IT – Interpret Europe

Museum e-KnowAll – Culture and virtual adventure

Interpret Europe — Sat, 11 Apr 2020 13:28:13 +0000

An AR app created for children aged four to six years, as a game which can be played within the permanent exhibition or at home.

AR app used in museum setting (Image: Velendecic)

Dealing with learning in museums for the past 40 years, the curators of the Museum of Vojvodina have designed programmes for all visitor categories. One of the main goals of their diverse activities is the creation of the permanent museum audience. In order to achieve this goal, interesting exhibitions and the accompanying programmes, combined with good marketing, are not enough. It presumes a continuous development of didactics and a museum content strategy. Investing energy, knowledge and experience on the one hand, and following the trends of contemporary museological practice on the other, we strive to improve interpretive methods, considering it to be one of the factors that influence the creation of cultural needs, especially for the youngest visitors as future consumers of cultural content.

The inspiration for the Museum e-KnowAll app was an interactive picture book (Muzejska lepezica/ Museum Fan), published in 2014 by the Museum of Vojvodina, which consists of 50 sheets, each containing basic information, questions or tasks. Having in mind the necessities dictated by the digital transformation era and basic ecological demands, we decided to design a modern version of this picture book and named it the Museum e-KnowAll. In a similar form to the printed edition of the book, this mobile device app assumes didactical content, which is designed into different types of tasks.

The basic content consists of ten stories about different museum exhibits or phenomena, such as Life in Prehistoric Times, Toys and Jewellery in Prehistory, Ancient Rome – Gilded Roman Helmets, Handwritten Manuscripts, Means of Transportation, Crafts, Traditional Architecture, Agriculture in Vojvodina, Lighting in the Past, Festive Women Caps. These short stories are told in Serbian and English by three animated characters (a curator, a boy and a girl), who appear in augmented reality (AR). The fact that they are told by children makes the stories more appealing to the key audience (children).

Each story is followed by a task, which is created in such a manner to encourage interactivity. There are different tasks, such as: find the missing part; link the toy with a similar one from the past; take a selfie; choose the correct answer; chronological sequence; connect the terms; find differences; link names and subjects; listening-based recognition; mark the intruder.

The app is made for children aged four to six years, so it can be used as a teaching method in preschools. Considering the fact that they have to visit the museum accompanied by an adult, the use of this app initiates the parent-child or child-elder bonding. The content is recorded in audio format, so it can easily be used by children who are not capable of reading.

Museum e-KnowAll can be downloaded for free from the Google Play or App Store. It is a marker-based app, in which specifically designed markers act as triggers. In order to be used within the permanent exhibition, recognisable markers show the visitor where the app should be used. If the visitor doesn’t have a mobile phone, tablets are available to borrow.

A printed brochure with markers can be bought in the museum shop. Apart from increasing the number of users, this also promotes the museum and encourages motivation to visit. But it also provides a method for children who are not able to visit the museum to learn about it from their homes.

Slađana Velendečić is Head of the Educational and PR department of the Museum of Vojvodina, where she has been employed since 2000. She has participated in the design and realisation of many educational programmes. Her main interest in museum work is related to education and interpretation. She can be contacted at: slacka73@gmail.com.

Tijana Stanković Pešterac is Assistant Director of the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad. She has organised exhibitions as an author, lead many different projects (concerning archaeology, digitisation and museum education and interpretation), published catalogues, as well as scientific and popular articles. She can be contacted at: tijana.pesterac@muzejvojvodine.org.rs.

To cite this article:
Velendečić, Slađana and Stanković, Tijana (2020) ‘Museum e-KnowAll – Culture and virtual adventure ‘. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2020,
18-19.
Available online:
www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2020-1_spring.pdf

Let’s play! Heritage interpretation meets smartphone apps

Interpret Europe — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 22:00:00 +0000

From birth, we learn by playing. As we get older, other forms of learning become more important than play, but that doesn’t mean that people lose their desire to play or that our minds are no longer built for playful learning. In fact, the opposite is true. Game-based learning triggers emotions in people of all ages. By doing so, it helps make them more receptive to new information and ideas.

One way to make learning more playful and also meaningful, is a good quality mobile application. One such tool is Actionbound. With this app for mobile devices and the online editor that goes with it, one can easily create and enjoy intuitive play environments. It works like a scavenger or treasure hunt that incorporates various kinds of tasks, such as quizzes, creative photo or video missions, QR-codes, GPS coordinates, and much more. You can use these tools to present any heritage interpretation content.

