Guided Tours Across a Collection of Historical Digital Images

We propose the use of short lectures, called narratives, embedded in a digital archive as a personalization method to support and guide users within a collection of historical material. The effectiveness of the approach has been evaluated with two groups of users. An analysis of the results has been conducted enabling the presentation of preliminary results

1001stories+: An effective and affordable multi-media, multi-format communication framework for cultural heritage institutions

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing number of technologies and devices (including smartphones, tablets and alike) able to provide new perspectives for the use of multimedia applications in the field of Cultural Heritage. This work arises from the interest in providing better authoring/delivery possibilities to cultural heritage institutions (small and medium sized in particular). Indeed, often medium and small sized museums do not have the necessary resources to create high quality multimedia productions. Not only have they faced short time and low budget, but a shortage of dedicated staff. Based on an interdisciplinary approach, this thesis focuses on the development of an effective and affordable multi-media, multi-format communication framework. The framework provides institutions with guidelines and methodologies and it is based on an innovative authoring tools (not developed in this thesis, but available). Specific concerns of the framework are: developing multimedia content within a short time span, developing multimedia content with a limited, low-budget, adapting multimedia content to different technologies and to different user experiences, making possible to “reuse multimedia content” (e.g. from websites, to audio guides, to multimedia guides, to YouTube or to paper brochures) This research has been conducted throughout parallel and intertwined processes, requiring a take of perspective. One the one hand, a general investigation (about multimedia formats, technologies and methodologies for production) has been conducted. On the other hand, an empirical work on real-life multimedia productions has been undergone. Indeed, the merging of theoretical knowledge and real fieldwork remains the main characteristic of this study’s methodological approach and of its strength. Its overall result is a fully developed framework (named 1001stories +), providing: multi-media, content information is presented throughout different media, including images, text, audio, and video; effective, the content can have the desired impact on the audience; affordable, content can be created in a short time, within low budget, and can be reused; multi-technology, content is available on different channels (web, smart phones, tablets, You tube, etc…); multi-format, content can be reorganized into various solutions, generating different formats for different user experiences. A more conceptual contribution of this thesis is about consideration of what communication in the Cultural Heritage domain is about, what its purposes are, and what the most appropriate means to reach the potential audience may be

From Personalization to Adaptivity: Creating Immersive Visits through Interactive Digital Storytelling at the Acropolis Museum

Storytelling has recently become a popular way to guide museum visitors, replacing traditional exhibit-centric descriptions by story-centric cohesive narrations with references to the exhibits and multimedia content. This work presents the fundamental elements of the CHESS project approach, the goal of which is to provide adaptive, personalized, interactive storytelling for museum visits. We shortly present the CHESS project and its background, we detail the proposed storytelling and user models, we describe the provided functionality and we outline the main tools and mechanisms employed. Finally, we present the preliminary results of a recent evaluation study that are informing several directions for future work

Museums as disseminators of niche knowledge: Universality in accessibility for all

Accessibility has faced several challenges within audiovisual translation Studies and gained great opportunities for its establishment as a methodologically and theoretically well-founded discipline. Initially conceived as a set of services and practices that provides access to audiovisual media content for persons with sensory impairment, today accessibility can be viewed as a concept involving more and more universality thanks to its contribution to the dissemination of audiovisual products on the topic of marginalisation. Against this theoretical backdrop, accessibility is scrutinised from the perspective of aesthetics of migration and minorities within the field of the visual arts in museum settings. These aesthetic narrative forms act as modalities that encourage the diffusion of ‘niche’ knowledge, where processes of translation and interpretation provide access to all knowledge as counter discourse. Within this framework, the ways in which language is used can be considered the beginning of a type of local grammar in English as lingua franca for interlingual translation and subtitling, both of which ensure access to knowledge for all citizens as a human rights principle and regardless of cultural and social differences. Accessibility is thus gaining momentum as an agent for the democratisation and transparency of information against media discourse distortions and oversimplifications

