Museums and galleries collect more visitor data today than ever before. But how much of it gives us real insight into visitors motivations, behaviour, experiences and responses? And how much of it simply ticks a box on a funding form? Commissioned by some of the UK’s leading institutions, including Tate, The British Museum, V&A and the Imperial War Museum North, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre has tackled this insight deficit head on. In doing so, we have helped these organisations to move beyond the data routinely collected to get to the knowledge they actually need.
DATE:
TEAM MEMBERS:
Morris Hargreaves McIntyre
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
The Visitor Studies Association (VSA) will plan a Continuing Education Program for Mid-Career (Practicing) Professionals in informal learning research and evaluation. VSA is in a position to expand its traditional in-depth workshop program to a more comprehensive and systematic, non-formal, continuing education program. The planning activity will take place in conjunction with the 2005 VSA annual conference. During the planning meeting, content and process will be examined and the end result will be a plan that includes recommended content, competence and a flexible, creative delivery mechanism. The project will directly addresse the informal learning infrastructure as the need for understanding the processes and products of informal learning, and as outcome-based evaluation becomes increasingly important due to the ever growing interest in program accountability. Once this program is in place it will serve those mid-career professionals who recognize visitor studies as a profession with its own body of knowledge, principles and ongoing research. It will serve those who are interested in research in informal learning and evaluation regardless of how they came to be in the field or how their job relates to evaluation.
This project is designed to improve communication between scientists and the public focusing on the role of evidence in science. It is a two-year project that includes: 1) implementing a national survey on the public use of science web sites; 2) conducting a national Science Education Outreach Forum bringing together scientists and informal science educators; 3) implementing workshop sessions at a national conference to disseminate lessons learned from the survey and Forum; and 4) developing a prototype website on the role of evidence that will be evaluated for audience engagement and understanding. This project builds on the Exploratorium's prior NSF-funded project (ESI#9980619) developing innovative strategies using the Internet to link scientists and the public using Webcasts, annotated datasets and interactive web resources. Project collaborators include the Pew Internet and American Life Project, Palmer Station, Scripps Oceanographic Institute, FermiLab and the Society of Hispanic Physicists among others. The research and evaluation of the project has the potential for strategic impact by providing new information and models on how science centers can more effectively use the Internet to improve communication between scientists and the public while engaging learners more effectively.
The "Crafting & Evaluating Interactive Educational Websites" conference will be developed through a collaboration between the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the Exploratorium. The PIs will develop and host a three-day invitational conference focusing on the practice of interactive web site design, development, evaluation and maintenance intended to achieve or support informal STEM learning. The conference, which will be held in Spring, 2005, will involve 50 individuals with a wide range of expertise who will focus on a variety of issues including audience expectations and abilities, designing for learner outcomes, testing for usability, evaluation tools and accessibility. With regard to intellectual merit, conference attendees will explore challenges and barriers that hinder development of truly interactive web sites and identify best practices and promising models, tools and technologies for encouraging authentic public interaction. Conversations begun at the conference will be extended to a broader audience through development of an online manual, informed by the conference presentations and commentaries, and designed for use by the museum, media and research communities. An interactive Web site developed after the conference will allow Web developers to locate content and ideas for design, and to share new ideas and results of usability studies and evaluations.
The "Crafting & Evaluating Interactive Educational Websites" conference will be developed through a collaboration between the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology and the Exploratorium. The PIs will develop and host a three-day invitational conference focusing on the practice of interactive web site design, development, evaluation and maintenance intended to achieve or support informal STEM learning. The conference, which will be held in Spring, 2005, will involve 50 individuals with a wide range of expertise who will focus on a variety of issues including audience expectations and abilities, designing for learner outcomes, testing for usability, evaluation tools and accessibility. With regard to intellectual merit, conference attendees will explore challenges and barriers that hinder development of truly interactive web sites and identify best practices and promising models, tools and technologies for encouraging authentic public interaction. Conversations begun at the conference will be extended to a broader audience through development of an online manual, informed by the conference presentations and commentaries, and designed for use by the museum, media and research communities. An interactive Web site developed after the conference will allow Web developers to locate content and ideas for design, and to share new ideas and results of usability studies and evaluations.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is requesting $279,577, of a total budget of $339,074, to plan and conduct a four-day international conference exploring issues, current practices and future directions related to furthering public understanding of current research in science and technology. The conference will bring together leading museum professionals, scientific researchers, science journalists, television producers, web developers and others who are already engaged in preliminary work for such an effort and who stand to learn from each other's experiences. The conference will center on the role of museums in informing the public about research, but will include representatives from other media and institutions crucial to its success. The specific goals of the conference are to: Explore challenges and barriers that hinder the development of public understanding of research programs. Identify "best practices" and promising models, tools and technologies for presenting current research to the public. Develop partnership strategies for creating public understanding of research program collaborations across the museum, media and research communities. Identify strategies for selecting significant research stories that are relevant to the public. Develop funding strategies and operational approaches that help sustain a consistent public understanding of research effort. The project will be under the direction of David Chittenden, Vice President for Education at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Advisors to the project include: Carol Lynn Alpert, Museum of Science, Boston; John Beatty, Distinguished Teaching Professor, University of Minnesota; Graham Farmelo, Head of Science Communications, Science Museum of London; Richard Hudson, Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul; Ken Keller, Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota; Rob Semper, The Exploratorium; David Ucko, Koshland Science Center and Science Outreach, National Academy of Sciences; and Bonnie VanDorn, Executive Director, Association of Science-Technology Centers.
DATE:
-
TEAM MEMBERS:
David ChittendenAnne HornickelDonald Pohlman
resourceprojectProfessional Development, Conferences, and Networks
This award will support two years of work to plan and implement a national conference of approximately 30 participants representing the major research-based natural history museums in America to consider best practices for enhancing museum visitor understanding of evolution. Evolution is the central paradigm of the life sciences, and natural history museums are of fundamental importance to an understanding of the paradigm of evolution. Despite this fact, recent surveys indicate that the majority of the American public, including visitors to natural history museums, neither understands nor believes in evolutionary theory. The three-day conference to be held at the Florida Museum of Natural History in 2003 will be preceded by a pre-conference planning workshop in 2002 and a synthesis of literature and practices pertinent to the understanding of evolution in museums. The conference will bring together chief scientists, directors of education and exhibits, and directors of research and collections as participants in a program professionally facilitated by informal science education experts. Findings and outcomes of the conference will constitute 'best practices' for the field and will be published in the professional literature and disseminated via the Florida Museum website. With more than 10,000,000 visitors to natural history museums per year, once implemented in museum exhibitions and programs the results of this conference will have a broad impact on science literacy in America for years to come.
The Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) requests support to conduct the second conference on museum learning, "In Principle, In Practice," following their successful NSF-funded conference of a decade ago entitled "Public Institutions for Personal Learning: Establishing a Long-term Research Agenda." The goals of the conference and two related publications are to advance shared knowledge within the field about current research concerning learning in and from museums, to promote effective practice, to identify and disseminate research-based best practices for developing evaluation frameworks and to enhance the infrastructure for research and education. The four components of the project include: 1) a special supplement of the journal "Science Education," 2) a two-day national conference, 3) a post-conference white paper on informal science learning, and 4) a post-conference book on research-based understandings of learning from museums.