Until today museums have tried to identify and segment their audiences based on their demographics. After years of conducting research in the US, John Falk in 2009 introduced a descriptive and predictive framework for identifying visitors on the basis of their motivations, as related to identity. This article summarises Falk’s innovative framework as described in his book Identity and the Museum Visitor Experience (2009), in addition to his presentation at the Visitor Studies Conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in January 2010. In addition the article draws on the author’s related
This thesis investigates how people make meaning in and from museums, through encounters with artefacts which are mediated by portable digital technologies. It provides evidence that technology can help to manage the amount of information visitors encounter, instead of increasing it, through activities which structure the use of technology. One such activity - visitor-constructed trails through museums - is studied in depth, with attention to how (and to what extent) the activity is structured, the contexts in which it takes place, and how various tools and resources mediate and support the
This timeline was constructed by participants during the Center for Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE ISE Summit) meeting in March 3-5, 2010 to document histories, capture events, and share memories about the field of informal science education. Postings were shepherded into four main strands: key events, policy, infrastructure, and learning. Along the bottom, participants marked when they entered the field.
This poster was presented at the 2010 Association of Science-Technology Centers Annual Conference. The Saint Louis Science Center is a partner in Washington University's Cognitive, Computational, and Systems Neuroscience interdisciplinary graduate program funded by the NSF-IGERT (Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship) flagship training program for PhD scientists and engineers.
I hear a lot about how we need a new business model for museums or that the current business model is broken. We have business models; we just may need to evolve them.
For museums, continuing revenue comes from four sectors (Visitors and Program Customers, both earned revenues, and Public and Private Supporters, both support revenues), each with its own interests. This article focuses on earned revenue opportunities and how to think about them, particularly those available to children’s museums.
This introduction presents the essays belonging to the JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science. It also draws a first map of the main problems we need to investigate when we face this new and emerging phenomenon. Web tools are enacting and facilitating new ways for lay people to interact with scientists or to cooperate with each other, but cultural and political changes are also at play. What happens to expertise, knowledge production and relations between scientific institutions and society when lay people or non-scientists go online and engage in scientific activities? From
Luckily enough, more democracy is always called for. Even in countries that can truly be described as democratic. And democracy (which is a constant reference in these pages) is increasingly related to knowledge, be it about whether growing GMOs, starting nuclear energy production or allowing the choice of a child’s gender through IVF techniques. The need to make democratic decisions on controversial issues, which increasingly imply scientific and technological knowledge, comes from the bottom, as citizens voice – sometimes even vehemently – the desire to express themselves.
As part of its continuing effort to maximize efficiency by assessing the effectiveness of its efforts, NASA’s Office of Education contracted with Abt Associates in July 2009 to evaluate the Informal Education Program. The goals of the evaluation are twofold: (1) to gain insight into its investment in informal education; and (2) to clarify existing distinctions between its informal education and outreach efforts. The evaluation findings provide descriptive information about all the projects in the NASA’s education portfolio affiliated with Outcome 3 (Informal Education) and selected Outcome 2
Several publications have sought to define the field of science communication and review current issues and recent research. But the status of science communication is uncertain in disciplinary terms. This commentary considers two dimensions of the status of discipline as they apply to science communication – the clarity with which the field is defined and the level of development of theories to guide formal studies. It argues that further theoretical development is needed to support science communication’s full emergence as a discipline.
Science communication is less a community of researchers, but more a space where communities of research coexist to study and deal with communities of researchers. It is, as a field, a consequence of the spaces left between areas of expertise in (late) modern society. It exists to deal with the fragmentations of expertise in today’s society. In between those fragments is where it lives. It’s not an easy position, but an awareness of this unease is part of how science communication scholars can be most effective; as we examine, reflect, debate and help others manage the inescapable cultural
Public images of scientific researchers –as reflected in the popular visual culture as well as in the conceptions of the public- combine traditional stereotypic characteristics and ambivalent attitudes towards science and its people. This paper explores central aspects of the public image of the researcher in Greek students’ drawings. The students participated in a drawing competition held in the context of the ‘Researcher’s Night 2007’ realized by three research institutions at different regions of Greece. The students’ drawings reveal that young people hold stereotypic and fairly traditional
Guglielmo Maglio is Manager of Exhibitions at the science centre “Città della Scienza” of Naples. With “Città della Scienza” he took part in the creation of “Decide”, which he appreciates for its ability to create an informal atmosphere favouring discussion. As concerns the involvement of scientists and policy-makers in the debate, though desirable, it sometimes may influence negatively the spontaneity of the debate among non-experts. In the participants, the main differences can be ascribed to personal experience, rather than to other factors such as age, nationality or social groups. Though