Connecting with your stakeholders before the project was born
In recent years, the active participation of the audiences in the co-creation process of digital collections and editorial content has increased. Now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the capacity of connecting with a broader audience and the opportunities of having more digital heritage education content has grown. For this reason, to succeed in the development and launch of digital heritage educational resources for young people all stakeholders must be involved including the audience before the project was born.
Understanding digital engagement
Digital engagement is defined as the capacity of keeping the interest of someone on something through digital technologies.
As it is explained in the essay of Week 6, three dimensions of engagement can be defined:
- Behavioral engagement: participants are more motivated (Skinner, Kindermann & Furrer 2009).
- Emotional engagement: participants have powerful affective relationships like interest, enjoyment, or a sense of belonging (Trowler 2010).
- Cognitive engagement: the participant’s impact on the project is bigger as they try to be more involved (Wang, Bergin & Bergin 2014).
Three of them can be developed with digital means as it is the relationship between the content and the technological means which engage with the audience. As young people use technology very often, it is the way the content is displayed that engages them apart from other disruptive technological advances which attract them due to newness. In this process, the digital storytelling, the gamification processes, the capacity of digital immersion, and the ways of learning and perceiving what is around them with their senses are really important.
For this reason, digital engagement is the key process for connecting with young people very quickly if the strategy is well developed.
Developing and implementing a digital engagement strategy with your stakeholders
In the case of the stakeholders, the most important steps start before beginning the project. You need to know their interests to connect with them and establish common objectives and attractive outcomes which can be advantageous to both sides. After that and during all the process to maintain an engageable relationship based on great motivation all will be good.
In the case of the audience, it is important to know their interests to reach them. Once you have connected you need to involve them in your projects and to promote active participation in both directions as Visser and Richardson (2013) explain in their methodology for developing a digital engagement strategy for heritage, museums, culture, and art, The Digital Engagement Framework.
Bibliography
- Skinner, E.A., Kindermann, T.A., & Furrer, C.J. (2009): A motivational perspective on engagement and disaffection: conceptualization and assessment of children’s behavioral and emotional participation in academic activities in the classroom. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 69: 493–525
- Trowler, V. (2010). Student Engagement Literature Review. The Higher Education Academy.
- Visser, J., & Richarson, J. (2013). Digital Engagement in culture, heritage, and arts. Available on “https://digitalengagementframework.com/digenfra3/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Digital_engagement_in_culture_heritage_and_the_arts.pdf” [Viewed: 24 April 2021].
- Wang, Z., Bergin, C., & Bergin, D.A. (2014). Measuring engagement in fourth to twelfth-grade classrooms: The classroom engagement inventory. School Psychology Quarterly, 29(4): 517–535.
