Informal learning session

I have Tim's ppt slides and hopefully will upload them when i can figureb out how to! The film shifthappens is here.
A reminder that my paper is on my wiki.
Glad it's over - i think i need this!

Social media conference: Friday 29th February

Here we are at the Museum of Sydney getting ready to speak, argue, engage and have fun with a packed house of 125 people or so.

Kevin Von Appen: What are we doing is communicating, collaborating, connecting, collecting, co-creating, colonising. Noted websites that I already uploaded links to in my earlier post.

Also remembered the post I did on what is Web 2.0 which you can access here.

Some other sites he mentioned (I'll upload the links later):

Climatexchange, questacon

Collection x, Canada

instructables.

Brooklyn museum

Tech.org

Need to think about impact: what do we look for and how do we measure it, what should we value.

Seb inspired us all to remember that social media is hard – the technology is not. It takes a mind-shift across the whole institution (I think we're all going to be saying the same things today! We need to make strategic choices – the right choices. Social media is a website strategy. Social media strategy includes other websites you don't have any or little control over. Hopefully I have capture the major slide in this foto. Seb also talked about the stuart site – he has blogged about it here.

Social media conference special presentation: Kevin von Appen and Caroline Payson

Today we were fortunate to have Kevin von Appen, Ontario Science Centre, and Caroline Payson, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, talk to a group of staff about what they do. These are my very rough notes.

Some points from Kevin’s talk:
• Social nature of Australians makes us prime candidates to uptake social media
• 1 in 6 teens in Australia has their own blog (I suggest this figure is higher give that MySpace and Bebo have their own blog function)online experiences are rooted in the physical (i.e. the stuff we have – I found this strongly when talking to students at e-kids’ college)
• Museums – we’re all in this together
• Web allows museums to react quickly to big issues (and invite others to collaborate I would suggest)
• One way to get content out there is to colonise virtual communities (e.g. YouTube and Facebook)
• Video is an increasingly popular tool (more downloads of videos from their site than everything else put together)
• Operated in a skunkworks kind of approach – created sites outside of the corporate site in order to experiment – challenge now is to bring these all together
• Rapid idea generator (RIG): process to generate lot of ideas around a specific topic, challenge or opportunity and to physically manifest ideas in unexpected ways to create unexpected dialogue
Websites presented:
• SFMOMA podcasting and Vox Pops
• steve.museum
• Ilikemuseums
• Science buzz (Science Museum of Minnesota)
• Redshift Now

Caroline’s points:
• Had to think about conjunction between physical presence and web presence – how to make the best of both?? Used a problem-solving approach to come up with ideas and approaches
• They do have access to great people
• Can’t be all things to all people all the time – this is unachievable
• They decide to focus on one group and branch out from there
• 9 online visitors to 1 physical visitor – mostly clicking on the educational aspect
• Teach teachers how to think like designers to take back into classroom to go through processes of design – design as a process is a great way to work together and create knowledge and is relevant across other disciplines apart from just design
• Site focusses on process not objects – they consciously made this decision
• Design for the other 99% exhibition had a bigger life after the physical exhibition closed
• Emphasised the casual nature of the blog – it’s not an academic treatise
• Their Director made them work differently – you won’t have three specialist meetings each week, you’ll have two and spend the other time on your blog
• There’s’ a community out there no matter what you’re interested in (even knitters who watch Law and Order and have cats ... umm, I tried to find this blog but got led on an merry adventure by Google, can’t say any more than that!)
• Caroline’s “butt rule”: should be able to get everything you need (i.e. resources) without moving your butt
• The Educator Resource Centre site is well worth a good look and play
• Conversation strand – has become the place for design teachers across US to talk about design education, also searchable and can upload fotos and video
• Did a lot of user-testing with teachers
• Have paid teachers to post, write materials and moderate (in future)
• Online visitation has increased 9-1, more visitors than the museum shop
Web philosophy – embrace collection and get more online, everything online supports the mission, reach other audiences, one site will meet the needs of all areas of the museum.

Overall an exhausting, yet highly productive and stimulating day. Kinda looking forward to another full day tomorrow!

Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference 2008: preamble

Well, it's almost time for the Conference and Masterclasses to happen. All the overseas speakers have arrived safe and sound and ready for action. I have finally finished my paper and have uploaded it to my wiki. It's a bit rough around the edges but you'll catch my drift. Basically the argument is:

• the principles of informal learning, constructivism and social media match very closely,
  
• museum visitors use these tools,
  
• visitors want to have more two-way interactions with museums, and
  
• the physical and on-line experiences are very closely linked.
  

So, why then hasn't social media been taken up in greater numbers by museums??

I'll keep posting as the conference progresses, when I upload depends on whether there's wireless available so expect some time lags.

Australia says sorry

On Wednesday 13 February the Australian Government will say sorry to the Stolen Generations. This is an historic occasion in Australia and one that many people feel very strongly about.

Do you want to know more? Here are some useful links:

• GetUp! Campaign Actions – contains a useful Mythbusters Fact Sheet
  
• reconcile - National Apology – lists where to view the live broadcast and has some background information
  
• ABC Online – will be streaming the apology live. They will probably have a separate webpage which I'll upload when I find it
  
• Indigenous Australia – the Museum's site with information and links

Organisational change, Web 2.0, etc etc

As many of you know, I have been posting and thinking lots about this issue.
Having had a lovely, three-continent conversation with Martin Stewart Weeks and Paul Johnston from Cisco tonight, we got talking about how we deal with this thorny issue. Paul and Martin pointed me to this wonderful paper The Neuroscience of Leadership:
“Why do people resist change so stubbornly, even when it’s in their own interest?” wonder CEOs like Mike. Changing the way others go about their work is harder than he has expected. New advances in neuroscience provide insight into why change can be so difficult, and there are several key findings." and so it continues. Well worth a read.
Me? I'm still wondering if we should take the Gordon Ramsay approach to organisational change - for those of you on Facebook check out this post. For those of you that aren't - tune in, 9.30pm EST Thursdays (warning - its addictive!!).

Best practice in visitor service

I have been sitting on this question for awhile from Pamela Clelland Gray: Dear Lynda, I hope this finds you well. I write to seek your guidance on where in the world you would suggest the best practice in Visitor Service in the environment of a gallery/museum might be taking place. I think a great deal more could be done in terms of human engagement with visitors, how the communication base of the gallery flows through to the experience of visitors.
I will be most appreciative of any guidance in this direction.

Hi Pamela. I have been pondering your question as I originally misread it as best programs but I now see you're looking more at customer service. Speaking personally, I have had mixed receptions in many of the museums and galleries I have visited across the world. As far as research in this area goes the only one I know of is Steve Yalowitz's doctoral study. Steve works at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and may be worth contacting him directly.

A good text that looks at many aspects of the visitor experience is Graham Black's book The Engaging Museum: Developing Museums for Visitor Involvement. It contains many examples and practical tips.

This is a good question and I'm wondering if others have any thoughts to share?

