Outdata-ed museums: creating ethical and transparent data collection processes in museums

UK museums are contradictory sites of education and community outreach, and emblems of colonial legacy and elitism. Physical and socioeconomic barriers prevent meaningful engagement for audiences, but particularly marginalised peoples. To identify and overcome these barriers, museums and cultural institutions are seeking technological solutions that capture and analyse personal data. However, current legislation and attitudes towards personal data also risk perpetuating exclusionary barriers. Many governments and organisations use personal data to suppress, undermine, and violently target minoritised or marginalised communities whilst upholding the status quo that marginalised them in the first place. This inequality is further entrenched by the powerlessness most people feel in the face of how data is collected and used on a day-to-day basis. Drawing on Human Computer Interaction, Human Geography and New Museology, this PhD thesis seeks a solution to these concerns that empowers museums to safely collect the data they need whilst enabling audiences to become active in their own data curation. Using co-creative principles, input is sought from museums and audiences to answer three questions: • How are discourses and practices surrounding personal data negotiated, defined, perpetuated, and resisted in museums? • What is the value of personal data to museums and audiences? • Can mutually beneficial and transparent data exchange foster meaningful, long-term relationships between museums and audiences? To address these questions, a novel theoretical framework that explores museums as place, technology as mediator, and relational personal data through a lens of power is generated. Four sequential studies are then conducted utilising a post-structural feminist epistemology. The first study presents a content analysis of privacy policies to explore what data museums typically collect and how that information is conceptualised and shared with audiences, showing that museums collect a broad range of quantitative data but inadequately express to audiences what, how, or why. The second study presents a workshop with museum staff to determine what data would benefit the museum and what prevents it from being captured. It shows that museums seek qualitative, behavioural data but are limited by resource constraints. The third study uses workshop style activities to ask audiences to conceptualise the value of their desirable data and speculate different ways for their data to be used in the museum. The study highlights barriers to data engagement including fatigue and lack of understanding, and shows trust and transparency to be key motivators in data sharing. The fourth study uses a novel methodology to speculate a data-enabled museum visit, from which a technology probe called ‘MuNa’ is developed and tested in a virtual museum visit with real audiences. Evaluation shows how transparency and trust can be synchronously developed through meaningful engagement with data. This is shown to increase the engagement of audiences with both museum and data, fostering long-term, meaningful relationships between venue and visitor and the creation of data subjects able to advocate for their own data rights. The implications of this research reach across each of its disciplines and into the everyday practices of cultural organisations and audiences. Contributing novel paradigms of understanding surrounding the museum visit experience including different stakeholder perspectives addressing museums, technology, and personal data, the thesis presents evidence of an equitable and sustainable, data-enabled future

Outdata-ed museums: creating ethical and transparent data collection processes in museums

UK museums are contradictory sites of education and community outreach, and emblems of colonial legacy and elitism. Physical and socioeconomic barriers prevent meaningful engagement for audiences, but particularly marginalised peoples. To identify and overcome these barriers, museums and cultural institutions are seeking technological solutions that capture and analyse personal data. However, current legislation and attitudes towards personal data also risk perpetuating exclusionary barriers. Many governments and organisations use personal data to suppress, undermine, and violently target minoritised or marginalised communities whilst upholding the status quo that marginalised them in the first place. This inequality is further entrenched by the powerlessness most people feel in the face of how data is collected and used on a day-to-day basis. Drawing on Human Computer Interaction, Human Geography and New Museology, this PhD thesis seeks a solution to these concerns that empowers museums to safely collect the data they need whilst enabling audiences to become active in their own data curation. Using co-creative principles, input is sought from museums and audiences to answer three questions: • How are discourses and practices surrounding personal data negotiated, defined, perpetuated, and resisted in museums? • What is the value of personal data to museums and audiences? • Can mutually beneficial and transparent data exchange foster meaningful, long-term relationships between museums and audiences? To address these questions, a novel theoretical framework that explores museums as place, technology as mediator, and relational personal data through a lens of power is generated. Four sequential studies are then conducted utilising a post-structural feminist epistemology. The first study presents a content analysis of privacy policies to explore what data museums typically collect and how that information is conceptualised and shared with audiences, showing that museums collect a broad range of quantitative data but inadequately express to audiences what, how, or why. The second study presents a workshop with museum staff to determine what data would benefit the museum and what prevents it from being captured. It shows that museums seek qualitative, behavioural data but are limited by resource constraints. The third study uses workshop style activities to ask audiences to conceptualise the value of their desirable data and speculate different ways for their data to be used in the museum. The study highlights barriers to data engagement including fatigue and lack of understanding, and shows trust and transparency to be key motivators in data sharing. The fourth study uses a novel methodology to speculate a data-enabled museum visit, from which a technology probe called ‘MuNa’ is developed and tested in a virtual museum visit with real audiences. Evaluation shows how transparency and trust can be synchronously developed through meaningful engagement with data. This is shown to increase the engagement of audiences with both museum and data, fostering long-term, meaningful relationships between venue and visitor and the creation of data subjects able to advocate for their own data rights. The implications of this research reach across each of its disciplines and into the everyday practices of cultural organisations and audiences. Contributing novel paradigms of understanding surrounding the museum visit experience including different stakeholder perspectives addressing museums, technology, and personal data, the thesis presents evidence of an equitable and sustainable, data-enabled future

