Martin Langner, Introduction to Digital Image and Artefact Science (Summer Semester 2021) IV. Presentation: Lesson 12. Communicating Humanities (https://youtu.be/VbrCVIJ_OW4) 1] Introduction 2] The Future of Museums 14] Content of the lesson 15] 1. Digital and Virtual Museums 16] Definition 26] Types of Virtual Museums 31] Good Practice Examples 35] Museum education in the www 47] Virtual Museums 50] 2. Interaction 51] Augmented Reality 59] Natural Interaction 70] Gamification 82] Crowd Sourcing 85] Usability 99] Wide range of services 106] 3. Data Management and Scientific Practice 107] Case study "Plagiarism“ 111] Legal requirements 119] Research data 127] Ethical implications 132] Conclusion 132] Current research questions 1] In the twelfth and final session of our introduction to Digital Image and Artefact Science, to which I welcome you warmly, we pick up the theme of the last lesson. For it is about communicating humanities content to a larger audience, where virtual reality admittedly plays a major role. 2] We have already referred to various forms of computer-assisted communication of humanities content in this lecture. Generally speaking, they fall into two groups, pure information transfer without active user participation and interactive forms of knowledge transfer and storytelling. The first group includes lexicon-like sites such as wikipedia, the websites of various cultural institutions and research projects, and portals such as the German Digital Library or Europeana, as well as digital editions, map collections, reconstructions and other digital forms of indexing cultural assets. In the background of these web presences are usually huge databases that prepare the knowledge content according to certain categories. 3] On the other hand, forms of communicating that actively involve the user require more effort, but also have more didactic value. Starting with interactive infographics and editions, I am thinking here above all of map-based forms of storytelling and simulations with gaming content. But the questions and problems are more or less the same in all communicating apps and sites. They can be illustrated quite well by the example of the museum which we would like to pick out today. 4] The Mona Lisa really doesn't need any special attention, one would think. Countless visitors crowd around the world-famous painting all the time. The makers of the large Da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre were also aware of this problem and looked for ways to add value to the exhibition without running out of space. VR technology offered possibilities to get closer to the painting than is possible in front of the original, to show details and to fade in scientific studies about it and to travel inside the painting, so to speak. One can get to know the wooden structure of the painting's support or see how the colours have changed over the centuries. But the exhibition organisers also wanted to bring Mona Lisa to life and therefore recreated her in 3D. They wanted to create a connection between Mona Lisa and the visitors in order to open their eyes (and minds). [5] The process of reconstructing paintings in 3D is older, however. The project "Art Plunge", for example, aims at being able to enter the painting. It's actually just a fun gimmick, but it does lead users to take a closer look at details, such as the landscape in the background or the furniture and the objects placed on it. [6] Accordingly, museological studies have long since made it clear that visitors also want to get involved in museums; they want to comment and enter into an active dialogue. And sometimes they also want to generate content. Technical or natural history museums have long since implemented this, and slowly even painting collections like the Hamburger Kunsthalle are opening up to this trend and no longer simply exhibit Manet, for example, but address the issue of seeing such paintings by offering different views, glasses, perspectives and selfies. Clearly, social media have changed visitor behaviour. [7] But interaction with the exhibits is not easy to implement in traditional museums due to staff shortages and for conservation reasons. In virtual museums, however, it is. Here, users can not only comprehend cultural heritage and world history, but also interact with it on several levels of perception. The advantages are obvious: you can give individual advice to several users at the same time, segment content and improve the user experience, but also record and evaluate their reaction. 8] What can such visitor engagement look like in the digital realm? Some museums are adding a virtual component to their website that can be accessed while visiting the museum. For example, the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, where the connections between species can be explored and a variety of living things can be viewed up close in the form of 3D models. [9] Typical are also museums like the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, which add VR applications to their exhibitions. Here you can then virtually travel through space on a space shuttle, go deep-sea diving at Pearl and Hermes Atoll or enter the inside of the human body. They serve to provide visitors with background information on the exhibits. 10] We have already seen with the Mona Lisa that such immersion is also possible with paintings. Similarly, at the National Museum in Helsinki, visitors enter the painting "The Opening of the Imperial Diet in 1863 by Alexander II", learn about Finnish history and can even talk to the Russian emperor and other figures depicted in the painting. [11] And the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles combines the opportunity to sit behind the wheel of a classic American sports car, the Ford GT40, with a historical event, namely participation in the Le Mans races in the 1960s. Thus, not only the real and the virtual space merge here, but also the current and the historical. Applications like these thus tell a story in which you become part of the narrative. 12] And the Tate Modern in London reconstructed for its Modigliani retrospective in 2017/18 the artist's Paris studio in 3D. In this way, visitors can learn everything about the painting technique, the pigments and the process of creating the paintings. Here, the Virtual Museum is a second exhibition venue offered in addition to the actual exhibition, with exhibits that could not be exhibited in London, or even no longer exist, and shows processes that can only be described as accompanying text in the conventional museum. 