History OnLine

The Georg Eckert Institute is one of 10 partners for this project, which is lead by the University of Macerata and which originated as an EU-project. It will develop and implement new methods in historical science research and teaching, as well as for historical study, that build upon new information and communication technology (IKT).

The point of origin for the project is the idea that this technology not only simplifies accessibility to historical sources to an unimaginable extent, but also even produces dramatic results for the teaching and learning of history. Dependence on secondary literature is diminishing; third party depictions are more easily verified; new combinative approaches result from multi-media quality; the basis for an autonomous reconstruction of historical events through scholars widens; the scholar becomes the protagonist of his or her own learning process. The free circulation of information via the internet strengthens the position of transnational historiography. The project hopes to use the IKT’s potential for an “Europeanization” of historical writing and teaching.

The research portion of the project consists of the systematic analysis of experience regarding the creation and use of international platforms as well as the trans-European cooperative and interactive handling of historical sources. In this regard, much new territory will be covered in many cases.

The GEI will have a hand in the development of a “Classics of European Educational History” databank and will create a didactically formatted, linked set of source documents on the “Return of Baltic Capitals to Europe.” On the basis of these datasets a pilot group (within the context of a seminar at the Technical University of Braunschweig and the University of Kiel) will gain experience dealing with IKT-supported teaching and learning materials to be incorporated into guidelines. The long-term goal to allow the platform to become a place in which Europeans can referentially explore, compare and write their history. The project has been online since 2008.

The partners convened in Florence, Berlanga de Duero and Istanbul in order to agree on arrangements, integrate lines of discussion et consolidate the project. The final meeting in Macerata in September 2009 culminated in a conference on the subject of "New History? Contribution to the Definition of the Epistemological Statute of the Digital History".