Finding the voice : planning and evaluation of social media in cultural institutions.

Cultural institutions have sought to develop social media as a means of engaging with their audiences. However, there is a lack of guidance about how to effectively evaluate performance. A study was carried out to explore contemporary practices in cultural institutions to better understand the challenges, methods, and strategies. This involved in-depth interviews with social media managers at eight Scottish institutions and a worldwide survey of one hundred organisations. The participants were asked about how they use social media, what their objectives are, and whether use of frameworks, toolkits, and strategies were useful or indeed feasible. Results showed that despite various approaches, many institutions share priorities and challenges. Although some preferred to be flexible, while others more regimented, there is consensus that social media helps deliver on wider institutional goals and strategies. There is also evidence that institutions want to better understand the impact of their social media but often have problems capturing or interpreting relevant data, and all institutions are responsive to tools that might help them do this. The research tested the principles of one tool in particular, the Culture24 Evaluation Framework. Discussions with participants revealed that while its concepts were relevant and valuable, there remained issues with how it could be implemented, given incongruity with existing operations. Consequently, the research proposes recommendations for developments in social media and evaluative frameworks. The research concludes that institutions that have more defined strategy, even if practices remain flexible, are more decisive and effective in their use of social media. Having objectives and cycles allows better implementation of specific tools and frameworks. Furthermore, careful consideration of the functionality of specific social media platforms allows them to more effectively address specific targets and metrics

Through the Loupe : Visitor engagement with a primarily text-based handheld AR application

The use of Augmented Reality (AR) in a museum or heritage setting holds great potential. However, until now, introducing AR into their buildings has been prohibitively expensive for most museums. On the one hand, programming the AR application could not be done in-house and would be rather costly. Secondly, the time-consuming production of high-quality digital visuals, often used in AR installations, needed to be outsourced. With the arrival of several AR engines, creating the actual experience has become easy, relatively fast and cheap, meaning the costs and skills associated with content creation might be the prime reason for particularly small and medium sized museums to not engage with the use of AR. This begs the question: Can other, simpler, types of content, such as texts, also be used to create a valued AR interpretation tool? This paper will discuss a study that has made a first attempt to answering this question. In addition, it explored the role AR can play in improving engagement between visitor, the object and its related information. The Loupe is a handheld AR application that was designed and tested as part of the meSch project. For this study, content, mainly consisting of text, was created for the Loupe at the Allard Pierson Museum. The tool was then tested with 22 participants who were asked to use the Loupe, either alone or together. Through questionnaires, observations and interviews, participants' engagement with and response to the Loupe were analyzed. This paper will discuss the findings of that study, focusing on the way the Loupe influenced the relationship between visitor and object, as well as the value of textual content as part of such an AR tool

The MUSETECH Companion : Navigating the Matrix

The MUSETECH model was originally published in the JOCCH Special Issue “The Evaluation of Digital Heritage Resources”, under the title: “The MUSETECH model: AC omprehensive Evaluation Framework for Museum Technology.” https://doi.org/10.1145/3297717 The original publication is accompanied by the present document, “The Companion”. The “Companion” provides step - by - step guidance to the MUSETECH model, devised as a tool for planning the evaluation of technologies applied in museums and heritage settings . We use the term “museum technology” to refer to any type of online or onsite interactive, application or installation encountered in museums or other heritage institutions. The MUSETECH model offers an exhaustive list of 121 Evaluation Criteria that may guide the evaluation of various embodiments of museum technology

The MUSETECH model : a comprehensive evaluation framework for museum technology

Digital technologies are being introduced in museums and other informal learning environments alongside more traditional interpretive and communication media. An increasing number of studies has proved the potential of digitally mediated cultural heritage experiences. However, there is still a lot of controversy as to the advantages and disadvantages of introducing the digital into museum settings, primarily related to the risks and investment in terms of time and human and financial resources required. This work introduces the MUSETECH model, a comprehensive framework for evaluating museum technology before and after its introduction into a museum setting. One of the unique features of our framework is to consider the evaluation of digital technologies from three different perspectives: the cultural heritage professional, cultural heritage institution, and museum visitor. The framework benefited from an extensive review of the current state of the art and from inputs from cultural heritage professionals, designers, and engineers. MUSETECH can be used as a tool for reflection before, during, and after introducing novel digital media resources. The model covers technologies as diverse as mobile museum guides, Augmented and Virtual Reality applications, hands-on museum interactives, edutainment applications, digitally mediated tangible and embodied experiences, or online approaches used for museum education and learning

L’expérience PLUG-Université Paris-Nuit : un juste équilibre entre apprentissage et jeu

À travers la description des principes et de la mise en œuvre de la seconde étape du jeu pervasif PLUG, les responsables du projet analysent les perspectives de son utilisation comme outil pédagogique permettant d’aller plus loin dans l’expérience de visite ainsi que les possibilités offertes à l’institution muséale dans sa réflexion sur les nouvelles formes de la médiation

The Loupe : tangible augmented reality for learning to look at Ancient Greek art

With the advent of digital museum interactives as a widely available learning offer in all types of museums, including history of art and archaeology museums, an ongoing debate has been established: Do these - usually screen-based - museum interactives assist visitors in focusing on museum objects and artefacts? Or do they distract and take away the attention from the real museum objects on display? We present the Loupe, a tangible Augmented Reality prototype in form of a magnifying lens, which allows museum visitors to get information in context about museum artefacts. We detail the design and content creation process that was employed in order to create a thematic tour for the the Greek Gallery of Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam. An evaluation study with 22 adult participants was carried out, using both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methodologies, so as to explore the utility and usability of the Loupe as well its learning and affective impact. Our findings suggest that the acceptance of the Loupe as a museum interactive and learning resource, was related both with its qualities as a tangible as well as with the structure of the content and the narratives revealed

Teenage Visitor Experience: Classification of Behavioral Dynamics in Museums

Teenagers' engagement in museums is much talked about but little research has been done to understand their behavior and inform design. Findings from co-design sessions with teenagers suggested they value games and stories when thinking about enjoyable museum tours. Informed by these findings and working with a natural history museum, we designed: a story-based tour (Turning Point) and a game-based tour (Haunted Encounters), informed by similar content. The two strategies were evaluated with 78 teenagers (15-19 years old) visiting the museum as part of an educational school trip. We assessed teenagers' personality in class; qualitative and quantitative data on their engagement, experience, and usability of the apps were collected at the museum. The triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data show personality traits mapping into different behaviors. We offer implications for the design of museum apps targeted to teenagers, a group known as difficult to reach

An introduction to augmented reality and cultural heritage for curators, art historians and museum educators

This chapter provides an introduction to augmented reality and cultural heritage for curators, art historians and museum educator

Réalité Augmentée et Applications Culturelles: Petit point d'’histoire

International audienc