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Catalogues, copyright, and off-campus digital access—Edinburgh collections practice, not a conservator licence.
Online or on campus
Collections fail in undocumented rights, bit-rot, and reading-room rules that assume everyone can reach Edinburgh. This MA starts with dual-pathway access as an ethical problem: what can be digitised, what must stay restricted, and how a tuition-free online student gets a lawful surrogate. Scottish archives, independent museums, and university special collections appear as management cases. Faculty mark whether you can write an access policy that a donor, a data-protection officer, and a community group can all interrogate. The award is not ARA registration and not a conservation ticket. Capstones use anonymised or public collections projects with honest rights statements. University of Brigant sits in Edinburgh, a city of reading rooms and festivals that can treat collections as scenery. This MA refuses that. You will write an access policy a donor, a data-protection officer, and a community group can interrogate, including Gaelic and Scots interpretation where it is actually used. Identity-checked assessment and library-parity rules apply to campus and online alike. No National Library or National Records logos as if the university were those institutions. Festival-season loan traffic is a collections problem, not a marketing opportunity. MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections is taught as one award, not a list of unrelated modules. The published length is 18 months, and the credit total is 36. Students move from Museums and Archives as Public Trusts through Museums and Archives as Public Trusts; Appraisal, Disposal, and Community Claim; Catalogues, Authorities, and Backlog Politics; Digitisation Workflows and Surrogate Quality; Copyright, Orphans, and Licence Reality; Personal Data in Archives, and finish on Writing for Trustees and Depositors. Each course has a question, a method, and a submission. In this field, students apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result. Reading is a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. The artefact a marker expects is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. The award is built so that a graduate can do the following in practice: Write access and rights policies that survive donor and legal scrutiny Specify digital-preservation actions without claiming conservator status Design dual-pathway user access with licence honesty Teaching assumes the student can read a source, attempt a problem before the seminar, and revise after feedback. Attendance at live seminars is part of the design. The capstone or final course must use the methods of the earlier courses; a project that ignores them does not pass. The pages for each course name the topics that are examined. Those topics are the syllabus. A brochure line is not a substitute for them.
Thirty-six credits: collections governance, digital preservation and rights, user access including dual pathway, and a supervised capstone. No national-library logos.
Study online
Online tuition is free. Online examinations are free. There is no exam fee for online study.
On-campus study
Prefer to learn at our Edinburgh campus? Campus tuition and campus examinations are charged. The published campus price is on each programme page.
| Code | Course | Credits · hours |
|---|---|---|
| UOB841 | Museums and Archives as Public Trusts Museums and Archives as Public Trusts (UOB841) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Museums and Archives as Public Trusts as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB842 | Appraisal, Disposal, and Community Claim Appraisal, Disposal, and Community Claim (UOB842) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Appraisal, Disposal, and Community Claim as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB843 | Catalogues, Authorities, and Backlog Politics Catalogues, Authorities, and Backlog Politics (UOB843) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Catalogues, Authorities, and Backlog Politics as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| Code | Course | Credits · hours |
|---|---|---|
| UOB845 | Digitisation Workflows and Surrogate Quality Digitisation Workflows and Surrogate Quality (UOB845) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Digitisation Workflows and Surrogate Quality as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB846 | Copyright, Orphans, and Licence Reality Copyright, Orphans, and Licence Reality (UOB846) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Copyright, Orphans, and Licence Reality as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB847 | Personal Data in Archives Personal Data in Archives (UOB847) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can define a measurable question, fit a method that can be checked, and report where it fails, using Personal Data in Archives as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a dataset description, a methods note, and one published evaluation. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a project note with the question, the method, the result, and the limitation. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| Code | Course | Credits · hours |
|---|---|---|
| UOB849 | Reading Rooms and Remote Researchers Reading Rooms and Remote Researchers (UOB849) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Reading Rooms and Remote Researchers as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB850 | Off-Campus Licences and What Vendors Forbid Off-Campus Licences and What Vendors Forbid (UOB850) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Off-Campus Licences and What Vendors Forbid as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB851 | Exhibition, Festival, and Online Interpretation Exhibition, Festival, and Online Interpretation (UOB851) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Exhibition, Festival, and Online Interpretation as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| Code | Course | Credits · hours |
|---|---|---|
| UOB853 | Scottish Collections Landscape Literacy Scottish Collections Landscape Literacy (UOB853) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Scottish Collections Landscape Literacy as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB854 | Research Methods for Collections Practice Research Methods for Collections Practice (UOB854) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Research Methods for Collections Practice as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
| UOB855 | Writing for Trustees and Depositors Writing for Trustees and Depositors (UOB855) is a 3-credit course on MA Museum, Archive and Digital Collections, with 30 notional learning hours. By the end, students can apply the method of the subject to a defined problem and defend the result, using Writing for Trustees and Depositors as the working context rather than a generic management example. The course is taught in three movements. First, students establish the terms and the decision the course is about. Second, they apply the method to a case, dataset, text, or design and compare it with a weaker alternative. Third, they revise the work after feedback and state what the conclusion cannot support. Preparation uses a core text, a case or dataset, and a critique. Seminar time is for the decision, not for reading the materials aloud. Assessment is a submission that shows the method, the evidence, and the limit of the claim. A pass requires a clear method, evidence a marker can check, and an explicit limit. Credit is not awarded for summary alone.
| 3 · 30 h |
Modules are assessed through a published mix of coursework, applied projects, and examinations. Exam windows are announced in advance so students in other time zones are not forced into overnight sittings. Alternative arrangements are available where documented.
The published duration is 18 months. Teaching language: English (dual pathway: Edinburgh campus or tuition-free online; one academic standard). Actual time-to-complete depends on mode and any recognised prior learning.
You may study this award fully online from your country, or — where published — on campus at Brigant. Online study does not require a student visa. Campus study may.
Degree tuition for this award is published as £0 / tuition-free on the online pathway. Examination or administrative fees may apply at checkout — never an annual tuition invoice. Check the Fees page for any extras.
Requirements are grouped on this page (academic, English, documents). Equivalent qualifications are considered. English may be waived after prior English-medium study.
Assessment is typically a mix of coursework, projects, and examinations. Doctoral awards include a thesis or dissertation and an oral examination. Details sit in the programme specification and module outlines.
Recognition of the award for local employment, professional licence, or ministry attestation is decided by your employer or regulator. University of Brigant publishes verification pages for certificates. We do not claim automatic equivalence in every country.
Start an application on this website. Progress is saved from the first step. Admissions: admissions@brigant.uk.
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