museumsandtheweb.com - community

Museum as Memoryscape: The Virtual Shtetl Portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews

memoryscape — Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:03:42 +0000

MW2012

Pauline Sliwinski, Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Poland

http://www.sztetl.org.pl

Abstract

Program Item Reference:

Museum as Memoryscape: The Virtual Shtetl Portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Rich Cherry — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 05:36:06 +0000

MW2012

Erica Gangsei, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, USA

www.sfmoma.org/artgamelab

Program Item Reference:

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

MyBatMitzvahStory and Living the Legacy

pdash — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:26:40 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

education

Keywords:

cultural education

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

Media

Keywords:

interactivity

Abstract:

We have recently launched a new site called MyBatMitzvahStory.org which is part of the Jewish Women’s Archive education program. The site targets girls who are of bat mitzvah age (11-13) and helps them explore and express their emerging identities as Jewish women. We are particularly excited about the interactive features of the site, such as quizzes that help related girls to other “Cool Jewish Women,” a journal to record their thoughts and feelings, and sections for describing their personal heroes and imagining what their future life as a Jewish woman will be. The site also includes a presentation tool which allows users to create slideshows using media either provided by JWA, available on YouTube, or uploaded by the user herself. MyBatMitzvahStory is a way to expand JWA’s audience to a new age group and provides an avenue for these girls to connect to the Jewish community, their heritage, and the women they are becoming. It also is a step towards thinking of our website not as solely content to be delivered to the user, but a way for the user to deliver and create her own content and story.

In conjunction with MyBatMitzvahStory, we would also like to demonstrate a section of jwa.org called “Living the Legacy” (http://jwa.org/livingthelegacy), which is targeted towards Jewish Educators. It is a new online curriculum that uses primary sources to explore the role of American Jews in the Civil Rights and Labor Movements. Educators working in both formal and informal settings can use the materials in their entirety or choose individual lessons to teach.

Living the Legacy pushes the envelope in terms of providing teachers with an intuitive set of tools to explore, edit, and build lesson plans incorporating some, or all, of the JWA-provided materials, while also including the teacher’s own materials. The goal was to create a media-rich website with a wealth of primary sources from the archive that works with the teacher, while also suggesting a variety of ways to approach each section, rather than force the teacher to use our materials our way, and rather than limit the teacher to materials from our site only.

Like “MyBatMitzvahStory.org,” the “Living the Legacy” curriculum emphasizes providing core tools and primary resources without limiting teachers or students to what happens to be available from our site only. It is our first step into a broader semantic web.

We are very excited about both of these new programs at JWA, and believe they are a step forward for JWA, Jewish education, and online archives in general.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

MW2012 Demonstrations I

Site:

http://mybatmitzvahstory.org

Authors:

Patrick Dash

Ari Davidow

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

egangsei — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 01:41:13 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Keywords:

games

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

crowdsourcing

Keywords:

analog/digital

Keywords:

audience interaction

Keywords:

prototyping

Abstract:

At Museums and the Web 2011, I proposed and led an unconference session called “Setting Ourselves Up to Fail: Low Cost, Low Stakes Strategies for Visitor Engagement.” About 40 MW attendees participated, and we had a lively discussion and brainstorm on the topic. My current project is an attempt to test out some of the ideas from this session in real space and real time at my museum. ArtGameLab is an interactive exhibition of crowd-sourced game prototypes, displayed and distributed in SFMOMA’s Koret Visitor Education Center. My aim in proposing this paper is to report back on this experiment, using the key principles from my unconference session as measures of the project: What does it mean to be “low cost?” And “low stakes?” How did this project succeed (and fail) in overcoming institutional barriers to experimentation? How can we use games to engage visitors, and how can we measure their engagement?

Several months ago, we sent an open call out to Bay Area game designers, experience designers and conceptual artists. We asked for inventive but low-cost ideas for games SFMOMA’s visitors can play in the galleries and other public spaces of the museum. I received about 50 proposals from community members from a multitude of disciplines and with wide-ranging levels of experience. The proposals varied from the highly-technological to the determinedly-analog, from the absolutely-feasible to the absurdly-farfetched. I am currently collaborating with the artists and designers who submitted the strongest and simplest game ideas to develop: prototypes, proposals for thought-provoking games that cannot be executed, and engaging public programs.