13] And finally, I would like to present the Kremer Collection Museum, a virtual museum that does not exist as a physical museum. It brings together Dutch and Flemish Old Masters from the 17th century in a museum-like ensemble and thus creates a private museum of a very special kind. In this way, art becomes the property of everyone! And digital communicating at the museum thus ranges from the internet in 3D to complete virtuality. [14] That is why the interaction aspect will be in the foreground today and form the core of this lesson. Before that, however, we need to look at the different types of digital and virtual museums and identify their tasks and goals. In the third part, I would like to conclude by talking in general terms about the handling of data, legal requirements and ethical implications. [15] We have already dealt with the history of virtual museums in the last lesson under the aspect of virtual reality, but without defining the term "virtual museum" more precisely. As with virtual reality, a lot can be subsumed under the term "virtual museum". This needs to be specified more precisely in the following. [16] If one follows the definition of "virtual museum" established by the EU project V-Must in 2014, "a virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as the digital footprint of a physical museum, or can act independently, while maintaining the authoritative status as bestowed by ICOM in its definition of a museum.” [17] ICOM, the International Council of Museums had formulated in 1946: „The word "museums" includes all collections open to the public, of artistic, technical, scientific, historical or archaeological material, including zoos and botanical gardens, but excluding libraries, except in so far as they maintain permanent exhibition rooms.” [18] In 1961, the definition was expanded: „ICOM shall recognise as a museum any permanent institution which conserves and displays, for purposes of a study, education and enjoyment, collections of objects of cultural or scientific significance.” So the accessibility aspect was now dropped in a way that store rooms were also considered museums. [19] And then in 2007 it said: "A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment." This now included intangible cultural goods such as music, dialects, fairy tales or customs and practices. [20] The latest version even goes a step further and defines the museum through its tasks: „Museums are democratising, inclusive and polyphonic spaces for critical dialogue about the pasts and the futures. Acknowledging and addressing the conflicts and challenges of the present, they hold artefacts and specimens in trust for society, safeguard diverse memories for future generations and guarantee equal rights and equal access to heritage for all people.” [21] And speaking in the direction of increasing commercialisation, "Museums are not for profit. They are participatory and transparent, and work in active partnership with and for diverse communities to collect, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and enhance understandings of the world, aiming to contribute to human dignity and social justice, global equality and planetary wellbeing." This definition now enshrines the active participation of visitors whose understanding of the world is to be enhanced. [22] This of course also applies to virtual museums: „In tandem with the ICOM mission of a physical museum, the virtual museum is also committed to public access; to both the knowledge systems imbedded in the collections and the systematic, and coherent organization of their display, as well as to their long-term preservation. As with a traditional museum, a virtual museum can be designed around specific objects (akin to an art museum, natural history museum), or can consist of new exhibitions created from scratch (akin to the exhibitions at science museums)." [23] „Moreover, a virtual museum can refer to the on site, mobile or World Wide Web offerings of traditional museums (e.g., displaying digital representations of its collections or exhibits); or can be born digital content such as net art, virtual reality and digital art. Often, discussed in conjunction with other cultural institutions, a museum by definition, is essentially separate from its sister institutions such as a library or an archive.” [24] In summary, then, a virtual museum is 1. a digital entity with characteristics of a museum (as defined by ICOM). This means public access to the embedded knowledge systems, the systematic and coherent organisation of its presentation and the long-term preservation of the exhibition. But it is also a grouping around specific collection items or newly created exhibitions with reference to digital content of physically existing museums or newly created digital components. 25] Virtual museums have the same core tasks as traditional, physical museums, namely: collecting, preserving, researching, documenting, exhibiting and communicating. This must be remembered when evaluating virtual museums, because often only the aspect of exhibiting and communicating is in the foreground. 26] Just as natural history museums can be distinguished from art collections, virtual museums can also be divided into different types. What they have in common is that they are "usually, but not exclusively delivered electronically when they are denoted as online museums, hypermuseum, digital museum, cybermuseums or web museums." [27] The visitor numbers of traditional museums depend heavily on their web presence! The design of the homepage is therefore a first step towards a digital museum. On such a website, however, you will not only find information on visiting times and digital copies of collection objects, but also interviews with curators, the museum shop, offers for children and young people, etc. [28] "A digital museum is a digital information system, often found on the World Wide Web, which has digital reproductions of exhibits grouped together under museum objectives. As a rule, real collection objects are not only formally indexed here, but also described in terms of content." The collection portal of the University of Göttingen is a good example of a digital museum. It aims at the complete indexing of all 32 collections of the university and is an official organ of the Central Custody. 29] A hypermuseum, on the other hand, is a personalised collection of multimedia objects from a museum's online offering that can be saved as a new multimedia document (for example, as a website, PowerPoint presentation, hypertext or Word document). [30] The digital museums mentioned above always referred to physical objects and collections. A cyber museum, however, exists only in cyberspace or on the Internet and has no physical counterpart. [31] Such cyber museums are the digital exhibitions at Google Arts and Culture. There you will find, for example, a large Vermeer exhibition with 36 paintings by the Dutch master as high-resolution scans of the originals. For this digital museum, however, there is also an extensive web presence there, just like for a physical exhibition, with further offers. 32] Rather amusing today is David Leeed's offer to create his own digital museum as a PowerPoint file. I think it was mainly aimed at pupils in the lower school. 