ARTyFACTS: Designing an online learning environment for art objects

Claire Bradley

Learning Technology Research Institute, University of North London

Co-authors: John Cook, Peter Oriogun, Kathleen Henderson, Anne Baker

Introduction

ARTyFACTS - an online learning environment for

users to engage with art objects

An on-going research project

Funded from a small grant from the Arts and

Humanities Research Board in the UK

A collaborative team-based project comprising artists,

lecturers, software engineers, multimedia designers,

musicians, pedagogical scientists and learning

technologists

Project goals

Could we apply digital technologies to provide a rich and multisensory experience for remote users to engage with art objects?

Allow users to get under the skin of culture by offering simultaneous layers of meaning and supplementary contextual data

Provide a system which galleries, museums or owners of collections could use for their own artifacts

Meet the needs of a range of users– formal learning - students, art historians, curators, etc.– informal learning - art lovers, tourists, etc.

The scope of the project

The project focussed on 4 areas to explore if these goals were achievable:– the design of the learning environment– system architecture and design of a customisable

multisensory toolkit (CM toolkit)– development of a small prototype to be able to test the

environment design and architecture– evaluation of the prototype

This presentation will focus on:– design considerations– the prototype learning environment created– areas identified for further development

Design considerations 1

The design of the environment centred on a key research question:

can extensive information, sound, media, images, data and hyperlinks relating to an object be successfully interfaced to give a sense of that object to a remote viewer?

Pedagogic approach:– based on constructivist principles - enabling rich

user-centred interactions and the social construction of knowledge via a multimedia learning environment

Design considerations 2

Applying digital technologies– current digital imaging techniques - reveal the

layers of detail and information normally invisible in artworks

– by digitising available records and constructing models we can contribute to the digital preservation of artworks and provide richer contextual information

• e.g. photos, video clips, press articles, critiques• virtual models, reconstructions and simulations

Design considerations 3

– The integration of databases and knowledge-based systems - enable objects and information to be classified, stored and retrieved via user choice or a computer-based agent

– The Internet as a delivery platform allows:• access to everyone with an Internet connection (no

physical distribution)• delivery of multimedia content (Flash-based

animations and interactive movies, streaming media, QuickTime VR panoramas or models)

• access to further Internet-based resources

Design considerations 4

Development of user profiles – the aim was to base the presentation of content and

its retrieval from the database upon user profiles– so that data components presented are more closely

related to user’s interests– initially 7 user types were identified– for the prototype these were narrowed down to 3

profiles:• art historian, artist and tourist• each was outlined in a specification

Design considerations 5

Architecture of the Customisable Multimedia (CM) Toolkit– the main objective of the toolkit design was to devise a

system design that would allow components to be re-used - by the developers or museum/gallery curators

– the architecture was specified using software engineering techniques

– 6 modules were identified: web page and service manager, web services, user manager, object handlers, search engine, database management

– the result is a generic architecture for generating multisensory learning environments

The ARTyFACTS prototype system

The prototype system was intentionally kept small in its scope to enable our research aims to be explored and then evaluated to gain feedback

Content selection and creation - limited to 2 art objects

Art object 1: The Doge

Portrait of Leonardo Loredan, the Doge of Venice

Painted by Giovanni Bellini

in 1501-1504

Courtesy of The National Gallery, London

Art object 2: The House

House

Site-specific sculpture created by Rachel Whiteread

Concrete cast of a 3-story terraced house

1993 - demolished in 1994

Courtesy of The Anthony D’Offay Gallery, London, and Rachel Whiteread

Entering the learning environment

Users enter the learning environment from an opening screen

From here they select a user profile and enter the environment

The user interfaceThe 2 art objects

Navigational device

Access to the available multimedia resources is via the spiral

The spiral provides a simplistic visual representation of the available resources and their contextual relevance to the central object

Resources are represented by thumbnail icons

Map of the area of Venice

Description of the Doge’s hat

The learning experience

For each artwork, a unique learning experience unfolds– the learner chooses what they want to look at, firstly

by selecting a profile that matches their interests, and then by selecting from the available multimedia resources

For The Doge painting contextual material provides examples of what 16th century Venice was like

For The House resources include press articles and photographs of the sculpture, including photos of it being demolished

Areas for further development

Usability

Test the CM Toolkit model

Incorporate metadata and comply with developing

standards for learning objects and learning environments

- will facilitate scaling-up and re-usability

Improve user profiling to utilise intelligent agents

Extend the functionality of the learning environment to

enable interaction and communication amongst users

Enhance the multisensory learning experience

Conclusions

The project has provided a vehicle for the exploration of a number of areas of interest to the project team

The goal was to try and develop online systems and multisensory learning environments, which are vital to enable the enhanced learning experiences required for engaging with art objects > e-learning, lifelong learning, informal learning

By harnessing and applying digital online technologies we can more successfully create a rich learning experience for remote audiences and provide opportunities that are not possible in the physical world

Contact details

Claire Bradley

Learning Technology Research Institute, University of North London

c.bradley@unl.ac.uk

http://www.unl.ac.uk/ltri/