Starting in January 2012, the museum will display this selection of crowd-sourced games onsite, and provide a list of all SFMOMA-based game resources online at sfmoma.org/artgamelab (url not yet active). The exhibition will include hands-on activities, opportunities for discussion, and avenues for critical thought about gaming in museums. Programs around the exhibition will include a panel discussion on the topic, regular “SFMOMA’s Got Game” meet-ups for community members who want to play together, and opportunities for visitors to invent their own games.

The primary goal of this exhibition is to engage SFMOMA’s community in employing vocabularies of game play to test out strategies for visitor engagement. Like a game, I am setting up the parameters but have no idea at this point what the exact substance or outcome will be. This is wholly an experiment, and I wish to share my findings – both successes and failures – with my colleagues in the field at the upcoming Museums and the Web.

Type:

Mini-Workshop - teaches something or explores approaches

Mini-Workshop on SFMOMA’s Art Game Laboratory: Real-Life Mad Science Experiments in Visitor Engagement

Site:

http://www.sfmoma.org/artgamelab

Authors:

Erica Gangsei

building=yes

Aaron Cope — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:11:09 +0000

MW2012

Published Paper:

building=yes

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

architecture

Keywords:

authority records

Keywords:

registries

Keywords:

openstreetmap

Abstract:

building=yes [1] is a project started in 2010 to create stable and unique
identifiers and a webpage for each of the 26 million (and counting) buildings in
the OpenStreetMap [2] project.

Each building has an accurate geographic footprint associated with it as well as
a nested list of place IDs (using the Where On Earth / GeoPlanet
gazeteer). Although many of the buildings still have no meaning metadata this is
seen as a valuable opportunity to encourage increased participation and
individual stewardship of one or more buildings.

This paper will discuss the motivation behind the project, it's technical
implementation and shortcomings as well as future directions. It will also
address the increasingly number and role of community-driven bespoke registries
of cultural artifacts and the fact the Internets make it possible for people to
self-organize around a common interest, effectively collapsing the costs usually
associated with production and distribution, and if communities of amateurs
don't feel like they have any avenues to participate in established projects, or
institutions, then they can and will just do it themselves.

[1] http://buildingequalsyes.spum.org/
[2] http://www.openstreetmap.org/

Type:

Paper - in formal session

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Open

Site:

http://buildingequalsyes.spum.org/

Authors:

Aaron Cope

Museums in perspective: share and discuss daily data about museums and their audiences.

rui — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:28:14 +0000

MW2012

Keywords:

evaluation

Keywords:

social media

Keywords:

analytics

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

engagement

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

strategy

Abstract:

It is common practice among museums to publish quarterly or annual reports that include the museum attendance figures, online visits and more recently information about their social network activities. These figures are generally accepted as indicators of the effectiveness of museums activities both online and offline. While this information can give some hints about how organizations have evolved throughout the years, it is often hard to understand what these values mean without contextualizing them with information from other organizations. For example, what does it mean to have tens of thousands of followers on Twitter? Do the changes on annual attendance numbers reflect a global trend or a new local policy? Some of these questions can be better understood once figures from different cultural organizations are analyzed comparatively.

This paper introduces an online tool that collects information about more than 3000 museums and galleries. The published information includes annual attendance numbers, exhibition attendance numbers, online visits, as well as information about popularity and engagement on social networks. The information that is automatically collected or contributed by organizations can be visualized as interactive graphs and displayed comparatively with information from other organizations. The online tool introduced in this paper is accompanied by an online platform where museum professionals can discuss topics related to the published information, such as, issues and limitations of comparative studies and adequate online and offline strategies.

The information that is now being collected on a daily basis has been previously published in a scattered manner for several years. The Art Newspaper yearly publishes the attendance numbers of the most visited museums and exhibitions world wide. More recently Culture24 has published a report that analyses both website visitors and social network in terms of popularity and engagement of several organizations. Sean Redmond has created an automated data collection tool that daily reports the popularity on Facebook and Twitter of thousands of museums and galleries. At the Walker Art Center a tool has been developed that automatically aggregates and shares information from google analytics of several museums. These initiatives were important precedents that led to the development of an online tool where all this information is cohesively presented and contextualized.