33] Google's "Art and Culture" allows its users to visit over a thousand museums worldwide and view their highlights. More than 70,000 works of art are available in digital form. Many can be explored in the highest resolution. [34] Technically, the exhibition rooms are 360° views created with Google Street View. And as the latest gimmick, one can transform oneself into van Gogh and be guided through the exhibition. [35] The pages are designed in a way that you can discover something new every day, [36] the greatest impression being made by the digital copies in the highest resolution, ... [37] ... ... which you can zoom into. In a sharpness that would not be possible on the original, also because of the lighting conditions. [38] But of course there is also metadata on the exhibits you discover on the Virtual Tour. [39] and which are also offered to you per hall as a picture bar for scrolling through. 40] For some museums, such as the British Museum, there are also comparative timelines that can make references visible, detached from the museum presentation. [41] and again and again the contents are summarised into stories. [42] There are four use cases for the Internet presences of museums, i.e. for digital museums: Firstly, the digitisation of the collections, which makes them available in collection databases, but then also the digital analysis of the collection objects, which is mostly offered as a comparison or visualisation of technical investigations. Working in the background are Collection Management Systems and Museum Information Systems, i.e. comprehensive editorial systems that permanently link the entries in the databases with the websites. And then there is the presentation of the collections in virtual exhibitions. [43] Museums like the Metropolitan Museum in New York offer their objects in three degrees of attention. The hurried visitor gets a first look at the absolute highlights. Secondly, individual artists and themes are presented as thematic focuses and offer a kind of guided tour of the collection by an expert. And thirdly, you are supposed to explore the collections yourself, through search commands, a timeline or advice on the protection of cultural assets, explained by the director himself. 44] This actually lists the features of digital museums. Digital museums are websites with hyperlinks and video files or 360° panoramas. Their information is geared towards different user groups, so that the individual experience is in the foreground. You will find glossy photos of the collection objects contextualised by TimeLines, maps, cultural history essays or interviews. [45] This differs from museum portals, which are web portals (virtual platforms) that bring together and structure information on a specific topic. Sometimes museum portals are also application systems that bundle existing museum databases under a common research interface. Such overarching museum documentation, however, presupposes the use of databases and the use of common standards for the acquisition and digitisation of the collection objects. 46] One advantage of digital museums is their global availability. There is the so-called pars pro toto effect, i.e. a section that one digitises from the collection can be representative of the entire museum. It is not uncommon for particularly modern rooms or rooms with a particularly high number of visitors to be presented in this way. Due to the possibility of linking, digital museums have a high degree of interconnectedness and allow cross-references that are difficult to implement in the physical museum. A great advantage is that the object becomes the source of information on which everything develops, which corresponds exactly to the approach of museums. Of course, this object reference can also be individualised in hypermuseums by the user compiling his or her own collection. Interaction and simulation are also possible, but they fall short of the possibilities of virtual museums. Digital museums, even if they consist of dynamic websites, are therefore relatively rigid, which has the disadvantage that they quickly become outdated. [47] The effect of interaction, which can certainly be realised on websites, admittedly plays the central role in Virtual Museums. A good example is the implementation of the Anne Frank House. This museum has the task of presenting the story of the 13-year-old Anne Frank, known to us from her diaries, in the context of the persecution of the Jews and the Second World War. She spent a total of 25 months with her family and some acquaintances in her hiding place in the back of an office building, which has been recreated virtually. Access to the Virtual Museum is either via an interactive graphic on the museum's website, ... [48] or directly via a VR application for Oculus Quest, which begins in the room with the bookcase behind which the entrance to the hiding place was located. So you can go on a discovery tour yourself ... and experience the famous story for yourself. The richness of detail in the reconstruction is remarkable. and the sounds that put you in the situation of possibly being discovered. 49] You can also travel back in time with the VR application Titanic, where you can discover the deserted ship as a passenger during the maiden voyage, while another implementation offers virtual dives to the shipwreck, which are connected as a game with corresponding tasks. There are similar offers for countless sights and natural spectacles. What they all have in common is the goal of being able to immerse oneself in the world virtually. In the process, however, one usually remains a silent observer. 50] A special challenge is therefore the interaction with the museum visitor, which we would like to address second. This can take place in both physical and virtual spaces. 51] We have already talked about augmented reality in the last lesson. It is often used to illustrate reconstructions of archaeological sites or monuments on site. [52] The Acropolis Museum in Athens, for example, has developed an app for handhelds with the Fraunhofer Institute that allows you to bring the lost coloured version of the marble works on display onto your screen. The area captured by the camera is enriched with the coloured 3D model. In other words, the user's physical reality, which he or she sees directly or on a display in front of him or her, is augmented with computer-generated input such as still images, audio or videos. 