SWOT analysis from the state of digital heritage educational resources in European museums and platforms for young people (12–30 years old)
All data available from the survey can be checked on this spreadsheet. The answers were collected anonymously and under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (“GDPR”). If you know any report and you would like to add more information to the sections, please write an e-mail to dheducationproject@gmail.com.
Introduction
The Digital Heritage Education Project undertook a survey from 28 March to 11 April 2021 to evaluate the state of the digital heritage educational resources in European museums and platforms for young people (12–30 years old) from the experience of four stakeholders: teachers, museum educators, museum content producers, and young people.
The main aim of this survey was to understand:
- the cultural habits of young people related to their use of the internet, their cultural online habits, and their use of digital heritage educational resources and platforms.
- the use of digital cultural heritage in schools and museums from the experience of teachers and museum educators.
- the process of development of digital heritage educational resources from the experience of museum content producers
With the results from this survey and other sources previously analyzed, the main aim of this publication is to highlight the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of this topic in a SWOT analysis.
Previous considerations
The participants who answered the survey undertaken by the Digital Heritage Education Project from 28 March to 11 April 2021 came from 19 different countries of Europe with different levels of education although mostly university levels and different age groups being most of the young people from 18–30 (Fig.1)
The working experience from museum educators, museum content producers, and teachers are diverse coming from museums, art centers, and secondary education institutions respectively.
Every statement made in any section is based on the survey and proved by different reports and the SWOT analysis has been reviewed by four experts each as representative of the four stakeholders.
All answers were collected anonymously and under the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (“GDPR”).
Strengths
- Many museums have an online collection or/and educational platforms.
According to NEMO’s survey (2020) undertaken between March 2020 and May 2020, 4 out of 5 museums increased their digital services and they also increased their online visits. Museum educators affirm their museum has online collections and digital educational content.
The actions should be focused on keeping the educational platforms and content updated and help peers to create their own or create platforms together between some thematic or regional museums.
- Digital content, heritage educational platforms, and interactive activities from the museum’s websites are used by teachers in the classroom and young people for lifelong learning.
According to NEMO’s survey (2020) undertaken between March 2020 and May 2020, the users seek more educational and audiovisual content.
According to Europeana Education surveys (2018, 2019, 2020) and The Digital Heritage Education Project’s survey, the content media preferred by teachers is mainly images followed by video, text, audio, and games. In the case of young people, they preferred video, audio, and games.
Teachers affirm to use in a collaborative way with the students leaving themselves to create from the content or playing a game together or in a lesson showing images, videos or describing something to the students
Creatives create interactive maps, quizzes, games, and videos for young people.
Young people like the resources from the educational platforms to learn more, others to teach others what they learn, and others for inspiration in their professional practice.
The actions should be focused on keeping the audience motivated and interested in the content published on the educational platforms and museum website. It should keep going with updates and improvements of the content creating new content and new formats and disseminating it to the audience.
- Teachers visiting digital heritage websites and educational platforms.
According to The Digital Heritage Education Project’s survey, teachers affirm they like the content (information, educational activities, games…), the interactivity of the learning activities, and the accessibility and navigability of the websites. They give the opportunity to be creative and they are very useful for their lessons.
According to Europeana’s internal statistics, Europeana Classroom was visited in the first year by more than 50,000 people.
- Schools and young people participated in digital activities in museums in the last year.
The museum educators used materials from their online collections during the online visits and the workshops and the teachers used their websites in the classroom to make projects.
Young people also have participated in digital activities such as visits or in digital activities.
The actions can be focused on creating more digital content for this audience.
Weaknesses
- The relationship between museum educators and teachers is not continued.
The museum educators used materials from their online collections during the online visits and the workshops and the teachers used their websites in the classroom to make projects but they do not work together in a long-term initiative or project, except in some cases.
It can be solved by launching digital projects involving schools for a long time implying the collaboration between both educators. They would like to collaborate together but some difficulties as lack of staff, funding, time-pressed, etc make it difficult.
Also, they can create educational materials together they can implement in these projects.
- Although many teachers use heritage educational platforms in their classrooms, there are some of them who do not use them very often.
The teachers affirm they are not trained on it, some of them are hard to navigate, and they have not got enough time.
It can be improved by improving the navigation, raising awareness of platforms between educators, creating more tutorials on the websites, offering more training for teachers to show how they can use easily in the classroom with ready-to-use materials or plans
- Although teachers use heritage educational platforms in their classroom, they miss more interaction among the visitors, lesson plans to do in the classroom, and sometimes some interactive and creative activities.
It can be improved by creating more lesson plans adapted to common learning outcomes for teachers previously created by both educators, creating more interactive activities and a way to work or visit together like a physical visit to a museum collection on the same platform.
Creatives for example say they would like to apply AR or VR, make videos talking to the camera, and interactive activities like active participation in exhibitions. Young people would like to see behind the scenes, the online program updated and more interactive activities.
As a suggestion for more interactive activities, some museum educators say they created short video explanations on the Youtube channel, audio stories, podcast home museums with visitors, digital journals, etc.
- Only a few teachers have participated in a process for improving the activities and learning resources of a museum.
EENC (2015) highlighted some good practices but it was not very common in museums to be very participative. Nowadays with the COVID-19 pandemic and digitalization of the museum, the interaction is bigger but not the participation in decision-making in many aspects or creating content they can find useful.
According to the survey, teachers affirm some museums do not ask teachers about their satisfaction after the activities or what they would improve on it. When they do, museum educators receive positive feedback from teachers and young people.