Thoughts on web trends 2008

Have been reading some sites looking at trends in the web world for 2008 (thanks mostly to Russ and Phil). Here’s what I’ve learned and how I think these trends apply to museums.
1. The rise of mobile technologies: Does this mean museum websites will need to operate on a range of mobile platforms? Do we encourage content from people wherever they happen to be? There is enormous potential I see for fieldwork/fieldguides that are updated live by people who are actually there researching/seeing the world as it happens - just one idea, I’m sure there are heaps of others.
2. Archiving: How to archive the massive amounts of information that not only comes via email, but posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook. How do you archive work-related conversations, posts, links etc, that are starting to amass on these sites? I strongly believe that good old paper is the way to go (just reinforced as I re-read Plutarch’s Fall of the Roman Republic preserved for all that time on paper...)
3. E-learning tools are more accessible and easy to use: Larry Ferlazzo’s website lists the 14 best web applications for education. Many of these could be used by museums in their online learning programs, or at least stream content to them somehow?
4. Organisational issues: “Managers [and employees?] will need to be more creative and less obsessed with cost and efficiency” and “Stop competing against your competitors [as] your traditional rivals aren’t your biggest worry” – these come from BusinessWeek’s Innovation Predictions 2008. There a many lessons for museums in working together which is often easier to do in the online world. Bigger funding pots will come from partnership programs in the future I believe. The skills that I posted here about Knowledge Workers could form part of a checklist for future organisational development? The McKinsey Quarterly eight trends to watch article also has a wealth of insights into organisational issues and the web.
5. Collaboration: The Guardian’s Top 10 trends for 2008 include interesting insights into how companies will collaborate more with their online users and work differently with them. Museums have the opportunities to tap into a huge resource of “armchair experts” to add rich content and commentary to their online offerings – have a look at the article Open Source Science which discussed this some time ago. Not a new idea I know but the tools of the web will enable collaboration to be undertaken more easily, quickly and efficiently (and cheaply!!). The McKinsey article also discusses this issue and provides an example of Amazon enabling other businesses to use its services and in turn reaps the benefits of new applications and developments.
6. The rise of co-creation and (I also think) of an informed and active citizenry on a global scale: Nina Simon’s post outlines a challenge for co-creation to find the right questions. She references this wonderful site – The World Question Centre. Will co-creation become the new buzz term replacing social media and Web 2.0? I have also posted a range of links on my del.icio.us site of organisations that are ones to look out for in terms of active citizenry. You can search for them using the tag “climatechangeARC”.
7. Mash-ups: Now I understand what this term means couldn’t help but use it! The McKinsey article discusses data integration under Managing capital and assets as part of “leveraging information in new ways”. For museums the challenge will be to store and share data – will we have the courage and foresight to insist on using tools and systems that will enable easy data sharing across our institutions?
8. Search, analytics and measurement will become increasingly important: CMS Watch’s Twelve Predictions for 2008 discusses this (as well as several other gems). We are seeing discussions about user-led searching, particularly with the Powerhouse Museum’s OPAC 2.0 (here’s the most recent blog post about it, trackback from there for more). There are also useful discussions about web analytics on Seb’s blog. Museums will need to get serious and go beyond measuring numbers to detailing interactions and experiences – something that audience researchers have successfully moved to in looking at visitors’ physical experiences. Perhaps a future new role for those of use working in this field?
9. Gadgets and gizmos: Have a look at the Sydney Morning Herald and BBC websites. I want a Chumby!
10. Finally, again from CMS Watch which is worth reproducing in full here: “What should you do? Keep focussed on specific business objectives. Someone in your enterprise should be thinking about The Next Big Thing, but not at the expense of undertaking the hard work of real information and process analysis today.” As mentioned in an earlier post, Peter Drucker discussed these ideas in his book Managing in Turbulent Times (which on re-reading is so relevant to today even though it was written in 1980!).
I know there are many more so feel free to add your thoughts.

Knowledge Workers

I'm really interested in the knowledge society and what that means for museums and organisational change. I have been re-visiting my Peter Drucker texts and been re-inspired by that man's foresight and genius! Susan Groundwater-Smith also put me onto this useful piece of work by Gurteen (2006) who suggested the following attributes of a knowledge worker:

• connect people with people
  
• connect people with ideas
  
• are good networkers
  
• do not follow the rules
  
• have strong communication skills
  
• like people
  
• feel good about themselves
  
• motivate others
  
• are catalysts
  
• ask for help
  
• demonstrate integrity
  
• are self reliant
  
• open to share
  
• are not afraid
  
• are goal oriented
  
• are able to identify critical knowledge
  
• add value to the organisation
  
• have strong subject expertise in a specific area
  
• network for results
  
• trustworthy - can be trusted and trusts others
  
• make decisions
  
• are not insular
  
• do not conform
  
• push the boundaries
  
• assume authority - ask for forgiveness, not permission
  
• strong belief in the value of knowledge sharing
  
• are informal active leaders
  
• take a holistic view
  
• are catalysts, facilitators and triggers
  
• good listeners - they listen first
  
• do not need praise
  
• see the wider picture
  
• work well with others
  
• do not have a 'knowledge is power' attitude
  
• walk the talk
  
• prepared to experiment with technology
  
• playful
  
• take calculated risks
  

The Gurteen Knowledge Website is useful too.

Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference 2007

Registration is now open for the Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference 2007. The conference brings together a range of great industry speakers from Australia, Canada, USA and UK. It promises to be a provocative day and is aimed at the needs of those institutions small and large who are yet to start fully exploring the communication opportunities afforded by social media. The conference is a single day event on February 29 at the Museum of Sydney. There will be two related masterclasses on February 28 at the Australian Museum. Find out more at http://nlablog.wordpress.com/conference-2008/
Earlybird registration closes on 17 December - you can download a registration form at
http://www.mgnsw.org.au/files/resources/Social%20Media%20and%20Cultural%20Comm.pdf

Locals visiting museums

After my excellent lunch the other day with Rob and Gillian, I got inspired (or was that instructed!) by Rob to re-visit his 2005 paper The "Museum Constant": One-third plus or minus a bit (Visitor Studies Today!, 8/2, pp1, 4-7). Rob reports on an analysis of museum visiting data collected over a 13 year period with Australians asking about their leisure activities, demographic profile and personality/self-description items. Generally it was found that around 35% of the Sydney population visit museums, with the interest in museums more noticeable in those who agreed with the statement "I am interested in abstract ideas", then followed by education level.

Four things struck me from that as we struggle here with thinking about our general exhibitions and program offer:

1. There is a limit to the audience for museums (knew that but good reinforcement)
   
2. The limit '... appears to be driven by people's preferences for conceptual cognitive activity' (p.7)
   
3. Although education is a strong predictor it acts as an enabler in people participating in the museum experience
   
4. 'It may be that museums in large population centres cannot hope to reach all the people in their catchment, but perhaps over time, they can reach about two-thirds of them' (p.7)
   

In my recent survey of what Australians do online, I found that while those who visit museums undertake the same kinds of online activities (such as read blogs, comment on sites, use RSS feeds, etc), they were more likely to use a wiki; listen to a podcast; tag a web page; comment on a blog; post a rating/review; participate in a discussion board/forum; read a blog.

I'm wondering in future whether these kinds of stats will be affected by the online world and the new kinds of relationships museums will have with their audiences that visit them both virtually and physically? I'm becoming (surprisingly) more interested in how we then develop closer relationships in these aspects as we our rebuild our website and deeply think about our physical offer. To me, the conceptual aspects that Rob talks about are ripe for the picking in those who will interact with us online too.

Maybe time for some targeted research in this area??

Using Flickr as an evaluation tool

Check out the Flickr audience research site where childrens’ drawings of the African Impressions exhibition are stored. I’m experimenting with using these kind of sites as extra evaluation tools. Thanks to Ariel for doing all the scanning for me.

Any feedback welcome...

E-kids’ college: afternoon session

What we did this afternoon was for the students to interview some of the Museum's scientists about what they do and their personal and professional interests. Mark and Amanda fielded many questions about their work and how they got interested in their field of work.

There were some really provocative and interesting questions from the students. One lovely one was How do we know what people know and what people don't know? Mark answered that by reminding us that all the answers aren't always to be found on the internet and that there are really cool books that you can use too. They also asked What was the most interesting thing they had discovered? Mark discovered a new species of wallaby, and Amanda's friend also discovered a new species of fish. Other questions were: What is the most weirdest and wackiest thing you've ever done in your job? Any scary experiences? Where's the most interesting place you've been to? Thanks Mark and Amanda, I know I learned more about you two who I usually see every day! Now I understand more about your passions and why you got into doing what you do. Amanda reminded us to hang in there as it may take some time to get some paid work.

The discussions have been really productive, some ideas that emerged at the end were that they:

• don't want to use mobiles for accessing internet as they are too hard to use (with small keyboards, etc), the screens are no good and they don't have a mouse to use, although when I asked them about whether they'd like to use some kind of mobile device throughout the Museum to gather content they were really keen
• suggested that we have a blog with question of the week that they can email in
• would like to have a section on the website where they could leave a comment/feedback about their experiences and see what others have said
• really wanted to talk to scientists via some kind of video link, where you log in and talk to them in real time online
• felt we should be uploading video content both to our own site and YouTube (they admit their views on this had changed over the day)
  

The day finished with us going on a tour of an area that the Museum is thinking about turning into a new media space. And after that we thanked them, gave each school a certificate and finished!