53] Thus, no new reality is created, but the computer-generated content lies as an overlay on top of the real content. This technique is, of course, also used by companies like Apple to bring their products directly into the living room of the potential buyer. [54] At IKEA, the interaction begins with a conversation among friends or family who select products, and places them in the home exchanges them for others and then looks at them closely. In this way, the furniture selection becomes frighteningly real, which is something that should be tried out with collection objects. [55] This approach can also be implemented in virtual space. In IKEA shops there are showrooms where you can try out colours and fabrics with a headset. The special thing about the mixed reality application is that the furniture is actually set up there and can be touched. Only the colour effect changes. In the haptic quality of the implementation, I also see potential for applications for virtual museums, which are still strongly oriented towards the visual. [56] For example, the time travel app of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, which brings various 19th century hangings back to life and thus reconstructs museum visits of earlier times and makes them tangible. 57] And we had already talked about the Etruscanning project. There, the finds of an elite Etruscan tomb, the so-called Tomba Regolini-Galassi, which are now exhibited in the Vatican Museums, were scanned and virtually moved to their original place of discovery. In this way, the exhibits are contextualised and thus provided with a narrative. [58] In the passageway of the chamber tomb there was a cart. We had chosen this example in Lesson 7 to show that one can try to experimentally determine the placement of the shields with 3D models. Textures, such as the texture of the wood and the golden fittings, play an important role. Now the museum visitor can virtually feel like an explorer of the tomb. 59] A top view of the floor of the tomb, here in the picture at the bottom left, which functions like a floor plan, shows the visitor of the tomb the way. This plan can then also be shown together with the room views, so that one can orientate oneself quite well. [60] In the museum staging, the plan was positioned on the floor so that one can now actually physically walk through the virtual reconstruction, which was projected onto a screen with a beamer. [61] The project Imago Bononiae / Interactive Bologna, which was set up in a shopping centre, went one step further. Here, a Kinect was used to capture the movements of visitors, who could simply control the animation with their arms. The remains of Roman Bologna, which were discovered during the construction of the shopping mall but could not be preserved, are thus brought to life and embedded in the history of Bologna. [62] In Keys2Rome, the principle was used with the help of an avatar for a hide-and-seek game in which one had to walk through ancient Rome collecting objects. Again, the kinect captures the movements made in the User Interactive Area, interprets them and then passes them on to the application that controls the beamer image. [63] And Etruscanning is now also equipped with such technology. Unlike with data glasses, the visitor can move naturally here. Since the separation between the physical body and the virtual world is removed, headaches, eye pain, disorientation, dizziness and even vomiting do not occur here. [64] In a further development of Augmented Reality, which is mainly used on handhelds, Spatial Augmented Reality uses a sensor to detect the user's finger movement. This makes it possible, for example, to project an image of the coloured frame directly onto the original exhibit. [65] Here is another example where visitors can explore the original colours of the marble painting. [66] But the hand cannot only be used as a pointer. Smaller models from the 3D printer equipped with sensors allow the exhibit to be rotated back and forth, although of course it cannot be moved even because of its weight. The respective details that the visitor wants to take a closer look at are displayed on a monitor. 67] These aids are called tangible interfaces, which not only have movement sensors, but can also be controlled by covering light sensors, so that information on the corresponding parts can be called up when the drilled holes are covered. 68] I show another example, this time the Ara Pacis, a large altar building in Rome, of which only a relief plate could be shown in the exhibition in Amsterdam. On the screen, however, it was possible to explore the entire building with the help of tangible interfaces. [69] Even if the operation is not so easy for some ministers of culture, it works intuitively. Thus, the topic of natural interaction in computer-simulated worlds has meanwhile become an independent field of research. [70] The immersion of the user in the virtual world, can also be achieved through game elements. The ivory crosier of Ename, an outstanding masterpiece of Flemish Romanesque art, broke at some point and was carefully repaired. This repair forms the background for the educational game Eham 1291, in which the user is to learn to understand the symbolism of the bishop's staff. On the front, Christ as Saviour symbolises the power of the abbot over his monks. This is to be experienced in one's own body. In the game, you have to bring the repaired crosier to the abbot. This develops into a small search for the keys to the casket in which the bishop's crozier was kept by the goldsmith who repaired it. [71] The search leads throughout the abbey, which is full of finds that may hold clues to the keys. [72] In the refectory, this even requires deciphering manuscripts to find all the clues. 73] Until you finally have the three keys and can take the crosier out of the box. 74] You can even use the bird's eye view for the search. In the game you have one day to do this. If you have solved the task, the sun sets romantically behind the abbey, otherwise you are accused of theft and end up on the scaffold. 75] Such games with a purpose can be created with the usual game engines. Here in Göttingen we work with unity3d. As the Institute for Digital Humanities, however, we are less interested in the gaming tools than in adequate communicating. Critical Gaming is the name of this research area and the handbook on the subject was written by Erik Champion. 76] Gamification seemed to be the magic bullet of modern online teaching, especially during the pandemic. However, it also offers a number of problems. First, the necessary visualisation creates images in the mind that are no longer open to critical reflection. An entire generation of archaeologists has to fight against inaccurate reconstructions in films and games. Moreover, games tend to avoid complex interactive "ecosystems" because real simulations are considered quite boring. They inevitably focus on the everyday details of life. This unnecessarily simplifies the content to be conveyed. Another point concerns the precious resource of attention. The player learns the complex set of rules while playing. As a result, he is focused on fulfilling the game requirements and thus quickly overlooks the content to be taughed. 