Involving Users in the Co-Construction of Digital Knowledge in Museums: Embracing the Schools

Scott Sayre, Sandbox StudiosMCN 2010, Austin, Texas

Involving Users in the Co-Construction of

Digital Knowledge in Museums

Embracing the Schools

Scott Sayre


Beginnings


Beginnings

• ArtsConnectEd• Learning@Whitney• ArtNC• ArtStor• Virtual Museum of Canada• MFA Educators Online• SFMOMA ArtThink




Then,A decade later,Another opportunity…


A Decade Later - Rethinking


A Decade Later - Collecting & Reviewing


A Decade Later - Evaluating & Testing


A Decade Later - Analyzing


A Decade Later - Re-testing


And Eventually…









So what did we learn?

Marty, P., Sayre S. and Fantoni, P. (2010), Personal Digital Collections: Involving Users in the Co-Construction of Digital Cultural Heritage, Handbook of Research on Technologies and Cultural Heritage.


Multiple Audiences and Applications

Personal digital collection tools should be designed with a wide range for audiences and applications in mind.

• Teachers• Students• Home schoolers• Parents• Museum Educators• Docents• Curators


Multimedia

Users want to be able to access, collect, organize and utilize all forms of media within their collections.

• Museum produced media (audio, video, text and presentations)

• External sources such as YouTube and SlideShare


Personal Media Integration

Users need to be able to utilize their own media assets within their personal digital collections.

• Museum collection are too constrained• Downloaded museum media breaks its

institutional connection• Embedding and/or linking• Flickr, Picasa, YouTube and Vimeo provide

good options


Serendipity and Personal Relationships

Users desire options beyond simple search and browse

• Tools for Randomization - “I’m feeling lucky”• Faceted browsing• Community tagging and commenting


Share, Copy, and Modify

Users want to be able to share and reuse the work of others

• Ability to share, copy, modify and republish• Image sets, lesson plan and presentations• Creative Commons share and share-alike license


Social Tools

Users desire the integration of social media tools • Publishing• Sharing via Twitter, Facebook, etc.• Emailing• Commenting• Rating• Tagging


Multiple Forms of Output

Different audiences and applications require a range of views and outputs of collected resources.

• Light tables and lists• Zooms (including saved details)• Full-screen image• Image with all information• Image with no information• Full screen presentation view• Book format• Worksheets and Notes• iPad compatible


Physical Connections

Users desire up-to-date location information• On view, gallery location• Mapping• Trip planning


Sustainability

Users want to be able to rely on access to their collections

• Migration• Export


Inter-Institutional/Resource Interoperability

Most users do not understand or care about the institutional boundaries between collections.

• Desired integration of museum collections• Technical interfaces such as Really Simple

Syndication “RSS”, Application Programming Interfaces “API” and the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting “AI-PMH” can overcome this barriers


A Quick Look at Usage

Data as of October 1, 2010 (launched May 1, 2009)• Registered users 4,912• Monthly visits 60,000 average• Art Collector Sets created = 7,512 • Art Collector Set published = 322 • Items rated 224• Items commented on = 258• Items tagged 5000• Tags added 32,630• Tags add with incentive 25,000• Tags added post incentive 5,630


Scott [email protected]

@zbartrout

Involving Users in the Co-Construction of Digital Knowledge in Museums: Embracing the Schools

Documents

sandbox studiosmcn

schools scott sayre

texas share

texas serendipity

texas multimedia users

texas multiple audiences

personal digital collections

museum collection