Museos virtuales y entorno construido: narrativas y experiencias inmersivas vía centros de geodatos multitemporales

[EN] Our built environment is nowadays considered as a dynamic complex, stretching and transforming across space and time, with the interaction of human, social and economic dimensions. It needs to be safeguarded as living places for the future taking into account such complexity. The general aim of this work is to contribute to the comprehension of landscape values, enhancing participation processes by tourists and local communities, considering the built environment as a system: the sum of natural transformation, ancient artefacts stratification and human activities, partially covering the tangible traces, and functioning as a vehicle for the comprehension of intangible values. Multi-temporal, multi-scale and geospatial datasets can play an important role in such knowledge transfer processes by means of narratives and immersive experiences in a multimedia museum approach. In particular, the cartographic heritage, in the form of metric and non-metric maps, can be progressively used as a source of information for innovative narratives. Virtual Museums (VMs)are additional "channels" to disseminate content and to provide knowledge about cultural heritage; they have emerged from the crossbreeding process between museums and digital technologies. Investigating how digital storytelling may support communication and understanding of complex systems, such as the built environment and landscape, it is relevant because cultural awareness may foster the sense of belonging and identity construction of which Europe is thirsty, contributing to the safeguarding of fragile sites. The paper provides useful information for museums that would like to follow this pathway. It retraces the main steps of storytelling production and presents interesting examples of immersive narrative models based on geospatial data and a virtual hub, helping people to retrieve and access information and to recognize places of memory mostly unknown. Moreover, it offers an evaluation of existing tools that can be adopted for this purpose. Eventually, by virtue of the research carried out for the case study of the Virtual Museum of Como Lake Landscape, the paper aims at ascertaining which kind of stories and experiences can be designed, the potential of these tools and possible weaknesses or constraints that deserve future researches.[ES] El entorno construido se considera hoy en día como un complejo dinámico, que se extiende y transforma a través del espacio y el tiempo, con interacción de dimensiones humanas, sociales y económicas. Debe salvaguardarse como lugares donde vivir el futuro teniendo en cuenta tal complejidad. El objetivo general de este trabajo es contribuir a la comprensión de los valores paisajísticos, potenciando los procesos de participación de los turistas y de los autóctonos, considerando el entorno construido como un sistema: suma de la transformación natural, de la estratificación de artefactos antiguos y de actividades humanas, cubriendo parcialmente los rastros tangibles, y vehículo de comprensión de valores intangibles. Los conjuntos de datos multitemporales, a multi-escala y geoespaciales pueden desempeñar un papel importante en dicho proceso de transferencia de conocimiento a través de narrativas y experiencias inmersivas en el enfoque de un museo multimedia. En particular, el patrimonio cartográfico, en forma de mapas métricos y mapas no métricos, puede utilizarse progresivamente como fuente de información para narrativas innovadoras. Los Museos Virtuales (VM) son “canales” adicionales que permiten difundir contenido y proporcionar conocimiento sobre el patrimonio cultural; surgen del proceso de mestizaje entre museos y tecnologías digitales. Investigar cómo la narración digital puede apoyar la comunicación y la comprensión de sistemas complejos, como el entorno construido y el paisaje, es relevante porque la conciencia cultural puede fomentar el sentido de pertenencia y la construcción de identidad de los que Europa tiene sed, contribuyendo a la protección de sitios frágiles. El artículo proporciona información útil para los museos que deseen seguir este camino. Describe los principales pasos que deberían considerarse a la hora de producir narrativas y pone ejemplos interesantes de modelos narrativos inmersivos basados en datos geoespaciales y centros virtuales, que ayudan a las personas a recuperar y acceder a información, y a reconocer lugares desconocidos o vagamente retenidos en la memoria. Además, ofrece una evaluación de las herramientas existentes que se pueden adoptar con este propósito. El objetivo es aclarar, finalmente, en virtud dela investigación desarrollada en el caso de estudio del Museo Virtual del Paisaje del Lago di Como, qué tipo de historias y experiencias se pueden diseñar, el potencial de estas herramientas y las posibles debilidades o limitaciones que merecen futuras investigaciones.We thank Stefano Della Torre (Head of Polimi dABC) as Sc. Responsible of the Advisory within the PORL FESR 2007/2013 ‘Multimedia system for the presentation and participated recognizing of the environmental values of the landscape of the Lake of Como’; and Leoni Marco (Director of the Museum of Como Lake Landscape) for the concession of museum’s data and his support in developing the PhD research of which this paper presents a summary of preliminary findings.The research leading to the results of this paper is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme by the European Community (CIP) GA no. 620400.Brumana, R.; Oreni, D.; Caspani, S.; Previtali, M. (2018). Virtual museums and built environment: narratives and immersive experience via multi-temporal geodata hub. Virtual Archaeology Review. 