Support for Instructors

The AVRC offers additional services for professors in the School for Studies in Art and Culture to assist with teaching.

Seminars or Group Work

Material from our special collections can be borrowed for use in class. Our spaces can also be booked to work with our collections or to accommodate special events.

Contact the AVRC to discuss how you can use our collections and spaces in your instruction!

Facilitate classroom screenings

In addition to loaning out material from our existing collection, the AVRC is able to purchase or rent films, if required, from other universities and by contacting outside distribution companies, ensuring that all titles are, or will be available for requested bookings.

Collections development

The AVRC’s collections are developed on a course-by-course basis. We have a modest budget for collections development and are happy to look into purchasing materials for use in class or for research purposes. Acquisition decisions are also dependent on how early in the year requests are made.

SSAC Media: Digital Image/Media Collection

SSAC Media was built using the open source web application MDID. MDID is a digital media management system with sophisticated tools for discovering, aggregating, and presenting digital media in a wide variety of learning spaces. Some of its main features include:

the ability to create presentations for your courses
the ability to password protect and control access to presentations
the ability to categorize presentations (e.g. by weekly lectures)
the ability to upload images, film clips and audio clips to a personal collection
providing students with a way to select and view course-related presentations for self-directed study, including the option to create Flash Cards with the corresponding catalogue data

Technical Support

In addition, the AVRC offers technical support for professors’ research projects, including:

Database support for research materials
Server space and online hosting for projects

Related to our technical support services, the AVRC also offers support to professors in the SSAC who wish to pursue digital humanities projects in their research or courses, including assistance in the development of online exhibitions and publications.

Current applications supported by the AVRC and being used by faculty in the SSAC include:

Drupal, a free, flexible, and open source content management system (CMS) for creating and managing online content with seamless media handling.
Scalar, a free, open source authoring and publishing platform that is designed to make it easy for authors to write long-form, born-digital scholarship online.

If you would like to discuss using our technical services, please contact Nancy Duff.