Project Ideas and Recommended Tools
This page provides an overview of different kinds of project types that are recommended for doing community-engaged learning or participatory action work involving students. These examples are also likely to be good candidates for inclusion in the Digital Atlas of Essential Work and other showcases and sharing contexts:
- Mapping, data analysis, and other visualization projects—locations, available resources, city/county/region data, UO-specific data.
- Storytelling—videos, interviews, personal narratives and oral histories, social media, digital collages or other multimedia, podcasts.
- Resources—toolkits, marketing materials, reports, website development, or other resources as determined with partner organizations.
Below are some examples. These include a mixture of class projects by a single student, small group, or whole class; large, collaborative academic projects spanning multiple courses or researchers; and larger aspirational projects to inspire you as you consider the range of possibilities, from course-based community-engaged learning to broad Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects.
Public History, Research, & Storytelling
- Crest Street Community History Project:This digital history project records the history of organizing against an expressway over a primarily Black neighborhood in Durham, NC. This resource is part of the Southern Oral History Project, which has other excellent examples as well.
- Black at Bryn Mawr: A student-led project documenting the history of Black women at Bryn Mawr college.
- Chicano Studies Program at University of Nebraska Lincoln: This student project documents the formation of the UNL Chicano Studies program in the 1970s.
- Carribean Women Healers: Decolonizing Knowledge Within Afro-Indigenous Traditions: UO Professors Ana-Maurine Lara and Alaí Reyes-Santos’ research project compiles in order to validate the traditional ecological knowledge of women healers from various Carribean communities.
- Environmental Justice Research Repository and Mapping Other Perspectives: Student projects documenting histories of environmental injustice and resistance in Eugene, OR, and offering educational resources for K-12 teachers in Eugene-Springfield. Students in Mattie Burkert’s Digital Humanities capstone in collaboration with community partner Beyond Toxics.
- Mount Hood Stories: Upper-division and graduate student digital storytelling projects in UO Professor Sarah Wald’s “Racial Ecologies” course, in collaboration with community partner BARK.
- Whiting Public Engagement Fellows: Multiple projects.
Audio
- Nuestro South podcast: UO professor Julie Weise collaborated with Latinx leaders, students, and editors to create this five-part podcast on the experience of being Latinx in the southeastern U.S.
- American Religious Sounds Archive: This large-scale digital archive compiles audio files exhibiting the sounds of American religion.
Visualizations and Mapping
- MAVCOR Digital Spaces Project: This project uses digital mapping technology and 360 degree photography to tell the stories of important religious sites in the U.S.
- Durham Neighborhood Compass: This digital mapping project uses demographic and other data to empower Durham residents to understand their neighborhoods in more depth, with a focus on equity and justice. A collaboration with Research Action Design, a PAR design firm.
Community Action and Organizing
- Because She’s Powerful: The Political Isolation and Resistance of Women with Incarcerated Loved Ones: This project combines research, storytelling, policy, and advocacy to make a case against mass incarceration based on its effects on women who have incarcerated loved ones. A collaboration with Research Action Design, a PAR design firm.
- Greater Boston Anti-Displacement Toolkit: This toolkit combines research with practical guidance for community members resisting gentrification and neighborhood displacement in the Boston area. A collaboration with Research Action Design, a PAR design firm
- Understanding Red Hook WIFI through Participatory Action Research. A report from research conducted to understand usage and perceptions of free community wifi.
Visual Arts, Graphic Novels, and Zines
- Flying Kites: A Story of the 2013 California Prison Hunger Strike by the Stanford Graphic Novel Project
- New media projects from coursework led by Leigh-Anne Hidalgo from SUNY-Binghampton
- The Story of PCUN: UO professor Lynn Stephen collaborated with staff from the Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN) on this history of the organization.
- Against the EcoFascist Creep: April Anson, Cassie M. Galentine, Shane Hall, Alexander Menrisky, and Bruno Seraphin.
- Teaching Environmental Communication: A Zine of Resources and Projects for Students, Teachers, and Community Partners: Various contributors.
Digital Archiving
- Mukurto Case Study: Details the creation of a content management system (CMS) in collaboration with Indigenous communities around specific, cultural ways of representing, presenting, and protecting information in a digital archive. Presented on the Design for Diversity Learning Toolkit, with other examples and resources.
- Runaway Connecticut: This digital humanities project unpacks the history of enslaved peoples who ran away from captivity, as well as the Underground Railroad in Connecticut. It includes original, digitised historical advertisements for enslaved people who escaped, as well as for others including indentured servants, soldiers, and spouses.
Features
Recommended Digital Tools
The digital tools below represent a non-comprehensive list of free resources that you may find appropriate for student projects and work in collaboration with community partners. This guide strongly encourages faculty to understand how to use any tools themselves before opting to teach with them. Several of these tools have existing support resources from Digital Scholarship Services through the UO Libraries.
UO Approved Tools
- UO Blogs – Official site for UO blogs
- WordPress – Blogs/websites, works with UO blogs
- UO Libraries guide on WordPress
- Panopto – Record and share videos
- SOJC Experience Hub in Allan Hall – immersive media lab, social media analytics lab, production studio and editing bay, podcast studio, equipment checkout.
- ESRI StoryMaps and ARC GIS – Digital storytelling
- Digital Scholarship Services at the UO Libraries has created Canvas modules faculty can use in classes, along with other resources. Contact them for more information
- Omeka – A web publishing platform that is good for “sharing digital collections and creating media-rich online exhibits.”
Other Tools
- StoryMap JS – Digital storytelling with maps
- Story Corps App – Audio storytelling for personal histories/biographies
- Google Maps for Education – Digital storytelling with maps
- Google Earth – Digital storytelling with maps, with more robust and nuanced features
- iNaturalist – Website and app for crowd-sourced, community science data in biological sciences.
- Carto – Spatial data analysis and visualizations platform. Note: free use for one year but then has a cost.
Open Access Image Sites
Teaching note: the UO has requirements and limitations around use of digital tools in the classroom. See the student privacy section for more information.