Rather than just introducing an online tool, this paper also presents new insights encountered while developing the tool and comparing data. By listening to the communication channels of more than 3000 museums and galleries, it is possible to infer information specific to the sector. For example, it is possible to answer questions such as: what are the current trends in the sector being discussed on twitter? Which content published by a museum has been most shared online? We hope that by answering these and other questions, organizations will be able to understand better their online and offline presence and finally be able to concentrate on their specific goals rather than on numbers.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Case studies in reading web metrics

Site:

http://www.museum-analytics.org/

Authors:

Rui Guerra

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection: Building a Community of Objects with the National Vending Machine

Jasper Visser — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 00:16:00 +0000

MW2011

Jasper Visser and Dennis Tap, Museum of National History, The Netherlands

http://automatiek.innl.nl

Abstract

Traditionally, museum collections are often the basis of community-building activities. The National Vending Machine of the Museum of National History is attempting to reverse this relation and put the community at the heart of a collection of objects, stories and discussions. After comparing the quantitative and qualitative results of two different instalments of the project, this reversed relation has proven to be viable, as long as a number of things are taken into consideration. Most importantly: the key elements consist of a focus on the audience rather than on the collection, a link between onsite and online, immediate rewards and participatory design.

Keywords: Collection, Community, Digital Cultural Objects, Online / Onsite, Participation, Crowd-sourcing

Program Item Reference:

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection – building a community of objects with the National Vending Machine

The Collective: An Online Creative Community

sarah nuese — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 18:11:56 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

social

Keywords:

interactive

Keywords:

blog

Keywords:

young adults

Keywords:

millenials

Keywords:

community

Abstract:

The Collective is an interactive website/online programming space that connects young adults to the Denver Art Museum’s programs. This site is part of a 3-year project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, to cultivate young adult museum advocates by learning about this emerging audience, building stronger relationships with them, increasing their participation, and ensuring their sustained engagement with a multi-platform approach to communications and programming.

The site fosters exchange and dialogue, serving as framework for conversations about the DAM’s collections and exhibitions. “Digital DIY” projects invite participation and showcase creative projects by users. A blog shares behind-the-scenes stories and viewpoints from museum staff. Pages related to live events at the museum—including “Untitled” final Fridays, “Demo & Do” artist demonstrations, and collaborative “Happenings”—support cross-platform interactions between the DAM and its young adult audience.

At this demonstration, we will tour the site and its features, explore the challenges of establishing an online community, and share insights about young adult audiences.

Type:

Demonstration - show your project

Demonstration V

Site:

http://collective.denverartmuseum.org

Authors:

Lindsey Housel

User-Generated Community

dbear — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 16:36:41 +0000

Type:

Session

Chair:

Nancy Proctor

Programs:

The Amsterdam Museum App – exploring heritage in participatory culture

One-to-one: supporting artist-visitor dialogue

Bringing citizen scientists and historians together

Casgliad y Werin Cymru - People’s Collection Wales: combining museum, library, archive, broadcaster and user-generated content to create “Wales in a website”.

Date & Time:

April 9, 2011 - 1:30pm - 3:30pm

Location:

Washington

user contributed content

community

building community

user community

participatory culture

Required fields are marked with a red asterisk (*).

A confirmation of your registration will be sent to your email address. Please print it out and bring it to the conference.

You will not receive registration confirmation by regular mail.

If you do not receive your confirmation today, please contact us.

Archives & Museum Informatics EIN: 77-0708617; GST / BN 887978914

Description

Our aim is not that our visitors simply provide content, it is that they buiild communities of which we play an important part. How can we create sustained dialogue which the museum and its collections enable, but in which engagement with us is not necessarily the primary motive of others?

Designing activities to encourage online engagement with museum collections

Gail Durbin — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 16:01:11 +0000

MW2011

Keywords:

Activity

Keywords:

user generated content

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

user profiles

Keywords:

content design

Abstract:

This half-day workshop is for people who want to set up online activities for their visitors for the first time or who have some experience of doing this but want to expand or deepen their work. It will focus on the design of activities and not the technology. The aim will be for participants to go home with a number of ideas that they might put into practice on their own websites.