9(19):34-49. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2018.9918SWORD3449919Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. Curator: the museum journal, Vol. 44, Issue 1, 27-34. doi: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Roncoroni, F. (2013). Recognizing landscapes: can we change the point of view of geographic data? Journal of Mobile Multimedia, Vol. 9(1-2), 39-52. doi: 10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Previtali, M. (2014). Historical Map Registration via Independent Model Adjustment with Affine Transformations. In ICCSA 2014 (pp. 44-56). doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-09147-1_4Barazzetti L., Brumana, R., Cuca, B., & Previtali, M. (2015). Towards a Virtual Hub for a wider Open Data community. In Geomatics Workbooks n° 12, "FOSS4G Europe Como 2015" (pp.1-12).Brumana, R., Cuca, B., Oreni, D., Prandi, F., & Scaioni, M. (2010). Integration of old cadastral maps into up-to-date geodatabases for urban planning. In Core spatial databases - updating maintenance and services. From theory to practice (pp. 90-95). Haifa, Israel.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., & Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework. In ICCSA 2012 (pp. 397-413). Springer Int. Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined Geometric and Thermal Analysis from Uav Platforms for Archaeological Heritage Documentation. In XXIV International Cipa Symposium (pp. 49-54). Strasbourg, France.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multitemporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values, Theme 1 "Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Bedford, L. (2001). Storytelling: The real work of museums. Curator: the Museum Journal, 44(1), 27-34.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2151-6952.2001.tb00027.xBarazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Roncoroni, F. (2013). Recognizing landscapes: can we change the point of view of geographic data? Journal of Mobile Multimedia, 9(1-2), 39-52.Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., & Previtali, M. (2014). Historical Map Registration via Independent Model Adjustment with Affine Transformations. In ICCSA 2014 (pp. 44-56). Guimaraes, Portugal. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09147-1_4Barazzetti, L., Brumana, R., Cuca, B., & Previtali, M. (2015). Towards a Virtual Hub for a wider Open Data community. In FOSS4G Europe 2015(pp.1-12). Como, Italy.Brumana, R., Cuca, B., Oreni, D., Prandi, F., & Scaioni, M. (2010). Integration of old cadastral maps into up-to-date geodatabases for urban planning. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XXXVIII, 4-8-2/W9, 90-95.Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Cuca, B., Rampini, A., &Pepe, M. (2012). Open Access to Historical Atlas: Sources of Information and Services for Landscape Analysis in an SDI Framework .In ICCSA 2012(pp. 397-413).Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31075-1_30Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Van Hecke, L., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Roncoroni, F., & Valente, R. (2013). Combined geometric and thermal analysis from UAV platforms for archaeological heritage documentation. ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Science, II-5/W1, 49-54. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsannals-II-5-W1-49-2013Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Della Torre, S., Roels, D., & Capitani, M. (2015a). A geo-swot chart, using a values centered approach and multi temporal-maps for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum. In ICOMOS International Symposium "Heritage and Landscape as Human Values", Theme 1"Sharing and experiencing the identity of communities through tourism and interpretation" (pp. 186-191). Florence, Italy.Brumana, R., Santana Quintero, M., Barazzetti, L., Previtali, M., Banfi, F., Oreni, D., Roels D., & Roncoroni, F. (2015b). Towards a virtual hub approach for landscape assessment and multimedia ecomuseum using multi temporal-maps. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XL-5/W7, 49-56. https://doi.org/10.5194/isprsarchives-XL-5-W7-49-2015Bruner, J. (1991). The Narrative Construction of Reality. Critical Inquiry, 18 (1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1086/448619Caquard, S. (2013). Mapping narrative cartography. Progress in Human Geography, 37(1), 135-144.https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132511423796Caspani, S., Brumana, R., Oreni, D., Previtali, M. (2017). Virtual museums as digital storytellers for dissemination of built environment: possible narratives and outlooks for appealing and rich encounters with the past. