “Simple Pages”)
• Open Source
• Lots of documentation of work (Omeka Forums)
• Cheap (or free!)

10. Omeka and Metadata
(Dublin Core)
dublincore.org
• set of metadata standards
• rejects “siloed cultural memory”
• enables “radically open cultural heritage data”
• interdisciplinary work
• collaborative in nature and scope

11. Omeka and Exhibits
• Exhibit Plugin: design templates for students
• Neatline Plugin: Geospatial / temporal maps
• Simple Pages: HTML and PHP, embedded content

12. Projects that use Omeka (NULab)
Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive
The Early Caribbean Digital Archive
• Projects independent of particular courses
• Collaborative in nature: faculty, graduate students,
undergraduates, librarians, archivists, volunteers
• Collaborations with instructors on student
projects and assignments

13. Our Marathon
northeastern.edu/marathon

14. Classroom Collaboration
• Advanced Writing in the Social Sciences
in Fall 2013 (Victoria Papa)
• Creation of Student Exhibits (Exhibit Plugin)
• Project Co-Directors (grad students) consulted
• Three class visits: introduction of project and scope,
“technical day” examining Omeka, follow-up meeting
• Additional consultation via e-mail
• Exhibits presented at Forum (Boylston St.)

15. Sample Classroom Exhibit

16. Sample Classroom Exhibit

17. Sample Classroom Exhibit

18. Other Classroom Uses
of Omeka at NU
Gabriel Feldstein (undergrad, NU): Early Caribbean Digital Archive

19. Curating the Legacy
of Mayor James Curley
(Wentworth)

20. Curating the Legacy
of Mayor James Curley
• Profs. Christopher Gleason and Jody Gordon
(Wentworth)
• Multi-semester project: spread across multiple
classes
• Omeka (and Neatline) used to create exhibits
• Omeka / Neatline consultant (Jim)
• Students examine / build on previous semesters
• Additional projects: blog posts, physical posters
• Posters to be displayed at City Hall (2015)

21. Lessons from
Classroom Collaboration
• Value of occasions for student work that circulates
beyond the classroom
• Exhibits as way of documenting what was learned
about technology AND content of course
• Challenges of collaborative writing and design
• “Failure” should be discussed / accepted
• Setting clear goals for semester AND goals tied to
momentum of larger project important
• Discuss how you’re using tools and WHY you’re
using Omeka with your students

22. Lessons from
Classroom Collaboration
• What are students getting out of this work?
• What are you getting out of this work?
• What are your collaborators getting out of this work?
• What happens to this work after the course?
• What is the scope of the project / assignment?
• Is Omeka the digital tool you need for this course?

23. The Mechanics of Omeka
• Omeka and Omeka.net
• Uploading Items
• Exhibit Builder Plugin
• Neatline

24. Questions for Classroom Use
• How much can you do on your own?
• How much time have you spent with Omeka (Sandbox)?
• What work needs to happen before the class starts?
• What are your short and long-term goals w/ Omeka?
• Who might be useful collaborators on campus?
• Who will have access to the site?
• Who is doing the work? (you, undergrads, grad students,
librarians, IT, etc.)

25. Questions to Answer
• Anyone already working with Omeka at your school?
• Library / EdTech Resources (like the DSG)?
• Metadata specialists?
• Do you need server access? How will you get it?
• Do you want this hosted by your institution?
• Questions related to intellectual property
• Long-term preservation options (if relevant)

26. Omeka.net
• No server or FTP required (hosted by
Omeka)
• Basic (free) plan includes 500MB of storage,
1 site, 5 themes, and 13 plugins—including
Exhibit Builder, CSV import, and Simple
Pages

27. Omeka.org
• LAMP server required, FTP required, Hosted by you or
institution
• Customize themes and plugins by editing server files
• Unlimited number of plugins and themes (download
to server)

