This post has kindly been written for us by Dr Matthew Phillpott, SAS-Space Manager and SAS Digital Project Officer.

PORT01For those of you who have been using the Institute of Historical Research’s online research training platform, History SPOT you will have noticed a variety of changes recently. The sites web address has changed, its name has changed, and its design has changed.

The refit of History SPOT and its transformation into PORT (Postgraduate Online Research Training) is an exciting development. We believed that the old site was beginning to look tired but yet its contents still remain useful and relevant and there is still so much scope for expansion.

In addition the opportunity arose to merge the IHR’s efforts with the wider efforts of the School of Advanced Study (of which the IHR is one component). History SPOT has therefore become PORT, an online research training platform not just for historians, but for all humanities studies.

This is a good thing for historians. The extent of training provision on PORT will rapidly expand over the next few years and a vast amount of it will be relevant to students studying history.  Already, PORT provides additional resources offering advice about completing a PhD and a host of handbooks providing links to modern languages resources. Soon a resource will be launched providing introductory guidance to research using quantitative methods, various videos covering all kinds of research needs, and more ‘history’ focused courses, such as managing your data as an historian.

So please do check out PORT and let us know what you think.

http://port.sas.ac.uk

[Note: Those familiar with History SPOT will see that not all of the old resources are currently online. These just require a quick fix to work with the new design and will be reappearing over the coming weeks]