Smartphones are part of our daily lives, especially for the younger generations. You can use the familiar medium to open up a conversation about new places and ideas. Missions invite users to go adventuring, collecting experiences and adventures that they can interpret and discuss with one another. A mixture of analogue and digital tasks ensures that users won’t get bored. GPS coordinates as well as photo and video-based tasks help players discover locations. Quiz questions and info panels present facts that can become the basis for heritage interpretation.

Experiences can be created with an online editor, called the Bound-Creator, which is really intuitive and easy to use. There are free trials available online, where you can try out your creativity. Actionbound also offers workshops and sessions, in which an expert leads you through the experience and software features. Please let us know what you think about it, and let’s get into an exchange about the opportunities and limitations of using digital media in interpretation.

If you are an IE member, like us, and you want to get more familiar with the Actionbound system, we are offering a 10% discount on licenses and also special prizes for workshops or consulting. Just get in touch!

Lotta Krickel has a master’s degree in e-learning and media-literacy and works in the gamification field. She is passionate about developing concepts for playful learning experiences. As a part of the Actionbound team (www.actionbound.com) she is trying to make gamification accessible to everyone. She can be contacted at: lotta@actionbound.com or info@actionbound.com.

IntoAlbania: A new perspective on Albania

Interpret Europe — Thu, 04 Apr 2019 22:00:00 +0000

‘To the unlearned tourist, indeed, Albania is a puzzle of the highest order’, Edward Lear

After half a century of communist dictatorship, and the initial turmoil of the post-communist years, the recent years have seen Albania’s tourism industry experience impressive growth. Among the main factors contributing to this phenomenon, have been foreign investments, the know-how gained by various businesses through the years, as well as a shared belief that tourism can become the new most powerful engine of the Albanian economy.

IntoAlbania Project (www.intoalbania.com)
When it comes to foreign investments, a significant amount of funding has been given by main foreign donors to NGOs to finance projects related to tourism. One such project is IntoAlbania, financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Embassy of Sweden. Its mission is to support tourism development by implementing digital technologies and an authentic tourism model to connect tourists with the best of Albania’s culture, heritage, nature and authenticity while contributing to the development of local economies.

An important part of the project was the development of a modern online platform that could keep tourists updated with all relevant information about Albanian tourist destinations, its cities, museums, natural parks, bars, restaurants and more. Since its launch in 2018, it has become the leading tourism website in Albania, thanks to its up-to-date content, high-quality pictures, articles from local and foreign contributors and other important functions, such as e-commerce, digital maps and booking options. The platform also keeps track of all new and interesting events happening all over Albania.

Readers can make use of all the functions also through an IntoAlbania mobile application. The app is a modern and practical on-the-go solution for the Albanian tourism market.

Another important important goal of the project was the creation of a digital infrastructure for Albanian museums. Unfortunately, the majority of Albanian museums were designed in the late 1940s, just after the end of World War II, and the technology they employ hasn’t been updated since then. The first intervention by IntoAlbania was made at the prominent National Iconographic Museum, ‘Onufri’, located at the UNESCO World Heritage city of Berat. This intervention had a focus on the implementation of a multi-language audio-guide digital infrastructure to be used by the museum’s visitors. Thanks to the intervention, it is now possible to use an audio guide in four different languages: Albanian, English, Italian and German.

The implementation of the audio guide system can make it easier for tourists to get in touch with the rich story of this place. The audio content of the guide for Onufri Museum makes it possible to hear through well-studied text, music and other sound effects, the story behind the museum and its unique icons. Orpheus, a global company of digitalisation consultants, led the content creation for the text, music and sound effects.

Why Onufri?
There were many reasons why the Onufri Museum was selected as the pilot location for this intervention. The museum bears the name of the 16th century Albanian master painter, called Onufri, who left a rich legacy of iconography in the country. The museum, located inside the Cathedral of the Assumption of St. Mary, contains an immense collection of 1,500 objects collected from Albanian churches and monasteries, from which 173 carefully-selected artefacts are displayed for public viewing.

The iconostasis, created in 1807, the most astonishing part of the interior of the church, is considered one of the greatest accomplishments of the 19th century Albanian woodcarving masters.
While many churches, mosques and other religious objects have been destroyed since Albania was proclaimed an atheist state by the Communist regime, ironically this church managed to survive through a government decision to create a museum inside it. Thankfully, the beauty of the church and its iconostasis, is something that Albanian and foreign tourists can still experience.

