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Continuing Learning
Learning is a life long process and should your interest lay in continuing your learning process for community historical research, then the Internet opens up a new vista of opportunity.
The Society now offers its own Continued Learning courses that include
Building a database for historians using Microsoft Access ( 2 day course) - this course is a practical hand-on session and delegates should preferably bring their own laptop and have Microsoft Access installed. A limited number of Notebook PCs are available for delegates use. Course fee £10 each day
- Effective presentations for historians using Microsoft PowerPoint (or similar) - this course is a practical hand-on session and delegates should preferably bring their own laptop and have Microsoft PowerPoint or Open Office 2 or Ability Office installed. A limited number of Notebook PCs are available for delegates use. - Course fee £10
- Writing for publication in a Journal - Course fee £10
- Building a history of your village or community - Course fee £10
These continued learning courses typically last one day and are held at Aspley Guise in the Society's archive. The database course is a two-day course with a 3 month interval between sessions.
Courses involve hands-on tuition and are focused on practical help. Course sizes are limited and group size is no more than ten, though a typical number is eight. More information for members is available in the Members Community. Non members may attend courses. Course dates are administered by Brita Wood who can be contacted by emailing the Membership Secretary
Another opportunity that is endorsed with a personal* recommendation of the Society webmaster is the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education Advanced Diploma in Local History via the Internet.
This advanced diploma course focuses on the many aspects of the sources and methods of community historical research and offers the student opportunities to place the history research in both a local community and distant research context. All relevant materials to facilitate the process of research are provided to each student, so no additional trips to local archives are required. A strong feature of the course is the in depth use of database queries, and there is a good amount of 'hand-holding' via the Internet on-line course discussions for those who may initially find database work daunting.
The period for the historical research covers 16th - 19th centuries with in-depth sessions on how to use sources and how to get the best from the analysis tools integrated within worksheet and database software. The second part of the course requires a study of the Oxfordshire market towns of Thame and Woodstock in the 17th century, and again all the relevant material to facilitate research is provided.
The course material makes much use of the Microsoft Office suite, particularly the Access TM database. In fact the course requirement does go so far as to specify the Microsoft Office applications plus a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader and the Flash plug-in for your web-browser. All the material could be worked in any similar 'office' type suite of programs, such as Open Office, it just makes the whole thing easier if you use the same software as the majority of folk on the course, especially as all the 'hand-holding' is most definitely geared up for the Microsoft suite of programs. While it is possible to do the course with an Apple Macintosh computer no technical or application support is provided. Technical Support provided by the course team is strictly focused on a PC with MS Office installed.
For full course details and dates of when the next session is scheduled to start follow this link
* This short review is a personal review by the Society Webmaster who was has completed the course and was awarded the Advanced Diploma in 2001. The publication of this review does not imply endorsement of the course by FACHRS