EXPERIENCE THE FUTURE INTERNET

2013

THE FUTURE INTERNET IS PLAYING A KEY ROLE IN ENHANCING EXPERIENCE AT CULTURAL AND HERITAGE CENTRES
FOUNDATION OF THE HELLENIC WORLD SMART VENUE
The Foundation of the Hellenic World (FHW) is a non-profit cultural heritage institution working to preserve and disseminate Hellenic culture, historical memory and tradition through the creative use of state-of-the-art multimedia and technology. Using highly advanced 3D technology, the stunning virtual reality installations let visitors take virtual tours through detailed reconstruction of heritage sites, enabling viewers to explore them in a way never achieved before.

ENHANCING VISITOR EXPERIENCE

Visitor learning requires motivation, presence and interactivity to promote engagement, understanding and recall of exhibits and content. Museums are increasingly using technology to achieve these goals and to reach wider audiences. FMI technologies can provide new ways to learn something of historical and scientific value, whilst offering exciting new experiences. The Foundation of the Hellenic World is an EXPERIMEDIA smart venue offering live events, communities, and infrastructure for research and testing of innovative technologies supporting new forms of social interaction and experience. Check out what others are doing at EXPERIMEDIA
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BENEFITS OF TECHNOLOGY TRIALS AT FHW

FHW can help developers understand how new technologies can improve learning experiences from cultural assets. Technologies trialed at FHW engage communities directly in co-creation and evaluation. FHW allows tests with groups attending the museum along with access to exhibitions, infrastructure and cultural assets.

NextGen Digital Domes

learning

interaction
and participation
MOTIVATION
Just as interactive exhibits were introduced in museums to accommodate the educational needs and desires of young audiences, participatory elements in traditional virtual reality shows have the potential to draw in audiences for whom creative activities and social connection are important for cultural engagement. Learning is most powerful when it is immersive, multi-sensory, and interactive. FMI technologies offer new ways to harness the power of the new media for traditional virtual reality shows in immersive digital domes such as Tholos. In this experiment FHW explored new ways to engage audiences during virtual reality exhibitions. How can remote experts be incorporated into presentations and interact with learning groups? How can participants contribute to the narrative in real-time influencing what an educator displays to the audience? Learning groups can interactively participate in conversations with Enhancing learning experiences by providing interactive conversations within groups and with external experts during immersive cultural presentations

ENHANCING USER EXPERIENCE

other group members, educators and remote experts live during Dome presentations. Visitors can change the direction of the narrative based on their own learning objectives. By increasing social interaction individuals have a more memorable museum experience.

BENEFITS TO FHW
NextGen Digital Domes demonstrated to FHW how future exhibitions could be produced that increase the learning experience for participants.

TECHNICAL INNOV ATION

The participation of a remote expert using live audio and video for real-time communication allowed for an exciting and professional setting for visitors. The broadcast of the video feed from the Digital Dome was mandatory for the participation of remote experts but was also used to promote the program across the web using social media. The Facebook app and the ability of concurrent communication of the visitors with an expert but also among themselves created new interactions ensuring the experience was more social and exciting. The use of Augmented Reality (AR) before the show offered an interactive and fun experience but also disseminated serious historical information using innovative technologies, creating the link and high anticipation about the virtual reality show.

Inclusion of experts increased the perception of quality, the live broadcast attracted a remote audience who were interested in the event. The use of Facebook chat produced more audience questions and answers than standard presentations. T: +30 2122548061 E: christop@fhw.gr Dimitris Christopoulos

FUTURE OPPORTNITIES
FHW will use the results of the experiment when designing future exhibitions at the Tholos Dome

KEY FEATURES:
LIVE STRE AMING: Live broadcast of Dome video feeds to support real-time communication with scientific experts during shows. AU GMENTED RE ALI TY: Pre-show exploration of digital artifacts to hook and prepare participants. SOCI AL NETW ORKIN G: Chat and Q&A during presentations using social networking communities.

