16 August 2012

Open, interactive and participative: how Open Exhibits project foresees the future of exhibitions.

Source: http://openexhibits.org/

Open Exhibits aims to provide free tools and a participative online community to implement multisensorial experience in exhibition.

The Open Exhibits project is an innovative project in the field of cultural heritage in the way it’s based on open software, which can be easily downloaded and implemented by museums and institutions interested in. It offers as well a growing, participative community which share practices and methodology.

Nearly two years ago, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) started to support this project, aiming to transform the way in which museum and exhibition organizers can take advantage of the newest possibilities of interactions between visitors and actual contents. The software can be used in a variety of ways, all of them aim to improve the possibilities of Human-Computer Interaction in order to give the users a more physical and interactive learning experience.

For instance, it’s possible to compile your own, customized exhibition environment starting from the Open Exhibits’ Software Development Kit (SDK) offered via the website, paired with inexpensive, totally customizable and open source hardware like Arduino controllers. You can even add motion recognition options to your exhibition, using a Microsoft’s Kinect controlled by a free utility.

SDK is available for free to museums, students, schools and nonprofits. 

Another great possibility offered by Open Exhibits, as aforementioned, is the community existing around the project’s website. You can participate, interact and ask the community in order to gain the best from your project and suggest the other users best practices to put their concepts in practice through the use of Open Exhibits’ open environment.

The project is still growing and going to offer new functions and modules to users later this year.

Stefano Sbarbati

Source: Open Exhibits

More infos: Open Exhibits Supporthttp://openexhibits.org/faq