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLII-2/W5, 113-119.https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W5-113-2017Castells, M. (2000). The construction of European Identity. Retrieved October25, 2017, fromhttps://www.chet.org.za/files/CASTELLS%202004%20European%20Identity.pdfCouncil of Europe. (2000). European Landscape Convention. Retrieved October25, 2017, from https://rm.coe.int/1680080621Cuca, B., Brumana, R., Scaioni, M., & Oreni, D. (2011). Spatial Data Management of Temporal Map Series for Cultural and Environmental Heritage. International Journal of Spatial Data Infrastructures Research, 6, 97-125.https.//doi.org/10.2902/1725-0463.2011.06.art5Cuca, B., Previtali, M., Barazzetti, L., & Brumana, R. (2017). Benefits of using Open Geo-spatial Data for valorization of Cultural Heritage: GeoPan app. In 19th EGU General Assembly (p. 19101). Wien, Austria. Retrieved June 20, 2018, from https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2017/EGU2017-19101.pdfGiaccardi, E., & Fogli, D. (2008). Affective geographies: toward a richer cartographic semantics for the geospatial web. In AVI 8 Proceedings of the working conference on Advanced visual interfaces (pp. 173-180). Napoli, Italy. https://doi.org/10.1145/1385569.1385598Hooper-Greenhill, E. (2005). I musei e la formazione del sapere: le radici storiche, le pratiche del presente. Milan: Il Saggiatore.ICOMOS. (1996). The Declaration of San Antonio. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/en/charters-and-texts/179-articles-en-francais/ressources/charters-and-standards/188-the-declaration-of-san-antonioICOMOS. (2008a). Charter on cultural routes. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Charters/culturalroutes_e.pdfICOMOS. (2008b). Quebèc Declaration on the preservation of the spirit of place. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/quebec2008/quebec_declaration/pdf/GA16_Quebec_Declaration_Final_EN.pdfICOMOS. (2014). The Florence Declaration on Heritage and Landscapes as Human Values. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.icomos.org/images/DOCUMENTS/Secretariat/2015/GA_2014_results/GA2014_Symposium_FlorenceDeclaration_EN_final_20150318.pdfMacdonald, S. (2013) .Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today. London: Routledge.Monti, C., Achille, C., Brumana, R., Musumeci, S., Oreni, D., & Signori, M. (2009). Perspectives on the 3-D analysis through the cadastral map series (XVIII -XX sec.) and the first geodetic large scale map of Milan realized by the 'Astronomidi Brera' (Astronomers of Brera): toward an advanced portal. E-PERIMETRON, 4(2), 86-100.Nativi, S., Craglia, M., & Pearlman, J. (2013). Earth science infrastructures interoperability: the brokering approach. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics. Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 6(3), 1118-1129. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2243113Pierdicca, R., Malinverni, E., Frontoni, E., Colosi, F., & Orazi, R. (2016). 3D visualization tools to explore ancient architectures in South America. Virtual Archaeology Review, 7(15), 44-53.https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2016.5904Pini, L. (2003). Tremezzo il paese dove fioriscono I limoni. Tremezzo: Silvana Editoriale.Previtali, M. (2017). Geopan atl@s: A brokering based gateway to georeferenced historical maps for risk analysis. The International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, XLII-2/W5, 583-589.https://doi.org/10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W5-583-2017Redweik, P., Cláudio, A., Carmo, M., Naranjo, J., & Sanjosé, J. (2017). Digital preservation of cultural and scientific heritage: involving university students to raise awareness of its importance. Virtual Archaeology Review, 8(16), 22-34. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2017.4629Scazzosi, L. (2003). Landscape and Cultural Landscape: European Landscape Convention and UNESCO Policy .World Heritage papers, 7, 55-59.Scazzosi, L., (2004).Reading and assessing the landscape as cultural and historical heritage. Landscape Research, 29(4), 335-355.https://doi.org/10.1080/0142639042000288993ViMM. (2018).Virtual Multimodal Museum. Retrieved April 1, 2018, from https://www.vi-mm.euV-MUST. (2015). D. 2.3c State of the art on Virtual Museums in Europe and outside Europe: Report. Commissioned by the V-MUST project. Retrieved October25, 2017, from http://www.v-must.net/sites/default/files/D2.3d_StateArt_VirtualMuseums_2015.pdfWong, A. (2015). The whole story, and then some: 'digital storytelling' in evolving museum practice. In MW2015: Museums and the Web 2015, Chicago, United States. Retrieved October25, 2017, from http://mw2015.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/the-whole-story-and-then-some-digital-storytelling-in-evolving-museum-practice

