Craig Fees, "Background, evolution and issues in an online oral history course".
Unpublished Presentation version of a paper given at for ‘Beyond Text in the Digital Age? Oral History, Images and the Written Word’, Oral History Society Annual Conference, London, July 9, 2016.
It was edited from the original to fit into the time available.
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What I am speaking about today is an ongoing work-in-progress, a standalone module on Oral History, run by the Centre for Archive and Information Studies at the University of Dundee, within their distance learning programme. As a first caveat, I am speaking in my own voice, as myself and not officially or for CAIS or the University of Dundee.
In a second caveat, the history I present is an impressionistic one. I can ground it to an extent, but there is not, as far as I'm aware, an institutional history, yet, of the Centre, which burst into life in 2004 and seems to me to be in a perpetual process of discovery and invention. So the Centre for Archive and Information Studies itself is a work-in-progress.
My aim is to provide myself with a reflective space in which to think about a project I've been involved with since 2010, when I was asked to step in and take over an Oral History Unit within a larger Sound and Vision Module from its original author, John Benson, an archivist who was on the move from Cheshire Archives to the Shakespeare Library in Stratford on Avon. There were four Units in the Module. When he left, John Benson's co-author and co-tutor on the Module David Lee, then of the Wessex Film and Sound Archive, took over full responsibility for the two specifically Sound and Vision Units, and main responsibility for the Introductory Unit on the background history. The Oral History Unit was a kind of transitional one between the Introduction and the two more heavily technical ones, but it was no after-thought: Conducting an oral history interview, with transcription, discussion and documentation has been one of the two required final assignments from the beginning. It seemed to me a heavy responsibility, which I took on while learning about this very exciting and daunting thing called Distance Learning. I changed virtually nothing in John Benson's version of the Unit in my first run in 2010, apart from a new opening task; and I still maintain a number of significant features, including an excellent self-reporting exercise in which students are asked to carry out a five minute interview with someone using only their skills at listening, and then feeding back to their interviewee what they heard the interviewee say. The more times that is done, the better. Remember that in distance learning, students are spread out around the world.
But the Unit fit rather awkwardly into the Module, especially as I began to relax into and develop it; and in 2014, with more development, it became independent. David Lee enlisted the excellent Susi Clark, a scientist turned photographic conservator, to refocus the Sound and Vision Module fully on the gubbins of sound and vision; and Oral History became its own 9 week, 10 credit Module - 7 week contact time, two weeks on the final assignment. It has been run twice now, with significant revisions between the first run and the second. I'm now preparing further revisions for a third run, and wondering about a number of things. Hence taking this opportunity to reflect and, I hope, some discussion.
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Before launching in to that: I expect many people caught the news story of a buffalo calf in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, who had to be put down after a very kind family decided it was cold and needed to be rescued. It was subsequently rejected by the herd, and euthanised. You may have missed the recent Dover story, where a large group of youths on an adult-led outing had to be rescued from the rising tide at the foot of the cliffs of Dover by the coast guard and other emergency services, because they took a non-existent shortcut and ignored 9 – 9 – warning signs to turn back. Or perhaps, again going back to Yellowstone, the death of a man for whom there was no point in even trying to recover his body as he fell into a hot-spring and disintegrated, because he had ignored the warning signs and left the safety of the walk-way provided by the National Park Service. Or the section of a Colorado State Park cordoned off from tourists because of the number being attacked by bears as they insisted on trying to take selfies with them. And similarly in Yellowstone again, the number of people injured trying to get up close to take selfies with wild elk and buffalo. There is a point, which I hope I will have time to come back to, and it isn't about Brexit as such. And while I'm here I should declare an interest. Many years ago our families went on a picnic at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington State, and my cousin Johnny and I went into the woods and made a den for ourselves, putting branches over a pair of fallen trees to create a shelter. When we came back after having been called to lunch we were very surprised and gratified when a black bear dashed out of the den. We were chuffed it had met its approval, and left it to him. Or her.
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The University of Dundee began running distance learning courses in the 1970s. The pre-history I'm not familiar with, but by the late 1990s, when the remarkable Internet Archive kicks in, there is an extensive range of distance learning courses, primarily medical, health and social work related. Standing out from these, because it is not so obviously vocational, is a course in Scottish History, run by the History Department with involvement by the Department of Archives and Manuscripts, and by 1999 in association with the Open University.