Gender Stereotypes in Young Children’s Magazines

In two studies, we investigated the prevalence of gender stereotypes in print magazines targeted at 2- to 9-year-olds, analyzing three crucial and distinct aspects of children’s magazines: the front cover, the magazine content, and featured activities. Study 1 focused on the front covers of 106 children’s print magazines aimed at audiences of either girls, boys, or both boys and girls. Content analyses revealed that magazines aimed solely at boys or girls displayed gender-stereotypic colors and more same- than other-gender characters. Front covers aimed at girls contained no speaking characters and, compared to front covers aimed at boys, displayed more words related to appearance. Study 2 analyzed the content of 42 magazine issues. Magazines aimed at girls were most likely to incorporate the themes of fashion and home, to instruct the reader to ask for an adult’s help with an activity, and less likely to include activities labeled as educational than were magazines aimed at boys or both girls and boys. In contrast, magazines aimed at boys were most likely to incorporate the theme of jobs. Overall, findings suggest that gender stereotypical messages are embedded throughout young children’s magazines, which are tailored in their style and content based on their target audience

Sensitive Pictures:Emotional Interpretation in the Museum

Museums are interested in designing emotional visitor experiences to complement traditional interpretations. HCI is interested in the relationship between Affective Computing and Affective Interaction. We describe Sensitive Pictures, an emotional visitor experience co-created with the Munch art museum. Visitors choose emotions, locate associated paintings in the museum, experience an emotional story while viewing them, and self-report their response. A subsequent interview with a portrayal of the artist employs computer vision to estimate emotional responses from facial expressions. Visitors are given a souvenir postcard visualizing their emotional data. A study of 132 members of the public (39 interviewed) illuminates key themes: designing emotional provocations; capturing emotional responses; engaging visitors with their data; a tendency for them to align their views with the system's interpretation; and integrating these elements into emotional trajectories. We consider how Affective Computing can hold up a mirror to our emotions during Affective Interaction.Comment: Accepted for publication in CHI 202

Data-inspired co-design for museum and gallery visitor experiences

The capture and analysis of diverse data is widely recognized as being vital to the design of new products and services across the digital economy. We focus on its use to inspire the co-design of visitor experiences in museums as a distinctive case that reveals opportunities and challenges for the use of personal data. We present a portfolio of data-inspired visiting experiences that emerged from a 3-year Research Through Design process. These include the overlay of virtual models on physical exhibits, a smartphone app for creating personalized tours as gifts, visualizations of emotional responses to exhibits, and the data-driven use of ideation cards. We reflect across our portfolio to articulate the diverse ways in which data can inspire design through the use of ambiguity, visualization, and inter-personalization; how data inspire co-design through the process of co-ideation, co-creation, and co-interpretation; and how its use must negotiate the challenges of privacy, ownership, and transparency. By adopting a human perspective on data, we are able to chart out the complex and rich information that can inform design activities and contribute to datasets that can drive creativity support systems

Planning for Sustainability in Small Municipalities: The Influence of Interest Groups, Growth Patterns, and Institutional Characteristics

How and why small municipalities promote sustainability through planning efforts is poorly understood. We analyzed ordinances in 451 Maine municipalities and tested theories of policy adoption using regression analysis.We found that smaller communities do adopt programs that contribute to sustainability relevant to their scale and context. In line with the political market theory, we found that municipalities with strong environmental interests, higher growth, and more formal governments were more likely to adopt these policies. Consideration of context and capacity in planning for sustainability will help planners better identify and benefit from collaboration, training, and outreach opportunities

A solution scan of societal options to reduce transmission and spread of respiratory viruses: SARS-CoV-2 as a case study.

