War Poets' site wins University Web award

The University is marking the use of new technology to enhance teaching and learning with awards for the best design and innovation at a ceremony next week. OxTALENT—Oxford Teaching and Learning Enhanced by New Technology—aims to encourage the use of electronic teaching at all levels within the University. The awards will be presented by the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Colin Lucas, at the Ashmolean Museum on Monday, 30 November. The first prize will go to the Humanities Computing Unit for its War Poets' site, which has had hundreds of thousands of hits in the last few weeks after publicity linked to Remembrance Day. The site is also Oxford's entry to the University and Colleges Information Systems Association (UCISA) Awards in the Teaching and Learning Category, 1998–9. The second prize will go to the Beazley Archive for its work in making its catalogue of exhibits available on the Web, along with a specialist database of pottery fragments. The third prize will be awarded to the History On-line site, developed by the Technology Assisted Lifelong Learning Programme (TALL) , which is a part of the Department for Continuing Education , which can be taken over the Internet. OxTALENT was established three years ago by Mr Alex Reid, Director of Computing Services at the University. `There was clearly a need to bring out the talent that existed across the departments of the University and get people to talk to each other,' he said. `The idea of these awards is to encourage and promote the quality of design and the use the web.' The University's Web site was created in 1993 and now extends to more than 40,000 pages of information. As well as the prize-giving there will be demonstrations of the winning sites and discussions on the technologies involved. Details of the contestants, winners, judges' comments, and links to the winning sites can be found through http://info.ox.ac.uk/oxford/seminars/webaward.html.