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The real excitement begins to mount from 2004, when the Centre for Archive and Information Studies, CAIS, was formed and launched a programme in Archives and Records Management leading to a Certificate, Diploma or MPhil, developed later into an MLitt. It was post-graduate, from the beginning; and modular. For the Masters degree there were four core modules, which every student had to take, totalling 70 credits; and then a set of optional modules, taking a total of 120 credits to graduate.
Embedded among the new Optional Modules were Module 6: “Oral History and Archives Part 1”; and Module 7, “Oral History and Archives Part 2”, each worth 20 credits. It is worth noting the two halves of this equation: Part 1 is focused on oral history as an activity and a service – and to note the reference to oral history and sound archives as non-traditional in relation to archives: “Students will be provided with the tools and skills necessary to carry out an oral history project.” There will be ensured “a thorough understanding of the complex legal and ethical considerations involved”, “fully appreciating the needs of sound and oral history users”.
Part 2 focuses on the Technical issues of the equipment, formats, processing and management, with an introduction to “the historical development of sound recording technology and media”, and attention to “the financial and management options available.” These two are reflected in the later structure of the Sound and Vision Module.
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CAIS engaged Murray Watson to write the modules. A PhD in History awarded from Dundee in 2003, he was one of the historians Bartie and McIvor identify in their 2013 “Oral History in Scotland” coming out of the 1990s as an exponent of the “new” oral history, an oral history which recognises “that memories are composed and reconstructed, influenced by a range of factors”(p.127). His thesis, 'Scotland's Invisible Immigrants: The English', was published in October 2003 by Edinburgh University Press as “Being English in Scotland”. As the modules came out in 2004-2005 he was already turning his attention to English migrants in Canada. By the summer of 2007 he was busy carrying out fieldwork in Canada, so that when CAIS decided in the very busy year of 2007 to combine the two modules into one, it was necessary to recruit someone new.
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CAIS turned to John Benson of Cheshire Archives to author and tutor. At the same time CAIS had been thinking of doing a separate film archives module with David Lee, of the Wessex Film and Sound Archive; so CAIS took the decision to expand the module and have an audiovisual module as such, retaining the oral history element.
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Thus the new 20 credit Module, “Sound And Vision: Collecting, Preserving And Managing Film, Sound And Oral History” was born and launched in 2008, bringing the two halves of the 2004 Modules together: Unit 1 “Historical Overview”, Unit 2 “Oral History”, Unit 3 “Management and Administration” and Unit 4 “Preservation”.
The Oral History Unit, when I took it over, had three sections, and was addressed almost entirely to archive professionals: That audience has broadened and now includes, for example, students on the family and local history course or taking it for CPD.
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Section 1 was on "Oral History: Origins, definitions, strengths and weaknesses", the latter making an argument for archivists to engage with oral history and to step out of the constraints of conventional archival traditions. Section 2 was effectively on project management, funding sources, and so on, including managing volunteers, was entitled "Oral History Projects", and again addressed archivists: For example
"In recent years archivists have worked hard to identify communities not represented, or represented insufficiently, in the collections and have tried their best to redress the balance. It is but one small step from there to the collection of oral histories of those communities."
Section 3, "Interviews," covered everything related to interviewing as such: questions, settings, techniques; equipment, transcription, copyright and other conditions, ethics.
The Unit was an integrated whole, integrated within itself and integrated into the overall Module which John Benson had co-authored. It reflected his specific experience as an archivist and oral historian, which included extensive LGBT work. What I brought to it included my oral history-infused doctoral research on the culture and history of a small rural town; life and work in a residential therapeutic community for traumatised children; 20 years developing an Archive and Study Centre devoted to group and residential therapeutic approaches with a wide range of people with difficulties, interviewing practitioners and those people themselves and using oral history as a self-conscious approach to building relationships and the archive; and experience as a trainer for the Oral History Society/British Library oral history trainings. The latter in particular was influential. Although filled with theory, the trainings are by definition intensely practical. In Introductory trainings you are in among people encountering oral history for the first time mixed with people who in some cases have more experience than you do. In tailored trainings you have people whose intent is to go out almost immediately to interview fellow citizens or neighbours, sometimes never having seen the machines they are going to use until the training itself, and often unaware of the legal and ethical implications.
