In a highly anticipated project rolling out next month, ORION has partnered with York University to make available digitized resources for two George Bernard Shaw plays exclusively to students and 80 institutions connected to ORION.

Canadian institutions connected to ORION will also be able to access the resources.

The ORION-Shaw Project, part of York University's new Sagittarius initiative, is producing and sharing newly digitized resources on two Shaw Festival 2009 season plays: The Devil's Disciple and In Good King Charles's Golden Days.

Students and teachers will be able to access annotated texts and resources for the plays directly from their classrooms, complete with the production details, contextual documents, research materials, quizzes and activities, a search engine, and study guides tailored to the Ontario school curriculum. Reference materials by world renowned Shaw scholars will also be available.

The project is the pilot phase of the new Sagittarius initiative of York University's Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies to digitize teaching and learning literary resources for use by Canadian high schools.

"This project introduces a whole new dimension for students, teachers and researchers, especially in access to and dissemination of research materials," says Professor Kelly Thomson, Associate Dean Research of Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, York University, and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Sagittarius Project.

York University's Advanced Broadband Enabled Learning (ABEL) Program is making the resource available to teachers and students through its bank of online resources.

The Sagittarius initiative has the backing of the Shaw Festival and several of Ontario's largest school boards.

"This clearly has the potential of not only expanding appreciation and understanding of Shaw's work, but also of making it more accessible to new audiences through new technologies," said Professor Leonard Conolly of Trent University, Literary Advisor to the Estate of Bernard Shaw.

This project is among the new programs and services ORION is introducing to help students and teachers derive maximum benefits from ORION's state-of-the art capabilities.

The project will be officially launched in April.