tutor in the Department of
English and Comparative Literary
Studies at the University
of Warwick, where she
contributes to many modules,
including ‘The Epic Tradition‘,
and ‘Medieval to Renaissance
Literature‘. She is the co-editor
(with Cory Rushton) of
The Erotic in Medieval
Literature of Britain
(D.S. Brewer: 2007).
Students on the first-year module,‘The Epic Tradition‘ at the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick, study a number of traditional epic texts (Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid, in translation, and Milton’s Paradise Lost). They conclude the module with Derek Walcott’s Omeros (1990) as a case study in the self-conscious use of the epic tradition by a modern author.
While Omeros has generated a good deal of scholarly criticism, notably in the field of Afro-Caribbean studies, and at least one monograph, no one has yet attempted a commentary on this dense, allusion-filled poem. Since texts on the module are studied chronologically, and specifically in the context of epic literature rather than Caribbean literary or cultural studies, the absence of a commentary posed a particular challenge for our students. In answer to that challenge, the department’s WikiOmeros project, the brainchild of Dr Elizabeth Clarke, was launched. As the director of the project, Dr Clarke intended to encourage students to carry out original research which would be published in an online commentary to the text. The system was not intended to be a ‘pure’ wiki, since we felt it crucial that all comments be reviewed by me, the project co-ordinator, before publication. In a true wiki, as its inventor Ward Cunningham observes, material is intended to be uploaded and modified, at will, by users; control is delegated to the users (Venners, 2003).
Today, WikiOmeros is a project which has gone through two phases, amassing a significant, but not yet complete online, commentary to Walcott’s poem. In its first phase, the project was run as a prototype in 2006–7 with contributions from students on ‘The Epic Tradition‘ module. Funding from the English Subject Centre allowed the commentary to be augmented and refined in 2007–8 in order to give a wider audience the opportunity of using and contributing to it, including a new cohort of Epic Tradition students (this was Phase Two). In this article, I summarise some of the key aspects of the project and some of the challenges we encountered along the way. A detailed case study with descriptions of the setting up, maintenance and format of the project from its inception can be found in the Project pages of the Subject Centre website.
The prototype
When the project began, we hoped that contributing to the commentary would develop undergraduates’ academic and professional skills by allowing them to engage in mentored original research and to practise formal academic writing. An electronic resource seemed most appropriate, since it could be created easily and quickly and be widely accessible, both within Warwick and in the wider community. The project’s objectives thus met an important element of the HEFCE strategy for e-learning, that e-learning should ‘enabl[e] students and other users to develop more independence in learning and to share resources’ (HEFCE Strategy for e-learning, March 2005). As project co-ordinator, I was responsible for preparing the online text, editing and uploading commentary submissions from our students, carrying out technical duties and liaising with the e-learning advisor in the Faculty of Arts.
Early on, after meeting with staff teaching on the module, we decided that we could not make contributions to the Omeros commentary a formal module requirement, because the text came so late in the term and the activity was so different from the other module requirements. There simply wasn’t enough time to scaffold the activity properly for any students who might have needed extra time to do it well. Students would be encouraged, but not required, to contribute; and guidance on research methods and the preparation of commentary entries could be provided in seminars on Omeros. Each seminar group would be responsible for a section of the text, and some time would be allocated during class should students wish to discuss and present work-in-progress. In introducing the project to the students, I emphasised the skills they could gain by contributing and reminded them that the resource would be available to them when studying the text and revising for the end-of-year examination.
I enjoyed doing the research for WikiOmeros as it really contributed a different dimension to my ‘Epic Tradition’ studies. As a first-year student, it was quite daunting to be helping with a literary research project only a few months into university. However, looking up all the different words was really interesting and it gave a great background to the learning that we were doing. Also, it helped with learning how to research and what different tools are available, something which has been important to my university career since then. It was a really great project and bonded the first year together, making everyone feel they were doing something worthwhile for the wider literary community.
Antonia Barr, student
We originally envisaged the commentary as integrated with the text, and began negotiations with the publisher, Faber & Faber, to gain permission to reproduce the poem online. Unfortunately, in granting permission for the poem to be used, the publishers stipulated that the online text had to be accessible only to students on the ‘Epic Tradition‘ module. This meant that we had to reconsider our original idea. If other people were to benefit from the commentaries being created by the students, we would have to format the comments as a stand-alone facility for the wider world, but keep them connected to Walcott’s text for our own students. Following the recommendation of the Warwick technical adviser, we decided to use technology already in use at the university: ‘Sitebuilder’ web-design software and Warwick Blogs. The text and supporting material could be hosted within the English department’s module pages and the administrative settings for each page could permit or block access as required. The commentary could be hosted on a dedicated blog that could be accessed separately.
WikiOmeros was a really useful project to be involved with developing … A further benefit was the opportunity to practice scholarly citation and academic research in a context other than essay writing … it might have been helpful, or at least interesting, to spend more lecture and seminar time on the project, in order to allow time to explore the ideas in and possibilities of the index.
Jenny Mills, student
As the project got underway, we composed a reliable system of ‘tags’ for each entry composed by students to make the searching process easier for users. Four main tags were agreed (Epic Tradition, Characters, Glossary and Context) and I then compiled an extensive list of sub-tags (including primary themes, motifs and historical events, titles of related texts, locations referred to in the poem and names of characters).
