Experiences & Partnerships

Experiences & Partnerships

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    Item type:Journal article,
    Access for Everyone
    (1990-07)
    Wenham, Valerie
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    Item type:Journal article,
    Going Deeper than ‘Emotional Impact’: Heritage, Academic Collaboration and Affective Engagements
    (2022-03)
    Fielding, Anna
    Organisations such as the National Trust have recently looked to academia to assist them in the telling of their properties’ stories and contexts. Academia has similarly turned to heritage organisations and sites for audiences they can engage in their variously funded projects, and to fulfil the requirements of the REF (Research Excellence Framework) when it comes to research dissemination. However, the benefits of academic and heritage collaboration go much deeper than these initial mutual attractions. Collaboration can change the nature of audience engagement through affect theory and affective interpretation. This can cause a re†envisioning of what emotional engagement with a historic site means and highlight the affective potential of heritage visits. This article shows, through case studies, arguments taken from the disciplines of history and heritage studies, and personal experience, how using affective interpretation can convey more complex research in longer†lasting and more meaningful ways when academia and heritage work together.
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    Item type:Journal article,
    Virtual Avebury: exploring sense of place in a virtual archaeology simulation
    (2020-07-08)
    Falconer, Liz
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    Burden, David
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    Cleal, Rosamund
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    Hoyte, Ralph
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    Phelps, Phillip
    This paper describes and discusses creating and evaluating a virtual reality simulation of Avebury Stone Circle and Henge complex as it might have appeared and sounded circa 2300 BCE. Avebury is a Neolithic heritage site in the UK which is part of the Stonehenge, Avebury and associated sites UNESCO World Heritage Site. The overall aim of the project was to better understand the sense of place and presence that visitors can experience in virtual simulations of heritage sites. We investigated how virtual spaces might become experienced as places by visitors through their exploration, active participation, sensory stimulation and communication with other visitors in the simulation. More than 1200 members of the public experienced the simulation, both at Avebury itself and at three public exhibitions. The specific objectives of the project were to explore if and how the believability of a simulation was associated with feeling a sense of place in the virtual landscape, and if some personal characteristics, viz. age, disability, sex, immersive tendency, familiarity with IT and frequency of playing computer games, were associated with levels of enjoyment in, and learning from, the simulation. We analysed the data from a detailed questionnaire completed by 388 of the 702 visitors to Avebury from June to September 2018 who experienced the simulation, supported by observational data from all participants at all events. We found that believability was associated with a sense of place in the simulation, i.e. that the more believable the simulation appeared, the greater the sense of place experienced by the participants. We also found that personal characteristics had very little influence upon visitor reactions to the simulation, suggesting that such simulations might have wide appeal for heritage and museum visitors, regardless of age, gender or familiarity with technology.HighlightsMore than 1200 members of the public experienced a 3D, fully immersive simulation of Avebury Henge, Wiltshire, UK over a nine-month period.We found patterns of use and familiarity with information technology (IT), and using mobile technologies for gaming, that did not follow age and gender stereotypes.We found little correlation between age, gender and IT familiarity with reactions to Virtual Avebury, suggesting that such simulations might have wide appeal for heritage site visitors.
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    Item type:Book chapter,
    Collaborating across Heritage and Higher Education to Reveal the Global History of Osterley Park House
    Reed, Claire
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    Smith, Kate
    Smith and Reed's chapter explores a cross-sector collaboration that primarily took place between members of the East India Company at Home project and Osterley Park House between 2012 and 2013. Culminating in the 'Trappings of Trade' display in 2013, the collaboration brought together different communities to consider the ways in which Osterley's material past prior to its acquisition by the National Trust was shaped by its owners' connections to the East India Company. This chapter examines the benefits and challenges of sharing expertise, knowledge and resources across multiple sectors to co-produce research and exhibition materials.
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    Item type:Journal article,
    Discovering the local in national cultural heritage collections. How web maps can help the UK public engage with their ‘own places’
    (2022-10-09)
    Rees, Gethin
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    Hunt, Alex
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    Vitale, Valeria
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    Horgan, John
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    Strachan, Peter
    Identity is a critical influence on the public’s engagement with cultural heritage. This article emphasises the role of geographical scale in this relationship examining how the presentation of local heritage can foster meaningful engagement with collections. The geographical information embedded in digital collections–such as where objects were made or the locations they depict and describe–can help varied audiences to discover digital heritage records that are significant to them. Yet the interactive web maps used by cultural heritage organisations have not presented the breadth of collections effectively. Audience research conducted by the Locating a National Collection project offered insights into how the presentation of local heritage using web maps can broaden engagement. A survey explored the values, motivations and identities of the UK public in relation to geography and web technologies. ‘Pretotypes’ or sketches of interfaces prompted focus groups to offer insights into interface design and the suitability of collections. The public were not only interested in heritage connected to the area where they reside but also a range of familiar locations drawn from memory, genealogy and community, termed their ‘own places’. Only particular collections offer geographical information of suitable quality and distribution to support engagement with familiar locations at a local scale. This user-centred approach can help organisations to design web maps that help audiences discover the parts of collections they find meaningful. The article offers the first step in a pathway to achieving social impact such as community building through digital collections.
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