77] Therefore, it is a matter of creating beneficial game designs. These are characterised on the one hand by a discursive game environment: Questions have to be answered playfully in a discussion, and facts are presented in such a way that the player comes up with them on his own. On the other hand, beneficial game designs have a performative game environment: in role-playing games, the user appears as a certain character in certain socio-historical contexts. This creates a cultural presence (and a sense of historical perspective). Ideally, learning games are visualisation machines that, like construction kits, have different sets that can be used depending on the thesis. Hypotheses about historical developments can thus be tested and also changed in a detailed simulated environment. In this way, historical facts are not learned by heart, but understood in their development. [78] With Erik Champion, I would therefore like to make the following demands on DH games: Games should not only be fun, but above all stimulate thought. To this end, they do not always have to be played according to a specific rule. Subversive practices of counterproductive design are much more purposeful here. And a computer game is not a general value in itself. It is not the only form of communicating. The educational added value must first be highlighted! As a museum application, the user often lacks the time to understand a complex set of rules. The focus must therefore be on understanding cultures, languages or ways of life. In addition, simulations need to focus on the process rather than the outcome in order to be understood. [79] Experiencing how people interact with a building or interact with each other should be the focus. Furthermore, it must be shown how controversial knowledge is constructed so that one can form one's own opinion and no misconceptions get stuck in one's head. The player must therefore be mature and have his own concepts of life. Therefore, the choice of a goal must be more important than the inevitable steps towards a known goal. The use of NPCs (non-player characters), i.e. AI-controlled actors in the game who act as persuasive "cultural agents", is also interesting. They should encourage the player to refrain from violent means and give the game a sense of moral responsibility. Experience has shown that many of you are interested in this area of gamification, but student work in the field has always been conspicuously unreflective. Therefore, I have referenced Erik Champion's claims here in the hope that it will encourage you to critically engage with educational games in the future. 80] The central problem in the creation of educational games is: Which method is particularly suitable for conveying my content? Let me give you two examples that we have developed ourselves. Hidden object games are very suitable for learning technical terms because the object and its name have to be assigned. In the course of the game, you can vary the appearance of the search objects and thus also clarify the range of meaning of the technical term. In our case, various archaeological terms and type designations are learned during a visit to a Roman bath complex. [81] "Objects under cross-examination", on the other hand, was about learning argumentation structures. Various collection objects are accused of supporting or not supporting a certain research thesis. In the process, the player not only learns about controversial research opinions, but also about different types of justifications. [82] However, educational games can also benefit the manufacturer. In ARTigo, the aim is to find suitable terms for a picture as quickly as possible, playing against the computer. This not only trains one's vision, but was also useful to the Arthistorical Institute in Munich for tagging its digital slide library. Social image tagging is the name of the process in which pictures are tagged with the help of laypeople. 83] In general, in times of Big Data, the qualitative processing of research data by project staff is almost impossible. Above all, the verification of facts that have been automated can also be carried out by interested persons who do not need to be experts. Game developers, in particular, make use of this by having gamers search for errors in the code. The New York City Department of City Planning, for example, had automatically determined property and building boundaries on aerial photographs, which had to be checked in the form of a small game. Within less than two days, all determinations were evaluated and corrected if necessary, so that the site could be taken off the net again immediately. [84] However, in order to open up, rejuvenate and popularise the image and artefact sciences for further user groups, which is undoubtedly important and should also be a concern of science, the possibilities of the various social media platforms, crowdsourcing and gamification must not be exhausted uncritically, but must be embedded in a critical debate about the sense and benefit of the procedures. These areas in particular tend to proceed in a particularly unreflective manner. Here, a historical comparative analysis with similar "analogue" phenomena on the one hand, and the experiences from art education and museum didactics on the other, could be used to develop a theoretical framework that would also allow us to use the digital possibilities of social media scientifically. In this way, digital image and object science as a humanities discipline could also open up solutions for analysing contemporary phenomena openly but also critically. [85] But what criteria should be used to critically analyse phenomena such as the Virtual Museum? There are a number of ways to do this, and I would like to take usability as an example. Usability refers to the value of user- friendliness. If an application or website has a high usability, for example, the loading time is very short and the navigation is very clear. [86] This leads to five parameters that must be set for a user interface: It must be easy to learn, efficient to use, easy to remember and pleasant to use. A good user interface also generates few errors. 