Wednesday 31 October 2018

How we remember war and violence: theory and practice – A MOOC informed by the UNREST project


UNREST Research Assistant, Dr Ayshka Sené, discusses the creation of a MOOC based on the project's findings.

We have recently completed the first run of our Massive Open Online Course (or MOOC), which started on 1 October 2018 and ran for 4 weeks. The MOOC is part of UNREST’s Work Package 5, ‘Communication and Training Impact.’

What is a MOOC?        
  • A free course with no entry requirements that is open to everyone.
  • It takes place solely online using internet technologies and interactive tools.
  • It runs at scale with no limit to student numbers.
  • It has the characteristics of a traditional course – start date, prescribed content, instruction,  assessment, and feedback.
  • Support and input comes from other learners, as well as educators.
The MOOC, ‘How we remember war and violence: theory and practice,’ is available on the FutureLearn  platform. FutureLearn is a private company owned by The Open University and based in London, U.K. The aim of the course was to introduce interested stakeholders and policymakers to the theory underpinning the UNREST project, the practical case studies applying this theory, and the cultural products, created by UNREST colleagues and partner organisations.

We designed the course to take one hour per week, in order to make it possible to complete alongside other commitments, and hopefully to encourage those already working in the heritage and museum sectors to participate.

We divided the MOOC into 4 weeks, which contained activities in a sequence of steps to complete within that week. Subscribers learnt by watching videos, reading articles, and taking short quizzes. Each activity had a space to allow learners to comment or ask questions, other learners could comment, and the ‘educators’ offered guidance and responded to questions. Dr Nina Parish, Professor David Clarke and Dr Ayshka Sené were the ‘educators’ on the course, replying to students’ questions and comments.

The October course run had 608 learners from 80 different countries, some of whom were involved in the heritage and commemoration sectors and others from very diverse backgrounds.


Subscribers included, students (undergraduate and postgraduate) of History, Museum Studies, Cultural Heritage, War Studies, Languages, Intercultural Studies, Art History, European Studies, and International Relations, retirees, freelance researchers, history enthusiasts, aid workers in conflict zones, writers, interpreters, lecturers, teachers, archaeologists, and diplomats. 

The learning outcomes for the course were to:
  • Identify, describe, and compare the three models of memory presented in the course.
  • Evaluate and summarise the shortcomings of antagonistic and cosmopolitan memory.
  • Reflect on and debate agonistic memory.
  • Engage with and discuss applications of agonistic memory in different environments and to the cultural products featured in the MOOC.
  • Discuss and develop how learners might apply agonistic memory in their own heritage contexts.
We were encouraged that learners were keen to discuss existing memory models, as well as offer their feedback on agonistic memory and the cultural products, which have been created by the UNREST project. Subscribers took part in some lively debates about the place of video games in the museum space, questioning whether their inclusion was reductive, or even disrespectful. Some learners said that they would like to apply agonistic memory theory to their own projects, which included a play, a museum, a PhD thesis, and an art exhibition.

The course will run again for 4 weeks in January and March 2019.  You can sign up here.