Learning computing heritage through gaming – whilst teaching digital development through history

This paper analyses the potential of computer games and interactive projects within the learning programmes for cultural heritage institutions through our experiences working in partnership between higher education and a museum. Gamification is cited as a key disruptive technology for the business and enterprise community, and developments in games technology are also driving the expansion of digital media into all different screen spaces, and various platforms. Our research aims to take these as beneficial indicators for pedagogic development, using gaming to support knowledge transfer related to a museum setting, and using the museum as a key scenario for our students to support the practice of game development. Thus gamification is applied as both a topic and a methodology for educational purposes

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

Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) System for Ancient Documentary Artefacts

This tutorial summarises our uses of reflectance transformation imaging in archaeological contexts. It introduces the UK AHRC funded project reflectance Transformation Imaging for Anciant Documentary Artefacts and demonstrates imaging methodologies

Serious Games in Cultural Heritage

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

Evocative computing – creating meaningful lasting experiences in connecting with the past

We present an approach – evocative computing – that demonstrates how ‘at hand’ technologies can be ‘picked up’ and used by people to create meaningful and lasting experiences, through connecting and interacting with the past. The approach is instantiated here through a suite of interactive technologies configured for an indoor-outdoor setting that enables groups to explore, discover and research the history and background of a public cemetery. We report on a two-part study where different groups visited the cemetery and interacted with the digital tools and resources. During their activities serendipitous uses of the technology led to connections being made between personal memo-ries and ongoing activities. Furthermore, these experiences were found to be long-lasting; a follow-up study, one year later, showed them to be highly memorable, and in some cases leading participants to take up new directions in their work. We discuss the value of evocative computing for enriching user experiences and engagement with heritage practices

Toward a model of computational attention based on expressive behavior: applications to cultural heritage scenarios

Our project goals consisted in the development of attention-based analysis of human expressive behavior and the implementation of real-time algorithm in EyesWeb XMI in order to improve naturalness of human-computer interaction and context-based monitoring of human behavior. To this aim, perceptual-model that mimic human attentional processes was developed for expressivity analysis and modeled by entropy. Museum scenarios were selected as an ecological test-bed to elaborate three experiments that focus on visitor profiling and visitors flow regulation

Promising Beginning? Evaluating Museum Mobile Phone Apps

Since 2009 museums have started introducing mobile apps in their range of interpretative media and visitor services. As mobile technology continues to develop and permeate all aspects of our life, and the capabilities of smart phones increase while they become more accessible and popular, new possibilities arise for cultural institutions to exploit these tools for communicating in new ways and promoting their exhibitions and programmes. The use of mobile apps opens up new channels of communication between the cultural institution and the user, which extent to his or her personal space and go beyond the boundaries of the museum’s walls. The paper presents a survey carried out of mobile apps designed by art or cultural historical museums and analyses the wider issues which are raised by the findings. It discusses, among others, the kind of use these apps were designed to fulfil (e.g. the majority are guided tours to the permanent collections or to temporary exhibitions), the layering of content,and the type of user interaction and involvement they support