87] User experience, on the other hand, refers to the user experience on a website or in an application. This is primarily about design and joy of use. The image bar at Google Art & Culture is easy to use in its functionality. That is a sign of good usability. But it is also attractively designed and the photos make you want to look at more rooms, which falls into the area of user experience. Sylaiou, Killintzis and their colleagues demonstrated how these two aspects could be assessed on digital and virtual museums. [88] The study took place in 2013 and for the evaluation they selected five typical museum presentations at that time. [89] The focus was again on five aspects that were evaluated. Imageability, i.e. the perceptual quality of a virtual exhibition, was used to check how memorable the museum experience was. Here, Virtual Exhibition Tours, which put panoramic views of the exhibition rooms on the web, scored best. [90] The second factor to be mentioned is interactivity. This refers to the human-computer interaction functionality that enables a Virtual Exhibition to communicate with its visitors. Here, the Metropolitan Museum's website stood out with its scalable images and text. [91] Navigability as the degree to which one can navigate through Virtual Exhibitions using structural elements was the third criterion. The Museum for Modern Art, for example, has a differentiated but still clear search mask that can be used to search for key words as well as images. [92] Virtual spatiality formed the fourth point, by which is meant the expansion of the physical museum space and the expansion of architectural possibilities in virtual space. The simulation of a museum space reconstructed in 3D, as in the Van Gogh Virtual Museum, was particularly eye-catching. [93] And last but not least, the narration created, for example, through a set of videos that engage the virtual visitors and allow them to explore a subject in multiple ways and construct their own meaning. The film museum Virtual Silver Screen of the Library and Archives Canada was admittedly able to implement this form of communicating best. [94] In 2013, still in the early years of digital museums, 164 volunteer participants aged 19 to 37 were surveyed, mostly students. The experimental setup was exploratory and the evaluation led to the following result: the interactive digital museum with scalable images and texts and the virtual museum, which simulates a 3D reconstructed museum, performed better in terms of usability and user experience than the digital museum with search fields for images and texts. A result that, in retrospect, is no longer surprising. However, the criteria that were used still seem relevant to me today. [95] In 2018, Corredato Guerino's group published Conceptual Framework for Supporting the Creation of Virtual Museums with a focus on Natural User Interfaces. [96] They end their article with the following guidelines: Respect the diversity of people (languages, physical differences)! Use 360° images for better navigation in the virtual space, where the user can turn and walk through the museum in all possible angles as if they were visiting a physical museum! Use the 3D function so that the works can be rotated horizontally to explore every detail of the exhibition! Use the user's touch screen interaction to allow better usability and interaction of the same with the software! Allow the voice command to perform some actions, making the museum more accessible! [97] Pay attention to the issues of physiology and kinaesthetics, avoid difficult movements and highly repetitive actions! Pay attention to the amount of information and your exhibition and try to promote good visibility of all elements of the interface! [98] With these criteria at hand, it would now actually be time to evaluate current forms of Virtual Museums. Perhaps you would like to do so. As inspiration, I would like to conclude by giving you a few examples that have caught my eye in recent years. First of all, there is the VR exhibition on the Bronze Age in the British Museum, which unfortunately is no longer available online. The journey back in time to the year 3500 BC took you to a rural landscape, the character of which was supported by the chirping of birds and the sound of crackling fire. One entered a Bronze Age roundhouse through an open door and thus experienced the domestic ambience of the Middle Bronze Age 'up close'. With the headset on one's head, one could look all around. Three digitised collection objects, highlighted in blue, could be tapped, enlarged and rotated with the touchpad for a closer look. In addition, a 20-second description was played. The experience did not follow a linear narrative, however, but exemplified a house with the surrounding landscape. The visitor could therefore interact with the objects or explore the surrounding landscape many times at will and interest. [99] Woofbert VR is an example of virtual exhibitions. The environment thrives on the visually elaborate design of the various museum rooms and studios, where you can get very close to the paintings and explore everything in detail. But the appeal also lies in the collection-historical perspective that is opened up in the comparison. [100] As an example of museum use, I would like to single out the Keith Haring exhibition in San Francisco. When visiting the physical exhibition, further works were offered here for comparison and videos for in-depth study as augmented reality. [101] You can perhaps get a good idea of the possibilities that arise from the use of Mixed Reality from the example scenarios for the Microsoft Hololens. Here, a particular advantage lies in the gesture-controlled use, which makes spatial interaction possible. The initial scenario of our lecture, where I showed Tom Cruise in Minority Report, is now really within reach! [102] The exhibition "Perception is reality" at the Frankfurter Kunstverein 2018 demonstrated the entire spectrum of virtual reality and virtual art, ranging from the extension of the physical museum space to complete virtuality with disturbing interventions in the real world. [103] Or be inspired by the projects at the annual Virtual Reality & Arts Festival in Hamburg. There you can catch a glimpse of the future and take part in events that may already be standard in the next generation. [104] But for all the enthusiasm for virtual reality: it is not equally suitable for all purposes. You always have to ask yourself, which technology is best suited for my idea? 360° content is suitable for the photo-realistic reproduction of the ACTUAL state, if necessary also of parts that are difficult to reach. If the information is on the surface of the object and only needs to be viewed closely enough, the all-round view as a photo series is the method of choice. However, if the aim is to reconstruct and simulate objects and spaces and if a higher degree of immersion is desired, it is better to aim for a virtual reality application. Augmented and Mixed Reality extend the exhibition with additional elements. They are therefore suitable for activities and experiences that visitors should experience in the museum during their visit. while cyberspace allows communication across space and time. 105] So, how can museum visitors benefit from AR and VR? I think the benefits have become quite clear to all of you by now. AR and VR give you more space, more time and more peace and quiet for the works on display. In virtual space, even lost or damaged works can be made accessible, at any place and at any time. [106] Communicating humanities knowledge to a broad public is also about scientific honesty. Moreover, some nice ideas are difficult to implement for legal or ethical reasons. The third and last section of our lecture will therefore deal with proper data management and the rules of good scientific practice. 