Thanks so much for all your efforts as we now have a goldmine of information we can use when developing our new website and other digital technologies.

E-kids’ college: morning session

What is it like to learn using computers and digital technologies and what do we think about the web? You can do anything, go anywhere in the world, and do anything unexpected and find anything. Web is about bringing things together and mixing them (people and things). Web opens new doors and new discoveries. Finding unexpected things, using shortcuts, learning more about how to use it. The internet is big, lots of stuff to discover and find out. Wild and unexpected and creative.

Next we went on a visit – one to the Palaeontology collection and one to the Museum's search and discover area. We were curious to find out how objects in the Museum could be made more interesting by supplementing them through digital technologies. All ideas were great and really useful. Some from my group were:

• An interactive collection space where you click on a cupboard, drawer etc and then have objects to explore
  
• 3D mapping of objects that you could rotate and explore further
  

We also got them to complete a survey with ten of their friends before they came here. The survey asked them questions about what they do online in order to compare to data we have collected from adults in Australia and the US. I'm still working on that! They also completed the sentence: Not being able to access the web is like not being able to ..., and here's some of what they said:

• Walk, breathe, talk, eat, survive, socialise
  
• Get access to water
  
• Open a chest
  
• Get an education
  
• Access a whole new world
  
• Go to school
  
• Wear clothes and be fashionable
  
• See the sun
  
• Travel around the world, explore my inner self or broaden my horizon
  
• Read a simple book
  

The final activity we did this morning was to think about websites b y looking at a site called ShowMe. This got a really bad review unfortunately and they felt that the site was developed by older people who weren't in touch with them ... Since they didn't like it we asked them to show us what sites they did like. Two sites from my group were FreeRice, where you learn about vocabulary/words while contributing to a good cause. They loved the colours and clean design of that site too. The other was MiniClip Games, for storing games which they felt was really well-organised, easy to find the games and fun as well.

One thing that struck me as they talked was that they felt the Museum's site was the place where we should store our content, videos, images and so on, not necessarily YouTube, Flickr and other places. They felt we should separate ourselves from what they perceive as fun sites – I'm not sure about this myself and is something that I'll be exploring further.

E-kids’ College

It's an exciting day for us here at the Museum. Around 24 students from schools across NSW are attending the second of our Kids' Colleges. This one is looking at digital technologies, how young people are using the web and to explore how e-learning relate to museums and young people. I'll attempt to blog as we go with my impressions so this may be a long and fragmented post ...

Timing and pace of museum education visits

This question from Cathy Burke (UK): Dear Lynda, Susan Groundwater-Smith suggested I contact you to see if you know of any studies that have examined matters of timing and pace in the way that museum educators organised the experience of children visiting museums - especially on children's views on or experience of this - I am involved with a project that has generated this question at Manchester Art Gallery here in the UK. Looking for suitable literature. Feels like it is an important issue but I am finding it difficult to find relevant studies.

Hi Cathy. I don't know of any studies about this actually. A good resource is the Visitor Studies Group email alert where you can post a question. You could also look at Janette Griffin's thesis on school visits and museums, especially the lit review. It is available online at this link (I think!). If it doesn't work then go to the home page, search for University of Technology and her name and it should pop up. You could also email Janette (her details are on the UTS website).

There have been many general studies of timing in museums which may also be a good place to start. The Methodology chapter of my thesis has relevant lit and references (scroll down the page and it's there as a pdf).

I'd be really interested in what you find - can you let us all know via the blog please?