From the seven ‘purple codices’ of the world which survive today, two were found exactly under the apse of the church. The two old Gospels have been named ‘Beratinus 1’ from the 6th century and ‘Beratinus 2’ from the 9th century, and according to the UNESCO official site ‘represent one of the most valuable treasures of the Albanian cultural heritage’. For this reason, they were included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2005.

In the future, the implementation of new technologies will continue in other national museums, featuring various innovative solutions, such as 3D, touchscreens, immersive digital experiences, immersive multimedia installations, etc. so come to Albania and see for yourselves – I promise it is getting more and more accessible!

Inesa Sulaj is a Cultural Heritage Expert and has a particular interest in museology. She is currently working at Creative Business Solutions Organization, for the IntoAlbania Project. She can be contacted at: inesa.sulaj@cbs.al.

To cite this article:
Sulay, Inesa (2019) ‘IntoAlbania: A new perspective on Albania’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2019, 22.
Available online:
www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2019-1_spring.pdf

Europeana – Developing Europe’s Digital Platform for cultural heritage: public consultation opens

Interpret Europe — Sat, 16 Dec 2017 22:00:00 +0000

How can digital culture enrich your daily life and work? Do you share, access or use cultural heritage materials online? The European Commission’s public consultation is open until 14 January for you to share your views.

The Commission wants to know how citizens, professionals and organisations use Europeana, the European online platform for culture heritage that is visited approximately 700,000 times per month.

The platform gives access to over 53 million items, including image, text, sound, video and 3D material from the collections of over 3,700 libraries, archives, museums, galleries and audio-visual collections across Europe.

The platform can be used by teachers, artists, data professionals in cultural institutions and creative fields but also everyone looking for information on culture.

The public consultation will help to identify through an independent evaluation how Europeana is currently used and how this can be improved and made more accessible for everyone. For example, the platform provides content also for re-use in the education, research or creative sectors of which many people are not yet aware.

The results of the consultation will contribute to further develop Europeana’s offers and increase its visibility and use for the European culture heritage online. Europeana will also be closely associated to the European Year of Cultural Heritage in 2018.

The public consultation is open in all EU languages – but only until 14 January 2018 so take a look and add your opinions now! You can find out more and access the consultation here: https://ec.europa.eu/info/consultations/public-consultation-europeana-europes-digital-platform-cultural-heritage_en.

This article has been edited from a European Commission Press Release (Marie Banks, IE News Coordinator), which can be found in full here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEX-17-3983_en.htm

To cite this article:
van Rijckevorsel, Louise (2017) ‘Europeana – Developing Europe’s Digital Platform for cultural heritage: public consultation opens ‘. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2017, 20.

Looking for IT support

Interpret Europe — Sun, 30 Jul 2017 22:00:00 +0000

The IE management is looking for people who could support us in IT related issues.

If you have knowledge in one or more of the following fields and if you would like to assist us, please contact Markus on markus.blank@interpret-europe.net.

Typo3, WordPress, or any other web content management system
Basic html knowledge
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
MS Office
Databases (Libre-Base, MS Access)
Serial Email software, e.g. Supermailer
Smartphones
etc.

Creating own apps for museums and heritage sites

Interpret Europe — Mon, 19 Dec 2016 22:00:00 +0000

Did you ever want to create an own app for your heritage site but feel that this was far beyond your budget? Because this is too often the case, we thought about a solution.

As a former service provider for developing mobile applications for different cultural institutions in Germany, we discovered a big gap between the theoretical requirements of museums and other heritage sites for adequate digital mobile solutions and the possibilities in the real world. This gap is mainly caused by the high costs of developing useful mobile applications on the one side and the available budgets on the other side, especially for small museums.

In Germany there are about 6,000 museums of different sizes. But only a few of them can accomplish mobile application projects. The same situation prevails in other countries. We realised that there was a certain blueprint behind every request.

So we analysed the requirements and planned to improve this constellation by developing an easy-to-use software based upon these requirements.

With this software – or building kit – museums, cultural institutions and natural and cultural heritage sites should be able to create apps themselves without the need for expensive agencies or programmers. We worked for over one year and came up with our solution called KULDIG, which stands for Kultur Digital – a German-English hybrid.