107] When politicians want to communicate their ideas for the future to a wider public, they give speeches and write books. This is particularly the case before elections. Sometimes, as in the case of Annalena Baerbock, the Green Party's top candidate for the Bundestag elections in September 2021, the shot can backfire. The political opponent accused her of having copied parts of the book. That is undoubtedly the case. The passage shown here is word for word in a contribution by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. 108] At another point, three wooden houses and their planned heights are listed in identical order, so that here too one may assume that it was copied from a Spiegel Online article. However, this is not plagiarism, because it is merely a stringing together of facts and does not infringe any intellectual property. 109] A third passage slightly reformulates a sentence from a wikipedia article. Here, with "Kriterien für die Ermittlung eines Vergleichbaren und objektiven" indicator of prosperity, there are now only eight words exactly the same in the source. Should Ms Baerbock now have put the passages mentioned in inverted commas and named the source? [110] Let's take a look at the rules for ensuring good scientific practice published by the German Research Foundation in 1997. The first principle obliges the scientist to work lege artis, i.e. according to the conventions of the discipline in which one works. This includes, for example, adhering to the citation guidelines that are valid in the discipline. In the humanities, for example, every assertion must be substantiated, regardless of whether it is quoted verbatim, translated into another language or paraphrased. In the case of pamphlets and political books of opinion, on the other hand, it is not customary to put footnotes. Ms Baerbock has therefore behaved correctly. The second thing to demand is that results must be documented so that they can be verified. This should be quite clear to you, and I fear that you can no longer hear the word "paradata". For our discipline, the documentation of data collection is of great importance so that one can continue to work with the work of colleagues. This is about scientific knowledge. Mrs Baerbock, on the other hand, does not want to prove anything, but to convince the reader of her opinion. Opinion, on the other hand, has no place in scientific discussion, because thirdly, as researchers we are required to consistently doubt all results ourselves, to look for counter-arguments and to provide counter-arguments for them as well. A political book will certainly like to leave these aspects under the table, which is legitimate in the medium. Lastly, strict honesty should be maintained with regard to the contributions of partners, competitors and predecessors, and nothing false should be put into their mouths. Here one could consider whether the accusation of plagiarism against Ms Baerbock does not distort the facts somewhat. But the political opponent is allowed to use this means lege artis in the election campaign. 111] If one takes over other people's texts without marking them as a quotation, this is usually a violation of copyright law, which protects every "personal intellectual creation". In the case of the passages shown in Annalena Baerbock's book, however, it is difficult to speak of someone else's "personal intellectual creation", which she takes over unmarked. Rather, she references facts in the same wording as the source she uses. This is clumsy and not particularly creative, but not illegal. For our work, however, which repeatedly uses pictorial works in the form of photographs, the question is relevant. This is because a work is protected by copyright as a "personal intellectual creation" in Germany for 70 years after its creation. This means that we need the permission of the rights holder for all works created after 1950 as soon as we want to publish them. In the private sphere, however, these rules do not apply. [112] Under German law, the author also has the exclusive right to exploit a work, i.e. to reproduce, distribute and publicly exhibit it. therefore, living artists must be asked for permission beforehand for every public auction and exhibition. This even goes so far as to protect the work from any public communication even in incorporeal form as a lecture, performance, television broadcast or on the internet. 113] If works or their copies have been put into circulation with the consent of the author, the author can no longer determine afterwards which further path the works take. The lawful acquirer can then decide without the author's consent whether and to whom he resells or gives away the work. However, the exhaustion of the author's right only extends to the specific work or its reproductions, not to photographs or digital copies of the same, which are again separately protected. [114] "The right of making available to the public is the right to make the work available to the public by wire or wireless means in such a way that it is accessible to members of the public from places and at times of their choice." [115] For us, the originals are rarely relevant, but much more often photos of the pictorial works. This is where the German ancillary copyright for photographs comes into play. The term "photograph" (or: photo) is used to distinguish the image rights from "photographic works" (i.e. photos as independent works of art). For the latter, the photographer is also considered the author. Pursuant to Section 72 of the Copyright Act, photographs enjoy protection for 50 years after first publication. This also includes the photographer's right to be named. In the case of our Greek vases, whose creators have long since died, we can therefore digitise and use photos published before 1971 without copyright restrictions. 