museumsandtheweb.com - participation

Open Innovation and Open Source: A Guide for Content Developers

bobk — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 03:07:20 +0000

MW2012

Robert Ketner, The Tech Museum, USA

http://thetechopensource.thetech.org

Abstract

There are clear advantages to working in collaboration with outside partners when developing exhibits and museum content. The actual structure of these collaborations can take many forms. This report outlines approaches to engaging with outside talent on three levels of commitment (Casual Contribution, Mentored Development, and Expert Networks) as may be required for different projects. Categories of methods for open innovation can be applied to create a manageable structure for the contributions (Orchestra, Creative Bazaar, Jam Session, and Mod Station models). A range of stages of completion, from ideas to completed content, can be expected from such collaboration efforts. Last, some findings from The Tech Virtual project are described.

Program Item Reference:

Open Innovation and Open Source: A Guide for Content Developers

Shifting the Limits - How to go beyond one-way guiding in Museums with Fluxguide & "visitor-generated content“ on-the-spot

wrzsef — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 16:05:32 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

Digital Guide

Keywords:

audio guide

Keywords:

adaptive museum guides

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

technology-based guiding

Abstract:

Technology-based guiding in museums still lags behind its potential. This is not because there are no efforts towards new mobile technology. In contrary, plenty of "iPod touches" and similar devices populate exhibition spaces around the world. But no matter how fancy the used technology may be, one core element is still missing at most visitor-guides: the visitor. According to our view, existing guiding-solutions ultimately still rely on a one-way information flow from exhibitor to visitor. With the Fluxguide-solution we suggest to extend and to multiply that flow of meaning, by taking advantage of recent mobile computer technology and concepts of the Social Web.

Thus, the basic idea behind of the Fluxguide-solution is to introduce Web 2.0 - ideas to the real space of the exhibition, where visitors are able to create & share interpretations. We claim that this could turn the visitor from a passive consumer to a creative designer of meaning in order to actively focus on artworks and exhibits.

We want to discuss three main features of the fluxguide-solution, covered by use-cases from European museums and exhibtion-spaces:

(1) Information

Fluxguides are fully capable art exhibition guides providing visitors with structured multi-medial information about the exhibition, individual artworks, and artists - in complementary formats like audio, text, and video.

(2) Participation & Communication

Fluxguides are also used to text-comment and to rate exhibits during the tour. This motivates visitors to actively focus on artworks, as well as to generate their own thoughts and interpretations. Additional interaction between visitors is stimulated by the possibility to read and reply comments of others. Attending the exhibition then becomes an active, interpretative, and communicative event where visitors do not only receive information, but also create meaning by themselves and share it with others. Fluxguide, for the first time, allows to realize Web 2.0 features „on the spot“ within the real exhibition environment.

(3) Personalization

Fluxguide-users may also add interesting exhibits to their individual digital catalog, which automatically is sent to the visitors via e-mail (or as printed brochure via mail-order). This gives people a totally new way in keeping a permanent & personalized memory of the visit, as well as to share their experiences with others.

(4) Exhibitor feature: Analysis

Fluxguide is fully based on web-technology and equipped with an analysis tool which gives unprecedented insights in visitor behavior, e.g. to track popularity & ratings of exhibits.

To summarize: a fluxguide-environment unveils a flow of meaning not only from exhibitor to visitor (information), but also between visitors (participation), as well as beyond the visit itself (personalization).

The discussion will also adress some general and critical questions: is there a new paradigm of technology-based-guiding arising? What are the implications of letting visitors generate and share content on-the-spot? Which new roles & responsibilites emerge, when the museum looses its monopoly on in-house information creation & communication?

The discussion will end with an overview of future projects and extended possiblities of visitor-participation.

Type:

Exhibitor Briefing - discuss your product. Confirmed Exhibitors only

Shifting the Limits - How to go beyond one-way guiding in Museums with Fluxguide & „visitor-generated content“ on-the-spot

Site:

http://www.fluxguide.com

Authors:

Kasra Seirafi

Andre Seirafi

Open Innovation and Open Source: A Guide for Content Developers

bobk — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:27:36 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

Open Innovation and Open Source: A Guide for Content Developers

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

co-creation

Keywords:

design

Keywords:

prototyping

Keywords:

collaboration

Keywords:

open source

Abstract:

The Tech Open Source museum project launched in late 2007 (as "The
Tech Virtual") with the goal to apply the latest in open source
collaboration methods and tools to the creation of museum content. It
is composed of an online platform (a website with user-generated
content) and modeling resources hosted in a 3D virtual world. Offered
as a resource for the museum community as a whole, the project was
funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and is hosted by The
Tech Museum in San Jose, CA.

