Undergraduate Peer Learning and Public Digital Humanities Research

In conjunction with Iowa City's 2008 designation as a UNESCO City of Literature, an interdisciplinary team of University of Iowa faculty, graduate and undergraduate student researchers formed UCOL – the University of Iowa UNESCO City of Literature Mobile Application Development Team. The project brings together community partners, faculty, students and staff at the university to develop, record and produce multimedia research about local writers for ‘City of Lit’, a mobile app now available for mobile devices. During the past year, the project was incorporated into three sections of a general education literature course, giving undergraduate students experience conducting research and creating multimedia content on local authors. Students in this class worked collectively to create multimedia hypertext documents that feature traditional text, photos, graphics, and audio and video content for inclusion in the mobile app. The project encouraged interdisciplinary collaborative undergraduate research. Student reflections and presentations, along with a formal survey designed by the research team, suggest that the project provided valuable learning outcomes through its integration of literary research and analysis, New Media and technology, and local community engagement within team-based learning. The authors' research indicates that the creation of peer-assisted scholarship positively facilitated the peer learning process, particularly with groups of three students.