In the case of creatives, they want to make more participatory activities as testing activities and co-creating activities with young people but they do surveys and arts programs with direct participation of the young people. Young people say some of them have participated in a participatory process in a museum but they would like to participate more
It can be improved by making more participatory processes, expanding the visitor's participation in the museum, and evaluating and improving their programs.
As Simon (2010) says the museums should be a place at the service of the citizens. These institutions should cover the main interests of the people who live around and give the space in the museum for creating art or doing what they need as a cultural place for the local community. Curators should be very involved with their communities giving them a voice to share their stories.
- Museum educators and creatives affirm that the educational content published on their website is not ready-to-use materials for the classroom or applying in lifelong learning.
According to Kennisnet (2019), there are not enough ready-made heritage materials for the classroom and do not align with the learning outcomes and objectives of formal education.
It can be improved by working together in a participative way with all stakeholders involved as museum educators, creatives, teachers, and students to make accessible, well-structured, and ready-to-use materials.
- Although museums have activities and content for young people and lifelong learning they are not enough.
According to The Digital Heritage Education Project’s case study and survey (2021), the number of activities (workshops) and content for young people and lifelong learning is low. It’s only found in 16 out of 41 European museums checked.
It can be improved by creating more digital content for these audiences.
Museum educators affirm there is a lot to improve in education for young people and they suggest to make a better structure on the educational planning, create platforms and activities (escape rooms, thematic visits, etc.) to engage more with young people.
According to NEMO’s survey (2020) undertaken between March 2020 and May 2020 web traffic increased during the COVID 19 pandemic due to social media content created for young people and the content created for them like videos developed by museum creators.
- Young people do not feel very engaged with museum websites.
According to Eurostat (2019), the number of visits to museums is not very high for young people for not having interest.
Young people asked in the survey say they don’t like their UX, not finding the information they are looking for and they have an outdated design.
It can be improved by analyzing what your audience likes and updating very often the website. As the NEMO’s survey (2020) says museums need to work more on digital transformation.
Opportunities
- Digital education and the use of project-based learning, flipped classroom, distance learning, and blended learning are really extended among teachers.
According to European Commission (2019,2021) and World Economic Forum (2020), these practices are here to stay for a long time.
The actions should be to fix common learning outcomes between museum educators and teachers and adapt or create lesson plans with them.
- Teachers affirm that the gadget most used by their students in the classroom is smartphones, followed by laptops/computers and tablets similar to the general use of young people according to the Net Children Go Mobile report (2014) and the Digital Heritage Education Project’s survey.
The Net Children Go Mobile report (2014:47–48), the adoption of digital methods of teaching like tablets can promote more engaging teaching and learning methods and the use of smartphones encourage positive habits in education.
The actions should be to have more responsive content or easy-to-use through portable gadgets.
- Teachers use games in the present from the heritage educational platforms but they would like to have more games in the future.
Digital games in education will help students to improve different skills apart from acquiring some knowledge about cultural heritage content (World Economic Forum 2020, Mortara et alli 2013)
The actions should be to create small size educational games like puzzles, hanged man, quizzes, etc, and more complex as escape rooms, a scavenger hunt with AR, or implementing Minecraft or Mozzilla hubs to build their own world with the collections.
- The digital transformation of museums has increased the opportunities to connect with visitors and the number of educational content.
According to NEMO’s survey (2020) undertaken between March 2020 and May 2020, 4 out of 5 museums increased their digital services, they also increased their online visits, and visitors seek educational content. Museum educators affirm their museum has online collections and digital educational content
The actions should be to create more content for lifelong learning and young people and to become more digital (i.e. bringing their collections online, improving their websites, making more digital education activities as games or interaction on social media.)
- Most of the young people who answered the survey visit from 1 to 3 times per week cultural websites (like museum websites, DigitalNZ, ICOMOS, Europeana, DPLA) although social media is the most visited.
According to EUROSTAT (2019b), in the case of cultural heritage, only 47% percent of young people in the last year visited a museum or made any other activity related to cultural heritage, so the cultural websites give a higher proportion of visits and higher opportunities to connect with them
According to NEMO’s survey (2020) undertaken between March 2020 and May 2020, museums increased their online visits and social media interaction.
Young people affirm they visit the websites they look for information, they like the contents and stay updated on cultural news. So, the communication strategy used by some of the cultural institution get young people engaged.
The action should be to keep these audiences engaged with different content, keep their attention and motivation on these topics.
Threats
- Lack of staff in education and digital sections in museums.
- Lack of funding and institutional support
- Lack of confidence in digital tools for teachers associated with the lack of training
- Lack of time to create initiatives and projects for all the stakeholders.
Bibliography
- European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2019. Digital Education at School in Europe. Eurydice Report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
- European Commission (2021): Digital Education Plan (2021–2027). Brussels: European Commission
- World Economic Forum (2020): Schools of the Future Defining New Models of Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Geneve: World Economic Forum.
- World Economic Forum (2020): Learning through play: how schools can educate students through technology. Geneve: World Economic Forum.
- Mortara, M., Catalano, C. E., Bellotti, F., Fiucci, G., Houry-Panchetti, M., & Petridis, P. (2014). Learning cultural heritage by serious games. Journal of Cultural Heritage, 15(3), 318–325. doi:10.1016/j.culher.2013.04.004
- Mascheroni, G., & Cuman, A., (2014). Net Children Go Mobile: Final Report (with country fact sheets). Deliverables D6.4 and D5.2. Milano: Educatt.
- EENC (2015): Mapping of practices in the EU Member States on Participatory governance of cultural heritage to support the OMC working group under the same name (Work Plan for Culture 2015–2018). EENC.
- Kennisnet (2019: How available and usable is digital heritage for education? Initial Findings. Zoetermeer: Kennisnet.
- 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].