John Benson's Unit was balanced. The demands it made on the students was proportional to the demands made on them by the rest of the Module. As effectively an oral historian first and an archivist second, I approached the Unit not quite in isolation, but almost, and starting not from the first principles of archives, but from the first principles of oral history. What is oral history? What is it for? What is its consequences for individuals and communities?
These questions led quickly to a new opening task for students, having introduced myself as a person, oral historian and archivist:
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What about you: What experience do you have with oral history? Have you ever made an oral history recording? Was it at school, in college, at university, as part of your work, in pursuit of a private interest? When, where, what, how? What equipment did you use? Share your experience on the Discussion Board.
I expanded John's three sections into four, which reflect the Oral History Society trainings:
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1. ORAL HISTORY: INTRODUCTION, ORIGINS AND DEFINITIONS, ISSUES [e.g., "What is oral history?]
2. ISSUES, ETHICS AND LAW
3. PROJECT DESIGN AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT
4. THE INTERVIEW ["Everything that has gone before has been leading up to this: Whatever your definition of oral history, it is hard to imagine 'oral history' without the oral history interview." ]
Each of these became more detailed, designed to prepare the student as fully as possible for whatever it is that is oral history. But the Unit really did begin to burden the module as such, and created a conflict: people taking the Module because they were interested in the nitty gritty of formats, equipment, materials, management and preservation might struggle with the very different demands in relation to oral history; and vice versa. As whole it was a lot to ask of people studying alone in their spare time. So when I finally had the confidence I agreed with CAIS's suggestion that we create a stand-alone Oral History Module.
In its latest iteration, the Module has five Units. I've added
5 ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION. THINKING ABOUT PRACTICE, IMPLICATIONS, CONSEQUENCES
I give students a paragraph summarising the purpose of the Module, and one of its central themes:
"The aim of this Module is to provide you with an overview of the historical development of oral history, to help you to develop an awareness of the legal, ethical and practical issues involved, and to help you on the way to developing the skills required to research, design, manage and even undertake oral history interviews (you will be recording an interview as part of your final assignment). We will also be looking at some of the wider issues - oral history changes the world, as well as records it, so ongoing analysis and reflection on the hows, whys and 'what's that all abouts' are an essential part of best practice and continuing professional development"
I have re-configured the the phrasing of the Opening Task so that it more clearly begins this task:
Let's begin at the beginning, with the primary tool in any oral history interview: Yourself.
Who are you? Why have you decided to take this Module? What experience do you have with oral history? Have you ever made an oral history recording? If so, was it at school, in college, at university, as part of your work, in pursuit of a private interest? When, where, what, how? What equipment did you use?
Throughout the aim is to ground students in oral history as a reflective and self-reflective practice, the nature and reliability of whose outcomes and consequences depend on the person they are when they go into that interview situation: The more secure they are in the understanding of what they are doing, and the history, the law, the ethics, the requirements of the paperwork and the equipment in which oral history is embedded - the more centred and focused on their interviewee and the task of the interview they can be: which means the more centred and focused the interviewee can be in co-creating a document which then becomes a fixed point in a process of cultural and historical change.
The essence of oral history is that it exists in the here and now, so that even within its own history and traditions, it is being created and invented by those who are doing it, in the medium of the interview itself; whatever the interview is and wherever it begins.
But as we are running out of time, let me quickly revert back to the baby buffalo and the dilemmas of a distance learning setting, in which everything has to be squeezed into seven weeks of contact time: where group and two-way "contact time" is limited mainly to a VLE-based Discussion Board, participation in which by students is voluntary; the feedback I give them on their assessed assignments, which I use to model the kind of attention and reflection one brings to the oral history situation; skype, which has many difficulties, and has yet to be fully satisfactory; and face-to-face, which, given geographical distances and everyone's consumption in the busy-ness of their lives, is the exception rather than the rule.
The reality is that the warnings, the pathway, the signposts, whatever you might want to call them are elements in a process: Learning is a time-based enterprise; oral history is a time-based enterprise. Given what happens in and through oral history interviews, oral history is not "safe" or neutral in conventional terms; the creation of valuable, authoritative, ethical documents is not without consequences for everyone involved. So - especially given the separations and isolations involved - how does one squeeze all of this into a seven week online course: what else can or should one be asking of busy archivists already being asked of too much at work; or a person with a busy family who has only intermittent access to Internet; or someone ten thousand miles away, without access to the equipment one prescribes; or a myriad other things?