The French Digital Library: Creating An E-Resource to Bridge Linguistic, Cultural, and Digital Gaps

Purpose

The French Digital Library (FDL) is an interdisciplinary collaborative digital education project seeking to produce an accessible platform and repository of multimedia resources in French for school pupils and university students. It aims to facilitate linguistic and cultural immersion, counteracting reduced mobility stemming from COVID-19, Brexit or socio-economic challenges disproportionately affecting disadvantaged students. The FDL addresses misconceptions still common to digital education and language learning surrounding the concept of ‘digital natives’. For students born in a ‘digital age’, it is not obvious how to navigate the multiplicity of resources available online. To better support learners and educators and to keep bridging sustainability, digital, and learning gaps, multimedia language resources are carefully curated through a digital platform which offers a diversified and accessible range of material.

Role of the team and key tasks

The VIP team will contribute to the development, research, curation, and further testing of the platform. Students in the team will refine the prototype by implementing further user testing in HE institutions and schools and update the platform interface and design to reach a Technology Readiness Level suitable for official launch. In parallel, they will also keep finding, curating, and tagging relevant resources. Last but not least, the team will work together to gain awareness in current questions to do with digital education, language learning and pedagogy (language e-resources and accessibility; resource levels and challenges; sustainability, widening access and participation), as well as philosophy (categorisation, labelling, and the promotion of social trust through the mutual understanding fostered by language learning) and how the French Digital Library and digital tools more generally help tackle these questions.

Each semester, the team will assess the current state of the project and agree on its current focus. Interdisciplinary collaboration will be encouraged and supported by carefully assigned team roles (e.g. Developer; Linguist; Generalist; Coordinator; etc.).

Expected structure:

weekly team meetings;
frequent check-points with project supervisors and PGR/post-doctoral assistants;
extra support from project supervisors, PGR/post-doctoral assistants, or returning team members, especially for new VIP members (training could for example be given on language curation, categorisation, as well as visual mapping and web development).

Transferable skills and attributes

By working on the project, the interdisciplinary team will gain valuable experience in communication and collaboration, web design and development, resource analysis and curation, user research and interviews. The transferable skills students will develop are as follows: creative thinking, digital analysis, digital and media literacy, linguistic analysis, cultural awareness, media awareness, independent research skills, digital research skills, organisation skills, planning, problem-solving, project management, reflection, writing skills, copy-editing, taking initiative, time management, and understanding intellectual property.

Students from any discipline are welcome to apply.

We are especially keen to hear from students in the following schools and disciplines:
- School of Modern Languages (not just French)
- School of Computer Science
Ideal candidates should demonstrate:
- An interest in languages and language learning;
- and/or an interest in digital education;
- and/or an interest in accessible and sustainable education;
- and/or an interest in web development;
- and/or an interest in contributing to the project across multiple semesters.
Students working on this project will use the following methods and technologies:
- Digital development – developing the platform and testing it
- Digital design – working on the platform’s user-centred design
- Education development – gaining awareness in how people learn, especially languages
- Research and curation – locating, documenting, and effectively choosing what resources are relevant, of the right level, etc.
- Translation and language skills – finding non-English sources and producing English descriptions and labels
- IP management – understanding Intellectual Property and copyright and applying this knowledge to suitable resources for the platform
- Publicity and public engagement – working on a publicity campaign and how best to reach users
- Evaluation – through quality control, task effectiveness, etc.
- Collaboration – within the project team, with the project supervisors and collaborators
- Project management – organising weekly meetings; assigning roles and action points; progress tracking.
This project will be assessed through the following coursework:
- Production outputs (development and/or curation) with 1-page summary of output results/challenges
- Mentoring new students with 1 page reflection on the mentoring process
- Group/progress presentations
- Reflective logs
- Portfolio dossier reporting on one to three of the following categories: production/curation; dissemination/publicity; research/scholarship; outreach
Not all students will complete all assessments. Assessments are scaled based on the number of credits taken.

The French Digital Library: Creating An E-Resource to Bridge Linguistic, Cultural, and Digital Gaps

Candidate eligibility

Methods and technologies

Assessment