Education sector and museum domain workshop

Attended this roundtable today organised by the Le@rning Federation through the Curriculum Corporation. Was a large gathering of museum representatives and folks from various education domains. Really productive discussion and I learned lots about how different education domains access content through their own learning portals. This presents issues for institutions who may need to get their content accepted by a huge range of education jurisdictions, not only the state system but providers like the Catholic Education system. It was interesting to hear from Charles Morgan from Tasmania who described how the learning objects are actually used in the classroom, and this brought alive the TLF process to me. Tim Hart from Museum Victoria raised incredibly important issues around museum and digitisation and working with organisations like TLF. The points I took away were:

• Museums need to standardise process in order to play together in the digital space (what a great quote!)
  
• How much have museums learned about what they're doing online?
  
• Too focused on creating physical exhibitions (I may have put my own bias on this comment, don't know if that's what he actually said!)
  
• Currently we all go it alone too much
  
• We are at a point where we can combine resources for people to access online – for example why not a search that throws back an artwork, an object, a book, a piece of ephemera, and archival film and so on across all our collections?
  

To me the issue of metadata and standards are the most critical one facing the sector. When I raised the issue of how the various domains will deal with the future of the web and social networks and the way students learn and interact in the future, I found out that this actually won't be a problem as long as the metadata is right – we need to be able to map a common authentification according to Seb (I don't know what that really means but I'm sure someone's onto it!).

The wrap-up of the workshop was asking for one salient point from each working group. These were (from my perspective):

• Uncoordinated, ad hoc and disparate nature of what's out there – infrastructure, content, uses of material, therefore need system to facilitate sharing of resources
  
• Utilises Web 2.0 tools, enable museum staff to interact with users and facilitate teachers and students able to tell their own stories and interpretations of objects
  
• How to deal with the richness and vastness of the data, complications of findings and searching
  
• Multiplicity of portals, brokerage arrangements makes for unnecessary levels of complication – need a national shared portal
  
• Students want to be producers and creators using the resources of museums and tool s of Web 2.0 while still tied to curriculum outcomes and assessment
  
• Sustainable process for cultural institutions to develop their own content for teachers in the future
  
• Sustainability will need to come through collaboration
  
• New signposts and new directions – look at the national statements of learning as a starting point? New roles and ways of learning – how to resource? How to digitise? How to prioritise? What are the measures of success? Where will mobile technologies fit?
  

Afternoon was a symposium. First paper Pedagogy and digital content: findings from three years evaluation of TLF online curriculum content by Professor Peter Freebody, University of Sydney. His report will be on TLF website end of the month. Key points for me that are relevant to what the Museum's doing:

• Effective ICT use and integration: committed leadership to here and now and building up of skills over time; a champion; growing social networks of people working together without having to blaze the trail themselves; a working plan that involved personnel and resources; well-directed and high quality resources; lot of old pedagogies going on around new technologies
  
• One finding from school visits was that often school leaders deal with procedural issues rather than curriculum issues (this is very relevant – focusing on process over what you're actually there to be doing...)
  

Several niggles I had – I didn't get a sense of what the actual experience of teachers and students were? The processes of evaluation, while I accept they need to be long-term and rigorous have the potential to be left behind –by the time you've disseminated the findings the audience has actually move on. I also have problems with language used around "mature" users and waiting – I think this is rather paternalistic – who's to define what mature practice is? It needs to be end-user defined, not defined by the researcher?? Guess I'll need to read the report.

Professor Stephen Heppell
Transforming practice – what (else) does it take? Points:

• Writing policies can't keep up with the pace of change
  
• Now we have lots of social space and social spaces to put stuff, we have mashups that join things together
  
• The gadgets have real scale, globality and ubiquity (the iTouch is a good example)
  
• Question – what haven't we got that learning needs? We haven't got identity; we haven't got time; no certainty of longevity; ability to annotate as you go; narrative layers and ability to link/join threads together (shiftspace is starting to do threading)
  
• There is not a shortage of content anymore – the world is awash with good stuff, but would be better if could thread them together, annotate them, narrate them
  
• We are in a learning age (not an information or knowledge age – that's already there) – what a great opportunity!
  