Societal biosecurity - measures built into everyday society to minimize risks from pests and diseases - is an important aspect of managing epidemics and pandemics. We aimed to identify societal options for reducing the transmission and spread of respiratory viruses. We used SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) as a case study to meet the immediate need to manage the COVID-19 pandemic and eventually transition to more normal societal conditions, and to catalog options for managing similar pandemics in the future. We used a 'solution scanning' approach. We read the literature; consulted psychology, public health, medical, and solution scanning experts; crowd-sourced options using social media; and collated comments on a preprint. Here, we present a list of 519 possible measures to reduce SARS-CoV-2 transmission and spread. We provide a long list of options for policymakers and businesses to consider when designing biosecurity plans to combat SARS-CoV-2 and similar pathogens in the future. We also developed an online application to help with this process. We encourage testing of actions, documentation of outcomes, revisions to the current list, and the addition of further options

Effect of Hydrocortisone on Mortality and Organ Support in Patients With Severe COVID-19: The REMAP-CAP COVID-19 Corticosteroid Domain Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Evidence regarding corticosteroid use for severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is limited. Objective: To determine whether hydrocortisone improves outcome for patients with severe COVID-19. Design, Setting, and Participants: An ongoing adaptive platform trial testing multiple interventions within multiple therapeutic domains, for example, antiviral agents, corticosteroids, or immunoglobulin. Between March 9 and June 17, 2020, 614 adult patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 were enrolled and randomized within at least 1 domain following admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) for respiratory or cardiovascular organ support at 121 sites in 8 countries. Of these, 403 were randomized to open-label interventions within the corticosteroid domain. The domain was halted after results from another trial were released. Follow-up ended August 12, 2020. Interventions: The corticosteroid domain randomized participants to a fixed 7-day course of intravenous hydrocortisone (50 mg or 100 mg every 6 hours) (n = 143), a shock-dependent course (50 mg every 6 hours when shock was clinically evident) (n = 152), or no hydrocortisone (n = 108). Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary end point was organ support-free days (days alive and free of ICU-based respiratory or cardiovascular support) within 21 days, where patients who died were assigned -1 day. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model that included all patients enrolled with severe COVID-19, adjusting for age, sex, site, region, time, assignment to interventions within other domains, and domain and intervention eligibility. Superiority was defined as the posterior probability of an odds ratio greater than 1 (threshold for trial conclusion of superiority >99%). Results: After excluding 19 participants who withdrew consent, there were 384 patients (mean age, 60 years; 29% female) randomized to the fixed-dose (n = 137), shock-dependent (n = 146), and no (n = 101) hydrocortisone groups; 379 (99%) completed the study and were included in the analysis. The mean age for the 3 groups ranged between 59.5 and 60.4 years; most patients were male (range, 70.6%-71.5%); mean body mass index ranged between 29.7 and 30.9; and patients receiving mechanical ventilation ranged between 50.0% and 63.5%. For the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively, the median organ support-free days were 0 (IQR, -1 to 15), 0 (IQR, -1 to 13), and 0 (-1 to 11) days (composed of 30%, 26%, and 33% mortality rates and 11.5, 9.5, and 6 median organ support-free days among survivors). The median adjusted odds ratio and bayesian probability of superiority were 1.43 (95% credible interval, 0.91-2.27) and 93% for fixed-dose hydrocortisone, respectively, and were 1.22 (95% credible interval, 0.76-1.94) and 80% for shock-dependent hydrocortisone compared with no hydrocortisone. Serious adverse events were reported in 4 (3%), 5 (3%), and 1 (1%) patients in the fixed-dose, shock-dependent, and no hydrocortisone groups, respectively. Conclusions and Relevance: Among patients with severe COVID-19, treatment with a 7-day fixed-dose course of hydrocortisone or shock-dependent dosing of hydrocortisone, compared with no hydrocortisone, resulted in 93% and 80% probabilities of superiority with regard to the odds of improvement in organ support-free days within 21 days. However, the trial was stopped early and no treatment strategy met prespecified criteria for statistical superiority, precluding definitive conclusions. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT02735707