Context

The progressive affirmation of digital historiography is introducing a significant opportunity for revision of traditional methods of historical research, teaching and learning. We are moving towards the possibility of having whole archives and libraries bought to use by a click of a (mouse) button. The digitalisation of printed documents and texts allows them to be easily consulted at distance but also allows access to films, audio and iconographic and photographic material etc.

It becomes possible to develop a studying and teaching of history approach based on the direct access to the sources, beside the more traditional methodology oriented exclusively to printed manuals, that explain the sources without making possible to view them directly.

The potential easy access to direct sources through digitalized archives makes possible for professionals researchers, teachers and students  to think to a reconstruction and explanation of history, coming out from a stronger correlation between a direct  use of the sources and their historical interpretation. 

 It will be possible to teach and learn history not only reading the analytical synthesis made by others of facts and issues, but as a autonomous reconstruction of history, based on a aware correlation between the identification and access to the direct sources and their contextualisation. A methodology where the learner is the protagonist of his own learning process and where the study of history enriches not only the knowledge of facts but the critical spirit to give an interpretation of them.
The use of multimedia potential for writing highly communicative and interactive teaching materials and the use of Internet as a tool for circulation of information and knowledge sharing opens to a possible new approach for the writing of history.

The circulation of information at transnational level, fosters the building up of the idea that the history of Europe must be analysed as a sum and a result of the different national histories, and makes possible to experiment new forms of historical writing based on a transnational cooperative participation of different subjects working on the development of same text.

Emerging needs:

1. There is a strong need to research, gather and enhance accessibility, through the building up of comprehensive Database providing internal research instruments, of the plurality of tools for the study of history, already existing in the net at European level as:

 - Direct sources for modern and contemporary history (documentary archives, digital libraries, icon libraries, video libraries)
- Didactic materials (Manuals, On-line training courses, Guidelines, handouts, maps archives, history encyclopaedias and dictionaries),
- Other specialist tools (Historical Essays, online history magazines, monographs, software and databases for the analysis of history sources) 

2. The need to develop a methodology for history writing emerges, which exploits the potential of multimedia, making the sources and materials used for reconstructing the event available alongside the interpretation given by the writer. This allows the reader/student to critically evaluate the process followed by the writer and to autonomously form their own personal interpretation of the historical topic in focus.

3. It appears necessary to develop and make accessible for University professors, researchers and students a training package focusing on the use of multimedia and digital contents to produce historical didactic materials based on online cooperative writing, as to make possible to build up a shared European interpretation of history, as resulting from the different national perspective.