Live at LICA: Collection Access Via Augmented Reality - Research and Development Report

There is significant scope to improve access to museums collections, with almost half of the UK population not visiting a museum in 2012-2013. Augmented Reality provides new opportunities to create access to and deeper engagement with collections. The museums sector has been exploring its potential to some degree, but survey data suggests many more will do so in the next few years. To date, AR and mobile applications developed by the sector such as the Let's Explore and Museum of London Streetview apps - have been limited in scope. Academic Research projects in this area have not often been taken beyond initial user engagement studies and released publicly. AR sits in a distinct part of the virtuality continuum, which ranges from the completely real to the completely virtual. When deciding to deploy AR, there are a number of factors to consider right at the outset, including whether it will be available on a mobile device or wearable tech (eg headset), whether it is sensor or vision based and how the data will be stored and accessed. This project took place between April 2013 and May 2014. It involved the creation of an Android mobile application which enables users to view 2D images from the Peter Scott Gallery as though exhibited in a physical space, accessed from any locaton with internet connectivity. The research question was concerned with whether mobile augmented reality (MAR) could increase meaningful engagement with museums and art gallery collections. The project team adopted a methodology closely aligned with Research Through Design. They produced 5 digital versions of the prop type and these were developed with iterative participatory design. More than 80 users participated including gallery volunteers and staff, children from local schools and young people from local colleges.  The project team had to respond to several changes in personnel and technical challenges. This resulted in reallocated roles, increased development time, reduced content and reduced promotional activity. The budget was £96,840 but this did not include significant additional unbilled time given by the project team. As a result of the project, a free app was launched in the UK in May 2014 and in the USA in July 2014. It has been downloaded to date 45 times and remains accessible to the public. The software used is open source. A key goal for the arts partner going forward is to find resource to extend the content available. The content management system which is fully functional has been designed to enable this to happen in house. The project has generated insights concerning ethical use of data, backwards compatibility of devices, publication and copyright issues and the quality of digitised collection images

Arigatō : effects of adaptive guidance on engagement and performances in augmented reality learning environments

Funding information: This research was supported by European Commission through the InnoRenew CoE project (Grant Agreement 739574) under the Horizon2020 Widespread-Teaming program and the Republic of Slovenia (investment funding of the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union of the European Regional Development Fund). We also acknowledge support from the Slovenian research agency ARRS (program no. BI-DE/20-21-002, P1-0383, J1-9186, J1-1715, J5-1796, and J1-1692).Experiential learning (ExL) is the process of learning through experience or more specifically “learning through reflection on doing”. In this paper, we propose a simulation of these experiences, in Augmented Reality (AR), addressing the problem of language learning. Such systems provide an excellent setting to support “adaptive guidance”, in a digital form, within a real environment. Adaptive guidance allows the instructions and learning content to be customised for the individual learner, thus creating a unique learning experience. We developed an adaptive guidance AR system for language learning, we call Arigato (Augmented Reality Instructional ¯ Guidance & Tailored Omniverse), which offers immediate assistance, resources specific to the learner's needs, manipulation of these resources, and relevant feedback. Considering guidance, we employ this prototype to investigate the effect of the amount of guidance (fixed vs. adaptive-amount) and the type of guidance (fixed vs. adaptive-associations) on the engagement and consequently the learning outcomes of language learning in an AR environment. The results for the amount of guidance show that compared to the adaptive-amount, the fixed-amount of guidance group scored better in the immediate and delayed (after 7 days) recall tests. However, this group also invested a significantly higher mental effort to complete the task. The results for the type of guidance show that the adaptive-associations group outperforms the fixed-associations group in the immediate, delayed (after 7 days) recall tests, and learning efficiency. The adaptive-associations group also showed significantly lower mental effort and spent less time to complete the task.PostprintPeer reviewe

VocabulARy : learning vocabulary in AR supported by keyword visualizations

This research was supported by European Commission through the InnoRenew CoE project (Grant Agreement 739574) under the Horizon2020 Widespread-Teaming program and the Republic of Slovenia (investment funding of the Republic of Slovenia and the European Union of the European Regional Development Fund). We also acknowledge support from the Slovenian research agency ARRS (program no. BI-DE/20-21-002, P1-0383, J1-9186, J1-1715, J5-1796, and J1-1692).Learning vocabulary in a primary or secondary language is enhanced when we encounter words in context. This context can be afforded by the place or activity we are engaged with. Existing learning environments include formal learning, mnemonics, flashcards, use of a dictionary or thesaurus, all leading to practice with new words in context. In this work, we propose an enhancement to the language learning process by providing the user with words and learning tools in context, with VocabulARy. VocabulARy visually annotates objects in AR, in the user's surroundings, with the corresponding English (first language) and Japanese (second language) words to enhance the language learning process. In addition to the written and audio description of each word, we also present the user with a keyword and its visualisation to enhance memory retention. We evaluate our prototype by comparing it to an alternate AR system that does not show an additional visualisation of the keyword, and, also, we compare it to two non-AR systems on a tablet, one with and one without visualising the keyword. Our results indicate that AR outperforms the tablet system regarding immediate recall, mental effort and task-completion time. Additionally, the visualisation approach scored significantly higher than showing only the written keyword with respect to immediate and delayed recall and learning efficiency, mental effort and task-completion time.PostprintPeer reviewe