28. Uploading Items / Adding Metadata

29. Uploading Items / Adding Metadata
• Items are your basic unit in Omeka (.net or .org)
• Enter Descriptive Metadata (Dublin Core and Item Type)
• Specify “Item Type”
• Can Create New Item Types
• Upload Files (i.e. PDF, JPG, PNG, HTML)
• Enter Tags
• Geolocate Item on Map
• Organize Items into Collections, and use for Exhibits
• Can be made public or private

30. Talking about Metadata with Students
• Important component of Omeka and its mission!
• Metadata as “love letter to the future”
• Metadata’s uses in surveillance / war
• Metadata’s role in students’ daily lives
• Metadata’s relationship to your particular class
• Stylistic conventions: decision or discussion
• Metadata can be more than just “data entry”

31. Items and Exhibits
• Where will the items come from for this project?
• Established collections? Research? Field work?
• Will students be uploading items? Creating exhibits?
Both?
• Copyright issues / intellectual property / citation
• Best practices for file sizes / item types
• Will items and exhibits be made public in the short or
long term?
• Why aren’t items and exhibits being made public?

32. Exhibits

33. Exhibits
• Available to .org and .net, requires Exhibit Builder plugin
• Requires either Item entry or a selection of Items
already on the site
• Enter Information about the Exhibit (title, slug, credits,
description, tags, themes)
• Add Pages
• Customize Page Layout, Add Content “Blocks”
• Insert Items and Text
• Multiple Blocks Per Page

34. Exhibits

35. Sample Exhibit
Identities: Understanding Islam in a Cross-Cultural Context

36. Neatline

37. Advantages of Neatline
• Narratives that attend to space and temporality
• Demonstrate value of geotagged metadata
• Dynamic and interactive
• Ability to georectify maps (historical projects)
• Ability to “map” images
• Documentation online

38. Uses of Neatline
Nate Rehm-Daly (Undergrad): Our Marathon

39. Uses of Neatline
Jeddah: Gateway to the Hajj (University of Virginia)

40. Exhibits in the Classroom
• Discuss role of items before role of exhibits
• Discuss specific roles of students in creating exhibits
• Templates can help students struggling with tech
• Spend time experimenting with layout templates,
Neatline mechanics, etc.
• Exhibits don’t have to entirely depend on items in
Omeka (embedded maps, Simple Pages, editorial text)

41. Lesson Plans with Omeka
• How much of a role will Omeka play in a particular class?
• How does the use of Omeka help you achieve your course
learning goals?
• How might assignments that are not tech-heavy /
explicitly using Omeka benefit later work withOmeka?
• Is this an “Omeka” unit, or a unit about a particular topic?
• How much time will you spend introducing Omeka?
• How are you grading work done in Omeka?
• How might an assignment using Omeka lead to a larger
research project / future collaborations?

42. Discussion Questions
Hopefully we've given you background on
what Omeka does and how it’s been used in
the classroom. To open up the discussion
portion, please turn to your neighbor and
take 10 minutes to design an assignment.
We'll come back together as a group and
discuss how long this assignment might take,
and what sort of scaffolding would be
required.

43. Discussion Questions
What is your biggest concern with
developing an Omeka assignment or using
Omeka in the classroom?
What area of inquiry possible via Omeka
assignments is most pertinent to your class
and/or discipline? Historiography? Online
communication? Writing and composition?
Visual design? Archival research? Metadata
and systems literacy? Others?

44. Discussion Questions
What sort of collaboration with other
departments, if any, do you need for your
Omeka assignment?
Do you need input from archivists on which
items to digitize?
Do you need input from librarians on
metadata and/or provenance research?
Do you need input from designers on the
look and feel of the site?
Do you need server space or other IT
support?

45. Discussion Questions
What is your biggest concern with
developing an Omeka assignment or using
Omeka in the classroom?
What area of inquiry possible via Omeka
assignments is most pertinent to your class
and/or discipline? Historiography? Online
communication? Writing and composition?
Visual design? Archival research? Metadata
and systems literacy? Others?

46. Thanks!
• Slides will be e-mailed to you
• Brief suggested reading list too
• Look for a questionnaire via e-mail soon!
• Local / digital Omeka working group?