The institutions can initially define the basic aspects of the app, like audio guide or multimedia guide, target platform (Android and/or iOS) and so on. Afterwards, they select from different modules, e.g. map, list, qr-code scanner or information about the museum. Finally, the user adds content, like text, images, documents or audio and video sequences. The last step is to simply click a button and our software builds and distributes the finished app to the previously defined app stores. It is also possible to use the app in-house with its own hardware. For this case we also offer cost-effective devices with special launchers based upon Android and iOS to institutions if it is needed.

Since KULDIG works like a so-called content management system (CMS), the user can revise and update the content as often as necessary or desired. It is also possible to add or remove certain elements, like venues or exhibits, at any time. These changes don’t need any update via app stores and they can be made available to users immediately. Other more profound changes, like adding more languages to the app, do need to be distributed through the app store, but they are less frequently required and are still easy to handle.

So far, we have reached our aim to build a solution for closing the above-mentioned gap and offer museums and other institutions the opportunity to create apps independently at a low cost level.

The official launch of KULDIG will take place in January 2017 with the possibility for 50 museums or cultural institutions to use our software free of charge for one year. But there is no time for rest; we want to go further with KULDIG. So we will add our own indoor navigation solution in the first half of 2017. Furthermore, we plan to integrate augmented reality and other sophisticated technologies as modules which the user can choose from.

Dennis Willkommen studied Ancient History, Latin and Sports management in Leipzig. He has been in the web and app business since 2011, is founder and CEO of DroidSolutions with its product KULDIG (www.kuldig.de) and has also worked since 2013 as a lecturer for mobile marketing and app development. He can be contacted at: d.willkommen@droidsolutions.de

To cite this article:
Wilkommen, D. (2016) ‘Creating own apps for museums and heritage sites’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 4-2016, 15

Available online:
http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2016-4_winter.pdf

New Media Consortium horizon report: 2016 museum edition

Interpret Europe — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 22:00:00 +0000

The report is about trends in using digital technologies in museum education and interpretation. It was conducted by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and Balboa Park Online Collaborative (BPOC) in collaboration with 40 international expert panel members.
The New Media Consortium (NMC) is a community of universities, colleges, museums, and research centres that promotes and explores use of digital technologies for learning and creativity. The NMC (www.nmc.org) was founded in 1993 by a group of hardware manufacturers, software developers (Apple Computer, Adobe Systems, Macromedia, and Sony) and publishers. The NMC Horizon Project was launched in 2002 and the first report (higher education) was released in 2004. The Museum Edition of the Horizon Reports has been running since 2010. All content is published under a Creative Commons license.
The 2015 report was a great source for the Technological Trends chapter of the Interpret Europe’s (2016) European trends and developments affecting heritage interpretation. The last year’s report is available via http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2015-museum-edition/.
The 2016 report contains 58 pages and is divided into three main topics:

Key trends
Significant challenges
Important developments

Each topic is discussed within three different horizons in terms of time to adoption or solvability (challenges). The content is enriched with numerous successful examples of technology use in museums.

Topics from the 2016 report:
1. Key Trends Accelerating Technology Adoption in Museums
Long-Term Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in museums for five or more years

Cross-Institution Collaboration
New Roles for Museum Professionals

Mid-Term Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in museums for three to five years

Data Analytics for Museum Operations
Personalisation

Short-Term Trends: Driving Ed Tech adoption in museums for the next one to two years

Mobile Content and Delivery
Participatory Experiences

2. Significant Challenges Impeding Technology Adoption in Museums
Solvable Challenges: Those that we understand and know how to solve

Developing Effective Digital Strategies
Improving Digital Literacy of Museum Professionals

Difficult Challenges: Those that we understand but for which solutions are elusive

Improving Accessibility for Disabled Populations
Measuring the Impact of New Technologies

Wicked Challenges: Those that are complex to even define, much less address

Managing Knowledge Obsolescence
Privacy Concerns

3. Important Developments in Technology for Museum Education and Interpretation
Time-to-Adoption Horizon: One Year or Less

Digital Humanities Technologies
Makerspaces

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years

Location Intelligence
Virtual Reality

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Four to Five Years

Information Visualisation
Networked Objects

The NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Museum Edition can be downloaded as PDF via http://www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2016-museum-edition. Quotation: Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., McKelroy, E., Giesinger, C., Yuhnke, B. (2016) NMC Horizon Report: 2016 Museum Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Dr Kaja Antlej is a researcher and designer interested in 3D and other digital technologies in heritage interpretation. She is a Lecturer of Industrial Design at the School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. You can get in touch with her through kaja.antlej@deakin.edu.au.