I also prepared the poem for electronic publication, scanning each page and using optical character recognition (OCR) software to convert the material to text, which was then formatted in HTML (figure 1). At the same time, I prepared supporting web material, including a page listing sources cited in the commentary, and a WikiOmeros home page (figure 2).
Figure 1. The beginning of the online text. Users navigate chronologically by using the Previous and Next Page links, or by returning to the
Chapter Index.
Figure 2. A screenshot of part of the main WikiOmeros portal page. Note that access to the text is locked (shown by the padlock in the navigation bar to the left).
The electronic version of the poem was uploaded on 2 May 2007, in time for students to use the resource as part of their exam revision. Permission rights on these pages were set to allow access only to students on the module and to staff teaching the module. The first commentary submission was received on 3 May 2007 and by the end of July, at the conclusion of the first stage of the project, some 220 separate blog entries had been received and uploaded. The number of contributions and the positive student feedback suggested that the prototype was worth developing further, and the commentary worth offering to a wider audience, who could use and contribute to it.
Unfortunately, at this point, there was an unexpected delay in setting up the Javascript code to link the text and blog, which meant that there was no straightforward means for users consulting the commentary to read the entries alongside the text. As a short-term solution, I prepared a downloadable version of the commentary, with entries presented in chronological relation to the text. This file, in Adobe portable document format (PDF), was updated every few days while submissions continued to be received, and continues to be maintained.
The Omeros project allowed the students to conduct original research collaboratively, to amass supportive data on a text which currently lacks any form of critical edition and to make this data accessible to the rest of the student cohort. The project honed their research skills and provided insight into the process of assembling the textual apparatus for a critical edition.
Dr Christiania Whitehead, tutor
The second phase of the project
The second phase of the project, supported by both funding and advice from the English Subject Centre, was intended to widen participation among the students and to offer extended supporting materials, such as dedicated critical bibliographies. We also wanted to add an enhanced search engine and complete the pop-up links between the text and commentary entries.
The Subject Centre funding made it possible to include in the project Dr Lynne Macedo, of the Centre for Translation and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick. Dr Macedo, a specialist in Anglophone Caribbean literature and cultural studies, held five weekly sessions to offer advice to students researching the text during this phase and conducted a thorough check of the contributions to date, concluding that ‘The entries seem to be of a very good standard and the students have clearly been able to comment on many of Walcott’s allusions to other epics. There has also been some attempt to understand the specifically Caribbean aspects of the poem and, presumably, this will be added to and expanded in the future’. Macedo also identified lacunae and offered useful suggestions for future research directions: ‘Undoubtedly there are still a number of key Caribbean issues that have not yet been picked up and students could perhaps be guided towards these in the future.’
During March 2008, all commentary entries, to date, were reviewed, with a view to final preparation for wider access. Bibliographical codes, throughout, were linked to the online Bibliography to the Commentary, and cross references within the commentary linked to the corresponding entries. We were simultaneously thinking about how to publicise the commentary to a wider audience and fund the next phase of the project.
Finally, in May 2008, the Javascript pop-up boxes were made available, but it quickly became evident that they were not working properly. While I was able to resolve some of the technical issues, our university technical adviser had insufficient resources to deal with all the problems. As a result, WikiOmeros was forced to operate in a much reduced capacity with little of the functionality we had originally planned and worked so diligently towards. Sadly, further technical issues have arisen and remain unresolved, forcing the project to be put on hold.
Looking ahead
For anyone considering a similar project, there are a few things I would suggest:
• Ensure that someone at the core of the project has basic knowledge of website design using HTML. This is particularly helpful in terms of visualising the end product.
• Keep your blog-based system simple and straightforward.
The basic search function was useful for WikiOmeros, but we ran into difficulty when we tried to link comments to the text using a pop-up function.
• Ascertain, ahead of time, whether your technical adviser (if your institution assigns one) has the resources (of time and experience) to devote to your project. It sounds obvious, but it is very important that everyone involved have a shared vision for the final product, and its success.
• Assess student contributions to the commentary. If contributions to WikiOmeros could have formed part of the assessment of the module, this probably would have brought even more lecturers onside. As mentioned above, however, this would only be feasible if Omeros was taught much earlier in the year, rather than at the end.
The WikiOmeros project has proved an immensely effective and valuable tool in the teaching of this set text on the first-year core module, ‘The Epic Tradition‘. It familiarised students with research techniques early on in their undergraduate career, which will stand them in good stead in their subsequent Honours years. The project was particularly useful in providing them with the motivation to undertake such research insofar as they were given ownership of a particular section of the poem on which to comment, allowing them to feel like ‘stakeholders’ in the cumulative process of building up a detailed commentary on the poem.
Dr Catherine Bates, Convenor, ‘The Epic Tradition'
Despite the inevitable hiccoughs and frustrations of project management, building WikiOmeros was an incredible experience, especially for the students. As a method of teaching first-year students the basics of close reading and textual research, creating a wiki is an engaging, collaborative and fun way to do it.
References
HEFCE, JISC HEA (2005) ‘HEFCE strategy for e-learning‘, available from tinyurl.com/c5uz6b
Venners, B. (2003), ‘Exploring with Wikis: A Conversation with Ward Cunningham’, available from www.artima.com/intv/wiki.html [accessed 17 September 2008]
