The Open Media and Information Lab
The Open Media and Information Lab (OMILab) at the Open University of Israel is an interdisciplinary center for research and for teaching in the field of digital humanities and social science. The key goals of the lab is to develop computational humanities and social sciences methods, open research tools and open educational resources based on these research tools that can be shared with the public-at-large as well as with the research community. The lab's projects are conducted under the leadership of senior faculty members of the Open University of Israel.
The lab was established by Prof. Oren Soffer (1971-2020), who was a member of OMILab's management team, and a leading researcher at OMILab. Oren's areas of research were media theory, media history, and digital communication. In recent years, he analyzed 19th century Jewish press using digital tools. His research bridged separate historical eras, diverse methodological approaches and a variety of disciplines. Oren was a true visionary, and OMILab realizes one of his visions, that of exposing students in the social sciences to the most up-to-date digital research tools. Oren will be missed by us, as a researcher, a manager, and especially as a colleague. We will continue Oren's work in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research and in strengthening the connection between research and teaching at the Open University.