The ambitions of the program include development of museum exhibits
and content through open contribution by a diverse community of
curators, experts, hobbyists, scientists, and thinkers. This is
accomplished by connecting with individuals, institutions, and online
communities internationally. Thus far the project has involved the
participation of over 20 institutions and 1300 site members, who have
generated more than 400 exhibit designs and video projects.

As part of the grant products we will present a report of these
methods for the museum industry in the form of a project white paper
at Museums and the Web 2012.

The paper includes descriptions of the methods in use and results
obtained by the project. These are summarized in a practical structure
which covers open source approaches for Casual Contribution, Mentored
Development, or Expert Network level contributors. It also explains
how to apply a range of open innovation categories to structure open
source projects.

The paper is meant as a guide for institutions considering open
innovation programs or open design projects.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Optimizing engagement

Site:

http://thetechopensource.thetech.org/

Authors:

Bob Ketner

Museums in perspective: share and discuss daily data about museums and their audiences.

rui — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:28:14 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

engagement

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

strategy

Abstract:

It is common practice among museums to publish quarterly or annual reports that include the museum attendance figures, online visits and more recently information about their social network activities. These figures are generally accepted as indicators of the effectiveness of museums activities both online and offline. While this information can give some hints about how organizations have evolved throughout the years, it is often hard to understand what these values mean without contextualizing them with information from other organizations. For example, what does it mean to have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter? Do the changes on annual attendance numbers reflect a global trend or a new local policy? Some of these questions can be better understood once figures from different cultural organizations are analyzed comparatively.

This paper introduces an online tool that collects information about more than 3000 museums and galleries. The published information includes annual attendance numbers, exhibition attendance numbers, online visits, as well as information about popularity and engagement on social networks. The information that is automatically collected or contributed by organizations can be visualized as interactive graphs and displayed comparatively with information from other organizations. The online tool introduced in this paper is accompanied by an online platform where museum professionals can discuss topics related to the published information, such as, issues and limitations of comparative studies and adequate online and offline strategies.

The information that is now being collected on a daily basis has been previously published in a scattered manner for several years. The Art Newspaper yearly publishes the attendance numbers of the most visited museums and exhibitions world wide. More recently Culture24 has published a report that analyses both website visitors and social network in terms of popularity and engagement of several organizations. Sean Redmond has created an automated data collection tool that daily reports the popularity on Facebook and Twitter of thousands of museums and galleries. At the Walker Art Center a tool has been developed that automatically aggregates and shares information from google analytics of several museums. These initiatives were important precedents that led to the development of an online tool where all this information is cohesively presented and contextualized.

Rather than just introducing an online tool, this paper also presents new insights encountered while developing the tool and comparing data. By listening to the communication channels of more than 3000 museums and galleries, it is possible to infer information specific to the sector. For example, it is possible to answer questions such as: what are the current trends in the sector being discussed on twitter? Which content published by a museum has been most shared online? We hope that by answering these and other questions, organizations will be able to understand better their online and offline presence and finally be able to concentrate on their specific goals rather than on numbers.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Case studies in reading web metrics

Site:

http://www.museum-analytics.org/

Authors:

Rui Guerra

State-of-the-Art: German Museums on the Social Web – Benefits and Effects of Social Media for Museum Education and Learning

biancabocatius — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:03:19 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

State-of-the-Art: German Museums on the Social Web. Benefits and Effects of Social Media for Museum Education and Learning

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

visitor experience

Keywords:

social web

Keywords:

social software

Keywords:

museum education research

Keywords:

learning experiences

Abstract:

This demonstration will focus on the questions “What kind of Social Media and Social Software have already been used for Museum Education Services on-line?” and “How do German Museums use the Social Web to enhance their Museum Education Services?”