D1.3 List of available solutions

This report has been submitted by Tempesta Media SL as deliverable D1.3 within the framework of H2020 project "SO-CLOSE: Enhancing Social Cohesion through Sharing the Cultural Heritage of Forced Migrations" Grant No. 870939.This report aims to conduct research on the specific topics and needs of the SO-CLOSE project, addressing the available solutions through a state-of-the-art digital tools analysis, applied in the cultural heritage and migration fields. More specifically the report's scope is:To define proper tools and proceedings for the interview needs -performing, recording, transcription, translation. To analyse potential content gathering tools for the co-creation workshops. To conduct a state-of-the-art sharing tools analysis, applied in the cultural heritage and migration fields, and propose a critically adjusted and innovative digital approach

Interactive Experience Design: Integrated and Tangible Storytelling with Maritime Museum Artefacts

Museums play the role of intermediary between cultural heritage and visitors, and are often described as places and environments for education and enjoyment. The European Union also encourages innovative uses of museums to support education through the cultural heritage resources. However, the importance of visitors’ active role in museums as places for education and entertainment, on the one hand, and the growing and indispensable presence of technology in the cultural heritage domain, on the other hand, provided the initial ideas to develop the research. This thesis, presents the study and design for an interactive storytelling installation for a maritime museum. The installation is designed to integrate different museum artefacts into the storytelling system to enrich the visitors experience through tangible storytelling. The project was conducted in collaboration with another PhD student, Luca Ciotoli. His contribution was mainly focused on the narrative and storytelling features of the research, while my contribution was focused on the interaction- and technology-related features, including the design and implementation of the prototype. The research is deployed using a four-phase iterative approach. The first phase of the research, Study, deals with literature review and different studies to identify the requirements. The second phase, Design, determines the broad outlines of the project i.e., an interactive storytelling installation. The design phase includes interaction and museum experience design. We investigated different design approaches, e.g., interaction and museum experience design, to develop a conceptual design. The third phase, prototype, allows us to determine how to fulfill the tasks and meet the requirements that are established for the research. Prototyping involves content creation, storyboarding, integrating augmented artefacts into the storytelling system. Th final phase, test, refers to the evaluations that are conducted during the aforementioned phases e.g., formative and the final usability testing with users. The outcome of the research confirms previous results in the literature about how digital narratives can be enriched with the tangible dimension, moreover it shows how this dimension can enable to communicate stories and knowledge of the past that are complex, such as the art of navigating in the past, by integrating tangible objects that play different roles in the storytelling process