To cite this article:
Antlej, K. (2016) ‘New Media Consortium horizon report: 2016 museum edition’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 2-2016, 19

Available online:
http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2016-2_summer.pdf

Searching for examples of digital heritage interpretation

Interpret Europe — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 22:00:00 +0000

The Swedish Centre for Nature Interpretation is compiling examples of best practice in digital forms of heritage interpretation. Please send us examples of good, fun, interesting, useful digital interpretation that you have seen!

The objective is to improve digital heritage interpretation and visitor information in Sweden’s 29 national parks and 4 000 nature reserves. The examples we look for could be of interpretation about both cultural and natural heritage. By digital heritage interpretation we mean interpretation that is being communicated with the visitor through for example smartphone apps, websites, digital text boards or audio guides driven by solar panels. The interpretation itself could come in many forms, eg. text, pictures, sound, films, games, tasks and augmented reality. Sometimes the visitor starts to interact with digital interpretation before the visit and continues doing so after the visit. All those kinds of interpretation are of interest to us.

Since we are doing the overview with a visitor perspective we are also interested in examples of how digital heritage interpretation can be combined with regional or national information to visitors about how to get to heritage sites, accommodation and restaurants.

It is also interesting to hear if you have got any feedback from visitors about your digital interpretation, for example through comments or evaluations.

Please send your best examples of digital heritage interpretation to Per Sonnvik at scni@slu.se.

Per Sonnvik is working at the Swedisch Centre for Nature Interpretation (www.slu.se). You can get in touch with him at per.sonnvik@slu.se.

To cite this article:
Sonvik, P. (2016) ‘Searching for examples of digital heritage interpretation’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 2-2016, 30

Available online:
http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2016-2_summer.pdf

World of apps at the 2016 AIP Conference

Interpret Europe — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 22:00:00 +0000

The AIP conference sessions took place this year in Barcelona, focusing on the interesting and controversial issue of, ‘Heritage Interpretation in the app era’.
Various experts were there, discussing a range of topics.

Firstly, we saw how different applications are dominating, especially those designed for closed spaces, such as art museums, interpretation centres, castles and archaeological sites. The focus then turned to open spaces, especially natural areas.

Among the many applications used since they first appeared, we need to add video game technology and highly spectacular virtual reality techniques to things like mapping.

It appears that new technology could follow the principles of Tilden, albeit with some limitations to their use in open spaces and for flora and fauna.

The biggest advantages of apps are:

–   easy access to information and applications to interact with the general public in real-time, without the need of materials (maps, labels, etc.);
–   new generations, born and raised on apps, using them to interact with the language and knowledge;
–   the enjoyment they bring to exhibitions and events once they are over, or to see more elusive perspectives and dimensions, such as, for example, the different layers of paint in a painting, internal structures of objects, the passing of time, or how something was done;
–   supplementing a live experience in many way, such as, for example, showing an altarpiece or original construction that no longer exists.

However, it also reveals some limitations too:

–   the need for good network connections throughout a visit, or easy downloads and the importance of being user-friendly;
–   the difficulty to create a good app isn’t in the technology but ensuring they have good content. Many disappear quickly;
–   being clear about how to show what makes something unique rather than just applying a standard method or technique;
–   the limits of accessibility. Natural limitations exist for people with disabilities such as the blind of deaf, as well as for those with different abilities to understand the technology, or the content itself, such as the elderly;
–   the need to assess if the tool (or app) is not the most important feature at the end of the experience, that the resources display and divert our attention only in terms of the technology used. This is especially relevant for a younger audience who has learned to use the technology.

The conference concluded with a field test in the Born Cultural Centre, where participants could test a new application and how suited it was in relation to the interpretive principles. It was an interesting meeting that opened up new perspectives on the use of technology in the world of interpretation.

Evarist March is Director of Naturalwalks, a company focusing on nature guiding in Catalonia and Spanish speaking countries East and West of the Atlantic. You can get in touch with him at info@naturalwalks.com.

To cite this article:
March, E. (2016) ‘World of apps at the 2016 AIP Conference’. In Interpret Europe Newsletter 1-2016, 15

Available online:
http://www.interpret-europe.net/fileadmin/Documents/publications/Newsletters/ie-newsletter_2016-1_spring.pdf