In Europe museums are places of education and learning (e.g. DEUTSCHER MUSEUMSBUND (Ed.), 2009). Participation, visitor engagement, self-organized and collaborative learning represent keywords mentioned in relation to museum education. Social Media include specific characteristics that can help to guarantee different kinds of participatory learning opportunities to make museum learning self-organized, engaging and community-friendly.

On-line learning is still an exception in the German Museum World, and therefore the gap between the presentation of general information like address and phone number and an educational service using Social Media to engage audiences is still large (INSTITUT FÜR MUSEUMSFORSCHUNG (Ed.), 2008, WWW, 55).[1] The Internet is basically used for public relations (PÖRSCHMANN, 2003, WWW, 1) and Social Media are mostly utilized for marketing reasons, i.e. posting general information concerning events and other press releases to advertise activities of the real museum’s site.

German examples for Museum Education Services on the Internet and the use of Social Media will show the state-of-the-art of on-line education and learning within the German museum field. The Weimarpedia project wiki and the Fundgeschichten blog of the LWL-Museum for Archeology Herne will demonstrate how Social Media is used for blended learning projects to:

guarantee public access to cultural heritage
offer participatory opportunities to contextualized artworks
communicate and activate dialogues
enable user-generated-content

Reference list

DEUTSCHER MUSEUMSBUND (Ed.) (2009). Museumskunde - Museen in der Informationsgesellschaft, Bd. 73 2/08, Berlin: G+H Verlag.
INSTITUT FÜR MUSEUMSFORSCHUNG (Ed.). (2008). Statistische Gesamterhebung an den Museen der Bundesrepublik Deutschland für das Jahr 2007, 62, Berlin.
PÖRSCHMANN, D. (2003). Von Piranesi bis Picasso. Die Kunstausstellung im Internet als Instrument der Vermittlung. In electronic conference proceedings „museums and the internet“. Accessed on 24th September 2011 at Internet URL http://www.mai-tagung.de/maitagung+2003/poerschmann.pdf.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations III

Authors:

Bianca Bocatius

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection: Building a Community of Objects with the National Vending Machine

Jasper Visser — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:16:00 +0000

MW2011

Jasper Visser and Dennis Tap, Museum of National History, The Netherlands

http://automatiek.innl.nl

Abstract

Traditionally, museum collections are often the basis of community-building activities. The National Vending Machine of the Museum of National History is attempting to reverse this relation and put the community at the heart of a collection of objects, stories and discussions. After comparing the quantitative and qualitative results of two different instalments of the project, this reversed relation has proven to be viable, as long as a number of things are taken into consideration. Most importantly: the key elements consist of a focus on the audience rather than on the collection, a link between onsite and online, immediate rewards and participatory design.

Keywords: Collection, Community, Digital Cultural Objects, Online / Onsite, Participation, Crowd-sourcing

Program Item Reference:

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection – building a community of objects with the National Vending Machine

My Great North Run: Facilitating rich audience participation

Rachel Clarke — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 10:44:09 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

interaction

Keywords:

multi-modal

Keywords:

digital pen

Abstract:

Digital media can create rich interaction spaces providing diverse and reflexive opportunities for participation from audiences. This demonstration will highlight the possibilities and limits of user-contributed content in distributed and multimodal interactive museum installations to support such interaction. The demonstration will showcase aspects of the ‘My Great North Run’ interactive, a museum installation and connected website (http://www.mygreatnorthrun.org/) that archived stories, photographs and drawings from the last thirty years of the Great North Run; the largest half marathon in the world which takes place in the North East of England. The installation was deployed between July and October 2010 at the Great North Museum: Hancock, Newcastle upon Tyne, as part of an exhibition and associated events and attracted an estimated 100,000 users and 13,000 contributions.

The design of the interactive was developed to capture and share the diverse ways which people have taken part in this event over the last 30 years. Familiar technology was deployed in innovative ways to create different opportunities for participation. This included a thirteen touch-screen map installation of the run in the museum with pre-loaded stories from runners, combined with digital (Anoto) pens and pads so visitors to the exhibition could contribute their own stories and messages. At the same time a complementary website was launched to collect stories about the run from online users. The pre-loaded contributions from runners and the user contributed material from online and on-site visitors were combined and delivered both in the gallery and via the website allowing users to become aware of each others’ stories of the Run. By seeking to facilitate a ‘virtuous circle’ of participation, the design helped to connect visitors in the museum and online users around an international annual event: the Great North Run.

