Welcome! OHLA is an undergraduate research framework for community-engaged teaching and learning using oral history & digital scholarship. We support digital projects across the Great Lakes Colleges Association and Global Liberal Arts Alliance, curate tutorials and pedagogical resources, and offer trainings at Antioch College.

for the oral history/digital pedagogy community

News & Events

New CFP and Microgrant Announcement! Fully Funded Alliance Oral History in the Liberal Arts Summer Institute July 2023 at Antioch College

Coming to Interview-based Inquiry in the Liberal Arts

Locating Our Practice

Next Steps: From Oral Histories to the Archive

Between Oral History and Ethnography

Latina/o/x Oral Histories: Locating Our New Practice

Collective Work in the Individualized University

17 November 2016

Research, Contingency, and the Undergraduate Classroom

17 November 2016

Case Study: Coloring the Gem City

A Path to Bilingual OHMS

A Liberal Sort of Learning: Phenomenological Oral History and the Empirical Humanities

The Discipline of Listening

What Can You Do With an English Degree?

21 February 2016

Oral History and Digital Storytelling: Narratives of Trauma and Recovery

10 February 2016

Where Plain Folks Matter and Students Learn Better: Teaching the Value of Learning Through Oral History and Narrative

08 February 2016

Field Librarianship: The Role of Information Science in Oral History

20 January 2016

Pedagogical Landscapes: Ethnography, Everyday Life, and Social Justice in the Liberal Arts Classroom

getting started

Project Planning, Outreach & Fieldwork Prep

Incorporating Self-Care into Oral History Methodology

Interview formatting and editing

09 September 2019

Thinking about interview questions

09 September 2019

Getting Organized From the Beginning

Using Google Drive for Collaborative Oral History with Undergraduates

Why Aren’t All Interviews Done On Video?

Project Planning Basics— Templates & Examples

14 December 2016

On Emailing Potential Subjects

Oral History as Exploratory, Primary-Source Research: On Snagging Your First Interview

How to be a Field Librarian: Capturing the Wild Metadata

best practices & teaching resources

Interview Methodology for Community Research

Social Work Interviewing: Merging Models

Thinking about interview questions

09 September 2019

4 Steps to Practice Interviewing Before Your First Interview.

17 September 2018

Building a Project: Project Statement and Informed Consent Templates

Module: Developing Effective Interviewing Skills

28 November 2016

Interviewing 101: A few resources for teaching undergrads how to interview for Public-facing Digital Projects. Within One Term.

The X-Factor: What Happens When the Interview Breaks Down?

The Dynamics of the Oral Interview Process

Thematizing the Interview

Strategies for Indexing & Interpreting

From the Spoken Word to the Written Text: Speech, Text, and Dialog in Transcription

11 February 2019

After the Interview

Tools for Transcription & Indexing

Using Youtube to Generate Free Automatic Transcriptions

Trint 101

How to Add Footnotes in OHMS

23 October 2017

OHMS Metadata Entry Guide

Managing Large Volumes of Data: How Dr. Mary Gordon Indexes Interviews in an Excel Spreadsheet

06 February 2017

Hyperlinks in OHMS: Linking Media to an Interview Index

08 November 2016

Incorporating LoC Subject Headings into an OHMS Project

03 November 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

1- Introduction to OHMS: Why use this tool?

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

2- Metadata in OHMS: Starting an interview in the repository

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

3- Transcript Formatting in OHMS: Prepping before upload (optional)

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

4- Syncing in OHMS: time sync your media to your transcript (optional)

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

5- Indexing in OHMS: Where the scholarly magic happens

07 October 2016

Indexing Interviews: Leveling Up 1-3

Formatting and Uploading transcripts to OHMS (in English or Japanese)

Creating Bi-Lingual Projects in the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer

Building Public Facing Projects

Digital Storytelling Tools & Tutorials

Story Maps ArcGIS— Map-centered digital storytelling with multiple templates

09 February 2018

Soundcite—Animate Written Narrative with Spoken Word and Soundscapes

08 February 2018

StoryMap— For Place-Based Stories that Track Events Through Time

08 February 2018

TimelineJS— Chronological Digital Stories Merging Images, Maps, Video, and Wikipedia Articles

08 February 2018

After the Interview: On Workflow & Choosing a Digital Tool to Visualize, Organize, and Publish Interview Collections

Publishing an Interview Series

Tools & Teaching Resources for Podcasting

Writing Like a Podcaster: Some Resources

Researching Like a Podcaster: Some Resources

Thinking Like a Podcaster, Part II: Developing the Podcast

18 November 2016

Thinking Like a Podcaster

17 November 2016

Oh Gee, Look, It’s Podigee!

OHMS in Practice

Tips & Tricks for Using OHMS

How to Add Footnotes in OHMS

23 October 2017

OHMS Metadata Entry Guide

Hyperlinks in OHMS: Linking Media to an Interview Index

08 November 2016

Incorporating LoC Subject Headings into an OHMS Project

03 November 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

1- Introduction to OHMS: Why use this tool?

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

2- Metadata in OHMS: Starting an interview in the repository

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

3- Transcript Formatting in OHMS: Prepping before upload (optional)

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

4- Syncing in OHMS: time sync your media to your transcript (optional)

07 October 2016

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

5- Indexing in OHMS: Where the scholarly magic happens

07 October 2016

Indexing Interviews: Leveling Up 1-3

Formatting and Uploading transcripts to OHMS (in English or Japanese)

Creating Bi-Lingual Projects in the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer

Streaming Video and Audio in OHMS with a Focus on YouTube

OHMS allows for a controlled thesaurus, but learning to use it efficiently it another story. Here's my tips.

CTRL+F: On working with LoC Subject Headings in the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer

Bilingual OHMS

Strategies for Bilingual Oral History Projects

Formatting and Uploading transcripts to OHMS (in English or Japanese)

Creating Bi-Lingual Projects in the Oral History Metadata Synchronizer

From digital tool to content management system

Building Digital Projects

Incorporating Self-Care into Oral History Methodology

Mapping Displacement: Storymapping Narratives & Place

Creating a homepage for a project in WordPress

From Indexed Interview to Public Project – How to Embed an OHMS XML file in WordPress

tips for harnessing oral history & digital storytelling in teaching

Pedagogical Reflections

How a Pandemic Crisis Changes Oral History

What We are Learning About Oral History and the Vietnam War

Indexing Assignments and Group Work

Facilitating Student-Driven Projects

Logistical Challenges and Creative Responses to Preserving Oral History Curriculum

“Sharing Authority” in the Oral History Classroom

Framing Learning Outcomes: Oral History in a Literature Class

Navigating the Technology Divide as an Instructor Experimenting with Oral History Pedagogy

Reflections on an Academic Experiment

OHLA Case Studies

How a Pandemic Crisis Changes Oral History

What We are Learning About Oral History and the Vietnam War

Reflections on Meadiaville: Confronting the Neoliberal University

08 February 2019

Deconstructing Stereotypes, Empowering Survivors: The Case of Amputees of the Sierra Leone Civil War

10 October 2017