Digital Commons as an Educational Tool

This paper explores the educational use of an Institutional Repository at Rhode Island College. The focus is on selected units of our College\u27s Digital Commons and the students who have helped to make it a reality. The Chet Smolski Collection, comprising an Image Gallery and a table for Op-Ed texts, is joined by relational portals that are not yet operative but approaching partial functionality. We claim that there has been real educational benefit for the students by using them to help construct an IR. Our educational approach of letting students teach each other can be of value to other Colleges and Universities creating an IR using library students. Giving the students the trust they deserve gives them a sense of ownership in the project and creates a congenial and collegiate atmosphere in which they can shine