The demonstration will showcase a single screen presentation of the system with digital Anoto pens and pads. The website will also be demonstrated alongside a video and two graphic banners of the installation in use at the Great North Museum.

My Great North Run was developed by Tom Bartindale and John Shearer through the Digital Interaction research group, led by Peter Wright and Patrick Olivier, as part of the School of Computing Sciences, Culture Lab, Newcastle University. The project was part-funded by SiDE, the RCUK Digital Economy Research Hub on Social Inclusion through the Digital Economy in collaboration with the Great North Museum: Hancock, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and Bupa Great North Run Culture.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstrations III

Site:

http://www.mygreatnorthrun.org

Authors:

Rachel Clarke

Areti Galani

Audience+: A holistic approach to developing social media guidelines for Swiss Museums.

Axel Vogelsang — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 21:22:06 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

Audience+: A Holistic Approach to Developing Social Media Guidelines for Swiss Museums

Keywords:

Web 2.0

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

strategy

Keywords:

audience

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

Switzerland

Abstract:

The project ‘Audience+, Museums and the Participative Web’ investigates the challenges and opportunities for museums in the German-speaking part of Switzerland with regards to the use of digital social media. It is supported by the Organisation of Swiss museums and aims at developing best practice guidelines for Swiss museums. The guideline not only seeks to give hands-on guidance for the first steps but it also explains how social media can work beyond the role of mere marketing tool, opening up opportunities for a broader user experience. The data, information and insights supporting the research were generated through a diversity of methods, including a survey amongst Swiss museums, a series of workshops, and an extensive use of social media as part of the research process.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Social Media and Beyond

Authors:

Axel Vogelsang

Bettina Minder

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection – building a community of objects with the National Vending Machine

Jasper Visser — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:42:18 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection: Building a Community of Objects with the National Vending Machine

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

collection

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

online / onsite

Keywords:

digital cultural objects

Keywords:

stories

Abstract:

Most modern-day museums use their existing physical collection and the events they stage as a starting point for online activities. Communities are built around (parts of) the collection or specific offline events of a museum. Literature such as Museum and the Web papers, describes numerous case studies of successful projects.

This paper examines the case of the National Vending Machine of the Museum of National History of the Netherlands. The National Vending Machine is an ongoing project focusing on everyday objects and their historical and personal significance. Its objective is to build a ‘community of objects’ that shows which historical objects are relevant to our audience. Visitor contributions are central to building this community of objects. Through it we gain an understanding of how to engage people with history, culture and the museum. After two instalments of the National Vending Machine at different locations and a number of related activities, a foundation for the community of objects has been established and a number of lessons have been learned about using communities to build a collection.

The project consists of a website and a redesigned traditional Dutch vending machine. Online and offline are linked by RFID technology. The curatorial staff of the museum chose about 100 everyday objects as a starting point for the collection. These were tested with a general audience, and 37 objects were selected to figure in the first instalment. Visitors could discover and buy the objects offline, and add their personal stories online. They were also encouraged to add their own ideas and stories online in order to help expand the community of objects. Although the project received positive feedback from nearly all visitors, only a handful of ideas and stories had been added after a three-month trial period. Interviews with visitors proved the project could be successful, provided some changes were made.

A two-day try-out of an improved interaction model followed, focusing more on personal stories. This led to a redesign of the website. Visitors and their stories were featured whereas the objects and the project were made less prominent. These improvements significantly fostered higher participation in the second instalment of the National Vending Machine.

This paper discusses the five main lessons learned with regard to putting a community at the core of creating an online collection: 1) A focus on the existing collection limits the freedom of visitors to contribute their ideas and stories, whereas 2) a focus on visitors and their stories increases participation and encourages the creation of a varied collection. 3) Offline encouragement is key to creating healthy online engagement. 4) Immediate rewards, physical or virtual, are a strong trigger for participation. 5) The design of both the offline and online environment should be centred on the participant.

The case of the National Vending Machine shows that it is possible, albeit difficult, to make a community the heart of a collection, thus reversing the traditional museum collection model. We believe these conclusions and recommendations to be of substantial value to museums that are planning crowd-sourced expositions or are looking for ways to increase participation with their online collections.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Collections Online

Site:

http://automatiek.innl.nl

Authors:

Jasper Visser

Dennis Tap