The workshop will combine approaches. There will be intense input using content from a variety of sites but essentially the session will be very practical, with small groups working together to share experience and to solve problems that may have come from their own museum. I plan to contact participants in advance to find out what particular issues they face and or are hoping to find solutions to.

I find it hard to say now what the exact content will be but I will come well prepared with background and stimulus material. We might, for example, think about how we would set up an activity based round the use of Flickr or Twitter or some other off-site facility. We could choose a topic like recycling and devise online activities to encourage debate of the issues. We might think about activities that ended by generating output in the form of a set of postcards from Moo or a book from Blurb. We could discuss the ways of stimulating deep engagement with serious art history or scientific issues. We could test ideas. We might discuss the value of user profiles or the impact of differing learning styles on this type of work or find ways of making connections between the gallery and the website. All participants will have a folder of useful material to take away.

I will work to make the time varied, stimulating, fun, creative, active and participatory and above all I want everyone who attends to find ideas relevant to their own situation and the motivation to go away and carry some of them out. In addition I hope to run the event in a social way so anyone new to the conference will leave this workshop knowing a few people to have a drink with in the days that follow.

Type:

Workshop - full or half day

Designing Activity to Encourage Online Engagement

Authors:

Gail Durbin

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection – building a community of objects with the National Vending Machine

Jasper Visser — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:42:18 +0000

MW2011

Published Paper:

The Community as the Centrepiece of a Collection: Building a Community of Objects with the National Vending Machine

Keywords:

community

Keywords:

collection

Keywords:

participation

Keywords:

online / onsite

Keywords:

digital cultural objects

Keywords:

stories

Abstract:

Most modern-day museums use their existing physical collection and the events they stage as a starting point for online activities. Communities are built around (parts of) the collection or specific offline events of a museum. Literature such as Museum and the Web papers, describes numerous case studies of successful projects.

This paper examines the case of the National Vending Machine of the Museum of National History of the Netherlands. The National Vending Machine is an ongoing project focusing on everyday objects and their historical and personal significance. Its objective is to build a ‘community of objects’ that shows which historical objects are relevant to our audience. Visitor contributions are central to building this community of objects. Through it we gain an understanding of how to engage people with history, culture and the museum. After two instalments of the National Vending Machine at different locations and a number of related activities, a foundation for the community of objects has been established and a number of lessons have been learned about using communities to build a collection.

The project consists of a website and a redesigned traditional Dutch vending machine. Online and offline are linked by RFID technology. The curatorial staff of the museum chose about 100 everyday objects as a starting point for the collection. These were tested with a general audience, and 37 objects were selected to figure in the first instalment. Visitors could discover and buy the objects offline, and add their personal stories online. They were also encouraged to add their own ideas and stories online in order to help expand the community of objects. Although the project received positive feedback from nearly all visitors, only a handful of ideas and stories had been added after a three-month trial period. Interviews with visitors proved the project could be successful, provided some changes were made.

A two-day try-out of an improved interaction model followed, focusing more on personal stories. This led to a redesign of the website. Visitors and their stories were featured whereas the objects and the project were made less prominent. These improvements significantly fostered higher participation in the second instalment of the National Vending Machine.

This paper discusses the five main lessons learned with regard to putting a community at the core of creating an online collection: 1) A focus on the existing collection limits the freedom of visitors to contribute their ideas and stories, whereas 2) a focus on visitors and their stories increases participation and encourages the creation of a varied collection. 3) Offline encouragement is key to creating healthy online engagement. 4) Immediate rewards, physical or virtual, are a strong trigger for participation. 5) The design of both the offline and online environment should be centred on the participant.

The case of the National Vending Machine shows that it is possible, albeit difficult, to make a community the heart of a collection, thus reversing the traditional museum collection model. We believe these conclusions and recommendations to be of substantial value to museums that are planning crowd-sourced expositions or are looking for ways to increase participation with their online collections.

Type:

Paper - in formal session

Collections Online

Site:

http://automatiek.innl.nl

Authors:

Jasper Visser

Dennis Tap