Kamila Oles
Kamila is art historian and archaeologist working as database collection assistant and postdoctoral researcher at Libraries and Museums of the University of St Andrews. Before joining the team, Kamila had worked as 3D heritage documentation research associate at the Centre of Virtualization and Spatial Technology at University of South Florida. She holds PhDs in Archaeology from Charles University in Prague and A. Mickiewicz University in Poznan. She has delivered several research projects across research institutions, universities, archives and museums in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechia and the USA in which she utilized cutting-edge technology: laser scanning, IBM, and 3D printing. Her achievements in applying 3D modelling and Augmented Reality to the USF Picasso Project were mentioned by the American Association for Advancement in Science. Her main interest lies with utilizing 3D models in teaching and research to make the world heritage globally accessible.
Kamila is actively interested in approaches to heritage interpretation, the relevance of art and archaeological history and paradigms, and scientific methodology. To interpret archival pre-MOLAS documentation of architectural remnants, she combined post-structural theoretical derivatives with spatial analyses and the practical use of CAD, GIS systems, and digital scholarship.
Together with members of the University Museums in Scotland (UMIS) group led by Dr Catherine Eagleton, Kamila works in the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Covid-19 urgency 'Online teaching and learning with digitised collections in Higher Education contexts' project. Covid-19 has led to a rush by museums and collections to digitise and to create digital content, in parallel with a dramatic shift to online and hybrid teaching and learning by universities. This rapidly accelerates and expands activity that was already in progress, building on existing and long-standing work, but with many new features. As neither museums nor universities were prepared for this sudden change, this project is carrying out high quality research at speed. It is exploring the opportunities, capacity and barriers for digital engagement with collections, interoperability between institutions, and evaluating the impact of collections-based university teaching that has been pushed to on-line and digital delivery. By capturing case studies and good practice relating to online teaching and learning with digitised collections we hope to offer much-needed support to museums and universities.
If you wish to read more widely about the project, visit the project website https://collectionteaching.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk and follow us under #collectionteaching.