Taking the artwork home app

Augmented Reality application to allow people to digitally curate their own art exhibitions from their own homes using content from the Peter Scott Gallery at Lancaster University

An empirical study of long-term personal project information management

Purpose – Personal projects are any kind of projects whose management is left to an individual untrained in project management and is greatly influenced by this individual’s personal touch. This includes the majority of knowledge workers who daily manage information relating to several personal projects. The authors have conducted an in-depth qualitative investigation on information management of such projects and the tacit knowledge behind its processes that cannot be found in the organisational structures of current personal information management (PIM) tools (file managers, e-mail clients, web browsers). The purpose of this paper is to reveal and understand project information management practices in details and provide guidelines for personal project management tools. Design/methodology/approach – Semi-structured interviews similar to that in several other PIM exploratory studies were carried out focusing on project fragmentation, information overlap and project context recreation. In addition, the authors enhanced interviews with sketching approach not yet used to study PIM. Sketches were used for articulating things that were not easily expressed through words, they represented a time stamp of a project context in the projects’ lifetime, uncovered additional tacit knowledge behind project information management not mentioned during the interviews, and were also used to find what they have in common which might be used in prototype designing. Findings – The paper presents first personal project definition based on the conceptualisations derived from the study. The study revealed that the extensive information fragmentation in the file hierarchy (due to different organisational needs and ease of information access) poses a significant challenge to context recreation besides cross-tool fragmentation so far described in the literature. The study also reveals the division of project information into core and support and emphasises the importance of support information in relation to project goals. Other findings uncover the division of input/output information, project overlaps through information reuse, storytelling and visualising information relations, which could help with user modelling and enhancing project context recreation. Research limitations/implications – On of the limitations is the group of participants that cannot represent the ideally generalised knowledge worker as there are many different kinds of knowledge workers and they all have different information needs besides different management practices. However, participants of variety of different backgrounds were observed and the authors converged observations into points of project information management similarities across the spectrum of different professions. Nevertheless, its observations and conceptualisations should be repeatable. For one, some of the issues that emerged during this work have been to different extents discussed in other studies. Practical implications – The empirical findings are used to create guidelines for designing personal project information management tools: support the selective focus on information with the division into core and supportive information; visualise changes in project information space to support narratives for context recreation; overcome fragmentation in the file system with selective unification; visualising project’s information relationship to better understand the complexity of project information space; and support navigating in project information space on two axes: time and between projects (overlaps through information). Originality/value – The study presents a longitudinal insight into personal project information management. As such it provides a first formal definition of personal project from the information point of view. The method used in the study presented uses a new approach – sketching in which participants externalised and visualised personal information and projects they discussed. The insights derived from the study form design implications for personal project management tools for knowledge workers

Exploring the future building : representational effect on projecting oneself into the future office space

The authors acknowledge the European Commission for funding the InnoRenew CoE project (Grant Agreement 739574) under the Horizon2020 Widespread-Teaming program and the Republic of Slovenia (Investment funding of the Republic of Slovenia and European Union of the European Regional Development Fund). We also acknowledge support from the Slovenian research agency ARRS (program no. P1-0383, J1-9186, J1-1715, J5- 1796, J1-1692, and IO-0035).While virtual reality (VR) has been explored in the field of architecture, its implications on people who experience their future office space in such a way has not been extensively studied. In this explorative study, we are interested in how VR and other representation methods support users in projecting themselves into their future office space and how this might influence their willingness to relocate. In order to compare VR with other representations, we used (i) standard paper based floor plans and renders of the future building (as used by architects to present their creations to stakeholders), (ii) a highly-detailed virtual environment of the same building experienced on a computer monitor (desktop condition), and (iii) the same environment experienced on a head mounted display (VR condition). Participants were randomly assigned to conditions and were instructed to freely explore their representation method for up to 15 min without any restrictions or tasks given. The results show, that compared to other representation methods, VR significantly differed for the sense of presence, user experience and engagement, and that these measures are correlated for this condition only. In virtual environments, users were observed looking at the views through the windows, spent time on terraces between trees, explored the surroundings, and even “took a walk” to work. Nevertheless, the results show that representation method influences the exploration of the future building as users in VR spent significantly more time exploring the environment, and provided more positive comments about the building compared to users in either desktop or paper conditions. We show that VR representation used in our explorative study increased users’ capability to imagine future scenarios involving their future office spaces, better supported them in projecting themselves into these spaces, and positively affected their attitude towards relocating.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe