European museums and digital education initiatives. A case study.

Families. Arts and Culture in Education Research Repository. CC BY-NC-ND

The sources from this study are limited to the information the author could compile from now. If you would like to contribute to this study with more information about other digital education activities available in reports or other websites missing in the museums of this study, check the complete spreadsheet and write an email to dheducationproject@gmail.com with the source and the data missing.

Introduction

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic helped to foster the digital transformation of the cultural heritage sector. Some reports from organizations around Europe have shown the interest from policymakers and cultural heritage institutions on making the digital shift (i.e. Axiell 2020; European Commission 2020; Europeana Foundation 2020a,2020b; Europa Nostra 2020; ICOM 2020; NEMO 2020, 2021), but it has also served to highlight the significant inequalities across the continent.

In the case of museums, they have become more open, international, and ubiquitous in the ways of connecting with visitors and showing all its contents. Heritage education in museums has also been adapted developing during this time digital programs, distance learning initiatives, and tools for schools, families, and lifelong learning.

Objectives

In this case study, the aims will be to get information from different types of sources to know the typology and quantity of digital education initiatives developed in European museums by attending to the audience to whom these initiatives are addressed and the relationship between physical and digital activities to evaluate creativity and engagement.

Sources, variables, and dimensions of the variables

For this case study, 49 European national museums were chosen. They are well-known across the country and from an international perspective. They have a great budget, a bigger educational staff and therefore, they should be more innovative as a beacon for medium and small-size museums in their countries. Otherwise, there is also a local and regional museum with great educational digital initiatives but this study is only a general overview.

The sources used for this study will be the periodic reports from European museums and other organizations (i.e. ICOM, NEMO), statistics from the European group on museum statistics, external resources (i.e. European research projects working with museums; websites (i.e. ICOM news, NEMO news or Europeana Pro), social networks, OER map or digitalmuseums.at).

The variables studied are the geographical location of the museums, type of museum, type of educational activity, type of audience.

The dimensions for each variable are:

• Geographical location: country (ISO Country Code), city
• Type of museum: type of cultural heritage (archaeological, anthropological, ethnographical, various, etc)
• Type of educational activity: presence or absence of educational activities (yes/no question), the modality of the activity (physical or digital), type of physical activities (Workshop, tour), type of digital content (children 5–12, teen 13–17, adults 18–30)
• Type of audience: audience of physical activities, the audience of digital activities.

Results from the study

It is markable from this study the lack of digital resources and possibilities of engagement from their platforms from now on and the lack of physical and digital activities addressed to young people in activity number and typology.

38 out of 49 museums have physical and digital activities, 10 out of 49 only physical and 1 out of 49, the State Museum of San Marino, the educational activities are unknown.

Fig. Number of Museum according to the modality of the activities, Raul Gomez Hernandez, CC BY-SA

25 out of 49 museums have digital activities for children, 17 out of 49 have digital activities for teens, and 16 out of 49 specifically for adults.

It depends on whether the geographical distribution is more or less digitally developed. Some digital resources could be considered educational or for engagement as digital collections or virtual visits so they are not taking into account in this graph.

Fig. Number of museums according to the audience of digital activity, Raul Gomez Hernandez, CC BY-SA

Nordic museums and more economically powerful countries and medium-bigger sizes have a greater diversity of resources but there are some local and regional museums in eastern Europe with great digital initiatives and less budget too.

Fig. GPD per capita at PPP, IMF- Eupedia, 2019, CC BY

Discussion

Taking the results from this study, we need to ask if young people are not important for museums or maybe young people are not interested in museums and for this reason, there are not enough activities. Maybe the digital transformation and the budget of the educational departments are key to this data.

Some researchers (i.e. Packer and Ballantyne 2002; Dindler & Eversen 2009; Falk & Dierken 2011; Aljas 2012; Fantoni et al. 2012; Funda 2017; Wang 2020) have observed a correlation between motivation, participation, and engagement in museums and cultural heritage sites, so as it can be seen, it can solve it rethinking the way the digital educational heritage materials for young people are created highlighting the values of cultural heritage and the place as a sensory space (Wang 2020) related to their life changes and motivations.

Bibliography

• Aljas, Agnes (2012). Audience participation as the framework of activities for museums and heritage institutions. ICME koduleht: ICME annual conference “The Challenging Museum/Challenging the Museum”, Shanghai, China, 8.-10.11.2010. Available on “http://icme.mini.icom.museum/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2019/01/ICME_2010_Aljas.pdf” [Viewed: 7 March 2021].
• Axiell (2020): Culture at a crossroads: digital transformation in the age of COVID-19. 2020 GLAM Digital Transformation Survey Findings. Available on “https://wwwaxiellcom.cdn.triggerfish.cloud/uploads/2020/12/2020culturesectordigitaltransformationreport.pdf" [Viewed: 27 April 2021]
• Dindler, C. & Iversen, O. (2009). Motivation in the Museum: Mediating Between Everyday Engagement and Cultural Heritage. Nordic Design Research Conferences, online. Available on “https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christian-Dindler/publication/312295067_Motivation_in_the_Museum_-_Mediating_Between_Everyday_Engagement_and_Cultural_Heritage/links/5878c04308ae8fce49325366/Motivation-in-the-Museum-Mediating-Between-Everyday-Engagement-and-Cultural-Heritage.pdf”[Viewed: 7 March 2021].
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• Europa Nostra (2020): COVID-19 & Beyond.Challenges and Opportunities for Cultural Heritage. October 2020 “https://www.europanostra.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/20201014_COVID19_Consultation-Paper_EN.pdf” [Viewed: 7 March 2021].
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• NEMO (2020): Survey on the impact of the COVID-19 situation on museums in Europe Final Report “https://www.nemo.org/fileadmin/Dateien/public/NEMO_documents/NEMO_COVID19_Report_12.05.2020.pdf” [Viewed: 7 March 2021].
• NEMO (2021): Follow-up survey on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on museums in Europe “https://www.nemo.org/fileadmin/Dateien/public/NEMO_documents/NEMO_COVID19_FollowUpReport_11.1.2021.pdf “[Viewed: 7 March 2021].
• Packer, J. and Ballantyne, R. (2002), Motivational Factors and the Visitor Experience: A Comparison of Three Sites. Curator: The Museum Journal, 45: 183–198.
• Wang, Siyi (2020): Museum as a Sensory Space: A Discussion of Communication Effect of Multi-Senses in Taizhou Museum, Sustainability 12(7): 3061.

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