116] There is also the right of protection for editors. It grants the author of a scientific edition, of a work or text that is in the public domain, the same rights as the creator of a work in the copyright sense (but only for 25 years). The prerequisite is the scholarly production of a previously unknown original text. [117] And for databases there is sui-generis protection. The database producer right protects investments in database works. A database is not protected in principle, but only against the extraction and re-use of essential parts. Without the consent of the Beazley Archive, you cannot, for example, simply export the data sets and put them online again. However, you can integrate the information from individual records into your database and then publish it. [118] And there is another obstacle to the digitisation of entire works. The complete digitisation of originals of which you are the owner is permitted in principle, but the use by third parties is not! You are therefore not allowed to simply put digital copies on the web. This is the reason why the guttenberg.org site is blocked in Germany. However, there are exceptions for libraries with stationary reading places. In password-protected environments, on the other hand, only excerpts are allowed, and on the net only short quotations. [119] Since the digital humanities are dependent on data and, as a humanities discipline, have no money for acquiring rights, the community attaches great importance to Creative Commons licences. These grant the rights to use works and, as a public copyright licence, enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work. [120] The same applies to the source code of software. Software whose source code has been made public so that it can be viewed, modified and used by third parties is referred to as open source software. This applies especially to software for whose further development a community of developers is responsible. However, open source does not mean that the software is free! [121] Speaking of Lege artis: In the Digital Humanities, we try to apply the FAIR principles as far as possible. The four capital letters stand for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable. Findable is understood to mean four principles: 1. Data and metadata are assigned globally unique and persistent identifiers, 2: Data are described with rich metadata, 3: Metadata clearly and explicitly include the identifier of the data they describe 4: Data and metadata are registered or indexed in a searchable resource [122] Accessible includes that the data and metadata can be retrieved by their identifier using a standardised communication protocol. The protocol is open, free and universally implementable, and allows for an authentication and authorisation where necessary. Furthermore, metadata should be accessible even when the data is no longer available. [123] "By “open access” to [peer-reviewed research literature], we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited." That doesn‘t mean that any use is permitted! Creative Commons licences apply, which you automatically agree to when downloading. 124] Thirdly, our data should be interoperable. That is, data and metadata use a formal, accessible, shared, and broadly applicable language for knowledge representation. The data and metadata use vocabularies that follow the FAIR principles and they include qualified references to other data [125] Fourth, research data should be reusable. This is ensured if the data and metadata are richly described with a plurality of accurate and relevant attributes. They are released with a clear and accessible data usage license. They are associated with detailed provenance and they meet domain-relevant community standards [126] I think that's easy to instil: Research data (metadata) should be unambiguously findable, freely retrievable, machine-readable and reusable! 127] In the case of Annalena Baerbock, there was also talk of character assassination. That is why I would like to address the ethical implications. To what extent can our research affect personal rights? Soon after the publication of the novel "The Cuckoo's Calling", a book by the previously unknown Robert Galbraith, the DH community was able to prove beyond doubt with the methods of stylometry that the work was written by J.K. Rowling, the famous author of the Harry Potter novels. This was a first major success for the Digital Humanities. [128] However, J. K. Rowling had good reasons for publishing the book under a pseudonym. She confessed in the Boston Globe that "being Robert Galbraith was a liberating experience for her. It was wonderful to publish without hype and expectations, and it was a pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name." In times of media overreaction, the question certainly arises as to what one triggers by attributing authorship to a famous author and to what extent one does not even violate her personal rights by doing so. 129] The situation is somewhat clearer with the Cambridge Analytics cases or the described determination of sexual preference on the basis of photos. Here, personality rights are clearly violated. But even if those photographed have ceded their rights, such procedures are morally very questionable. 130] I find it similarly difficult when US authorities search state driver's licence databases for years using facial recognition methods to track down illegal immigrants. The problem here is not only the violations of the law, but the supposed accuracy with which innocent people are quickly suspected or even punished. 131] We also work with pattern recognition and of course there is enormous potential there. As digital humanities scholars, we should therefore apply the principle of responsibility. By this I mean acting responsibly towards society, colleagues, staff and students should credibly reflect the values and ethical foundation of the digital humanities. Therefore, we will not only use our knowledge and skills within the framework of existing laws and norms, but also decide on the moral level of their use. This aspect is also important when communicating humanities content to a broad audience! 132] As we've seen a few challenges still remain in the digital communicating of humanities content. For the choice of the appropriate form of communicating is not always easy. Often the financial framework is the cause. Nevertheless, methodological criticism should not be neglected. In connection with this, it is important to reflect on the historical conditionality and the aesthetic demands. This applies to all digital realisations, but also to digital communicating. So far, the frequently mentioned possibilities of using augmented reality as a field of experimentation for testing research theses have been somewhat underrepresented. Here, it is not yet clear what a suitable research infrastructure might look like that could provide us with virtual means to process far-flung and incomplete data for meaningful use. And as shown at the last paragraph, it is important to advocate for socially responsible action, even if it is always a bit difficult. 133] After today's lesson, I could ask you in the exam, for example, to outline the possible applications of digital methods in museum work. Or I could ask you how the usability of digital museums can be evaluated? What are the foundations of good scientific practice? is an important question. A definitional task that has it all is the supposedly easy question: What are virtual museums? What purpose do they serve? On the other hand, you will be able to enumerate the FAIR principles quite easily. And then I would be interested to know how a DH game should be structured and what problems should be avoided? With that, I bid you farewell and wish you much success in the exam.