BLUE

human attributes

social networks
physical spaces
MOTIVATION
BLUE targets the enhancement of museum visitors' experience by using mobile and social technologies. Visitors want to see exhibitions that are aligned with their interests but also will get a better experience if content is provided in a way that matches their learning styles. How can cognitive, visiting styles and interests of visitors be classified using social network gaming? With the visitors profiled its essential that the exhibitions can adapt to the varying needs to create personalised guides with targeted content. How can exhibitions be dynamically enriched with content to accommodate the interests of many visitors at once, increasing the venues allure and attracting more visitors without substantial investment? Visitors are offered personalised experiences that considers individual learning styles and interests. Social gaming provides a fun way to engage with the venue prior to the visit. Enhancing ence using visitor experi-

ENHANCING USER EXPERIENCE

personalised

museum visits based on cognitive, learning style and interest profiling

BENEFITS TO FHW
FHW gain a deep understanding of visitor interests and are able to adapt and enrich exhibitions with minimal investment reaching a larger visitor profile. Social networks increased the duration of visitor attention prior and

TECHNICAL INNOV ATION

The BLUE experiment published the My Museum Story on Facebook, allowing anyone to create their own virtual museum while gaming. From this, an individuals cognitive profile and interests related to the FHW exhibitions is compiled. Visitors use mobile tablets with a My Museum Guide application, offering them a personalised visit. With this, they benefit from personalised content and guidance, and can comment on and take photos of their visit, which they are able to share with friends on their social network. BLUE contributes to the FMI challenges in general, developing the technical capabilities of museum-like venues and extending them to the on-line world. BLUE tools contribute to the content creation of various forms by users and to the adaptive delivery process that operates across the combination of environment, and sharing of experience.

after the visit.

FUTURE OPPORTNITIES
The experiment demonstrated that profiling can improve the quality of the visitor experience and can add value to future exhibitions. Further research is necessary with a larger sample to determine if the recommended point of interest descriptions were responsible for the improved experiences. Angeliki Antoniou T: +30 2710 3722 64 E: angelant@uop.gr E: yannick.naudet@tudor.lu Yannick Naudet

KEY FEATURES:
PSYCO LO GIC AL PRO FI LIN G: Classify the cognitive and learning styles of visitors. PERSON ALISED CON TENT: Dynamically adapt media content to visitor profiles. SOCI AL NETW ORK I NTEG R ATI ON: Engage with the venue and communities before, during and after the visit.

REENACT

serious

games and
immersive media
MOTIVATION
REENACT is a new kind of collective experience involving visitors, museum educators and expert historians to reinforce the understanding of major historical events that have shaped the history of the Hellenic world. The REENACT system engages groups of people in an immersive collective experience that tells them about a certain battle or war both from the inside, as re-enactors, and from the outside, as historians. Participants learn about the prelude, the course and the aftermath of the event with the aid of multimedia content and experts. The combination of resources (augmented reality, 3D and audiovisual content, serious games) is novel from the point of view of participants, educations, museum staff and managers and from the technology perspective. Visitors can engage in a new form of interactive role playing game allowing them to participate more effectively in learning about historical events. Enhancing vistor experi-

ENHANCING USER EXPERIENCE

ence using gamification of learning, collective interactive role playing and immersive experiences

BENEFITS TO FHW
REENACT can be an additional outlet (and an added value) for the outstanding multimedia content

produced by the FHW, as well as a new attraction for museum visitors that allows them to live and understand historical events in the first person, with technology-enhanced

TECHNICAL INNOV ATION

REENACT helped to advance research on the implementation of an application that enables new live and collective experiences in cultural and educational venues, using tactile mobile devices, big screens and sound systems to provide an augmented reality vision similar to a multiplayer role game. Social networking features were used to enable interactions among visitors, geographically-distributed experts and museum guides, shaping new shared edutainment experiences. The EXPERIMEDIA facility provided suitable technological resources to develop the proposal, most notably a powerful environment to orchestrate events in live multiuser games (part of the Pervasive Content Component) and a fullyfledged tool to deal with the set up, run and evaluation tasks (the Experiment Content Component).

entertainment and social interaction features.

FUTURE OPPORTNITIES
REENACT has led to new research areas for the study of the possibilities of sporadic social networks in different application domains. Several

Martn Lpez Nores E: mlnores@det.uvigo.es

cultural institutions have expressed an interest in adopting the REENACT system.

KEY FEATURES:
G AMIFIC ATI ON: Learn about historical events using interactive role playing games . MULTIP LE DISP LAYS: Explore history through different mediums during reenactment and collective discussions. AU GMENTED RE ALI TY: Explore artifacts and key people from history and their influence on historical events. SOCI AL NETW ORKIN G: Communicate with other players and remote experts before, during and after the learning experience.

EXPERIENCE THE FUTURE INTERNET

Efstathia Chatzi (FHW Smart Venue) Coordination Department of FHW Poulopoulou 38 118 51 Athens T +30 212 2548316 E echatzi@ime.gr W www.fhw.gr

Michael Boniface (Project Coordinator) IT Innovation Centre Gamma House Enterprise Road Southampton England SO16 7NS T +44 23 8059 8866 E info@experimedia.eu W www.it-innovation.soton.ac.uk

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