• Asked children what does being literate mean? Answer manage a community in Facebook; upload a video to YouTube; edit a Wikipedia entry; choose a safe online payment site; subscribe to a podcast; turn predictive text on/off on a fone; manage a group's Flickr account; vote in an online poll; comment on a concern site
  
• The death of education and the dawn of learning – all the boxes and rigidity are going. Judgements will be made by the learner in future
  

This was one of the most stimulating, fun and useful talks about the future of the web I have ever heard I must say. There was so much more he said that I haven't blogged about but I will be incorporating them into a paper I'm writing about the organisational change process in museums through the implementation of Web 2.0.

Impact of museum health/well-being programs

May Redfern asks: I am currently writing a paper for a conference on measuring cost/benefit analysis for museums delivering health and well being agendas (part of the broader social value remit). I was therefore just wondering if you know of examples of best practice in this area? At the moment I'm focusing on the UK's MLA's generic social outcomes framework and the new economics foundation's measurements. It would be great if I could add some more 'real life' examples of health/well-being policy delivery and evaluation in a museum setting.

Hi May. This is a tough one. I don't know of any specific evaluations and programs but I'm sure there must be some in the UK especially given their social inclusion agenda. Maybe ask via the Visitor Studies Group – they have a great email list.

The other person who springs to mind is Lois Silverman who has researched museums as therapy and come up with some interesting findings. She has published quite a lot and a quick Google search brings up various pieces she has done. Lois also has a chapter in the Richard Sandell edited book Museums, Society and Social Inequality that may be a good start. Last I heard she was at Indiana University in the Department of Parks, Recreation etc, but have looked through their (frustrating!) site and can't uncover anything further.

Good luck with your abstract – is it for the Inclusive Museum conference next June?

Summative Evaluation

Anonymous asked: Dear Lynda, Does visitors book and feedback form that we found at the end of exhibition falls under summative evaluation?

Hi Anonymous. In my view visitors' books and feedback forms, when used strategically, can be a very valuable and easy form of summative evaluation. For example, we used feedback forms for a controversial exhibition, and by posting up others' forms coupled with media clippings found that we had a series of conversation happening – visitor-to-museum and visitor-to-visitor. Feedback forms can also help gather demographic information if you don't have the resources to do a targeted survey.

For more information about summative evaluation see the information sheet called Exhibition Evaluation on my website, and also the paper outlining the history and future of audience research that I have posted to my wiki – it is the one called Evaluation, Research and Communities of Practice: Program Evaluation in Museums (go down the page a bit).

Biodiversity Exhibition Evaluations

This question from Georgina Bishop, Natural History Museum, London: Hi Lynda, Hope all is well with you. I am gathering some information on Biodiversity exhibitions as we are in the beginning stages of developing a brief for one that will happen as part of the NHM's masterplanning. I think that you also have a Biodiversity exhibition and I wondered if it would be possible for you to send me any front-end research you did as part of this.

Hi Georgina and I am well thanks! I have chosen to blog my response so others can have access.

We did a series of studies for our former Biodiversity: Life Supporting Life exhibition as follows:

• Frontend evaluation report, 1997: concepts, themes, prior understanding and interpretive approaches
  
• Formative evaluation report 1 1997: concepts, population issues and interpretive strategies
  
• Formative evaluation report 2, 1998: topics and concepts, merchandise and exhibition title
  
• Formative evaluation report 3, 1998: text, label and graphics testing
  
• Summative evaluation, 1998
  

These files have now posted on my wiki at a new page called Evaluation reports. When reading them you need to keep in mind the time they were conducted. I think many of the topics and understandings that we tested at that time would be vastly different now. For example, the issue of climate change was not really even thought about then. We have done work on climate change which I have blogged about here, so I would also reference that work when you are looking at biodiversity.

There is also a project called Who Cares about the Environment? run by the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation that has been tracking attitudes to, knowledge of and skills and behaviour of adults regarding the environment over many years and is worth checking out. I'm sure there have been studies of this kind in the UK too. The Pew Internet/Exploratorium report The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science is also relevant as it showed that 20% Americans used the internet to find out information about science, including environment and climate change issues (second only to television at 41%) and this has implications for the conjunction of physical exhibitions and what museums provide on the web I believe.

Good luck.