LLP-LDV/TOI/07/IT/016

OUTCOMES OF THE F-MU.S.EU.M. RESEARCH ACTIVITY F-M U.S.EU.M. (Form Multimedia System for a European Museum) LLP-LDV/TOI/07/IT/016 Sofia, September 2008

The Research activity of the F-MU.S.EU.M Project: products realized The products provided within the F-MU.S.EU.M. Project are based on a strong research activity. Within the Project, six Research Reports built with data collected by survey and by questionnaires, have been realized: A Survey on characteristics, nature and extent of the European Virtual Museums offer; An exploratory study about new and specific professional roles needed for building and managing a Virtual Museum; A Study about four case-studies (three European Museums and one non-Eu Museum) on the best practices in building a Virtual Museum;

The Research activities of the F- MU.S.EU.M Project: products realized A Benchmarking comparing the results coming from the four case-studies with the Prototype of Virtual Museum, realized within the Project MU.S.EU.M.; A Survey and SWOT analysis of the nine Museums, participating in the Project, analyzing their Strengths, Weakness, Opportunity and Threats; A Report detailing the actions to be undertaken by the F-MU.S.EU.M. Project, for transferring the MU.S.EU.M. Prototype to the nine participating Museums.

The Survey on Characteristics, Nature and Extent of the European Virtual Museum offer Generally speaking, the results of all the six researches highlighted that telematic and Virtual Reality play a very important role in actual museums. As the first research report clearly pointed out, cultural sector has a strong relevance in contributing to social, cultural and economic development of Europe. Museums play, in this context, a leading role. The exemplar cases of nine European Virtual Museums show that at present time there is a great interest of the most important European Museums in new information and communication technologies applied to their Heritage, with particular regard to Virtuality. This is testified by the evidence that the great European Museums are building several products based on the use of Virtual reality (Virtual Museums with 3D items, virtual environments, etc.)

The Report on New Professional roles between actual and virtual museums The Report analyzed specific skills and roles asked by the challenges of virtual museums, in many fields. The Report pointed out the relevance of 3 basic kinds of expertise needed for building, running and managing a Virtual Museum: Managing expertise Design expertise Content creation expertise The other important professional figure is the Communication Expert: it is up to this key-role to guarantee that the message of the product reaches the public.

The data pointed out by this Study allow stating that the realization of a Virtual Museum is an added value to the actual museum. In fact, for all the cases taken into consideration, the Virtual Museum contributed to improve the quality of the their services to the public; furthermore, for almost all the Museums, virtual resources also helped in increasing the number of visitors to the actual museum. The Report also pointed out that it is possible to train human resources internal to the Institutions and get the necessary skills, needed for building virtual products, without huge costs for the museums. Four case-studies of best practices in building a Virtual Museum

Benchmarking of best practices and the MU.S.EU.M. Prototype From the comparison of the MU.S.EU.M. prototype with the four case-studies of best practices in building a Virtual Museums, it has been possible to point out that the Virtual Museum of European Roots is an innovative product with unique characteristics, and indicated that the distinctive features to be developed in the F-MU.S.EU.M. Project, are: The international dimension of the Project network The possibility to access to a unique on-line learning model with a high communicational power High level of Virtuality

A specific Report was devoted to the analysis of the questionnaires filled by the nine Museums participating in the F.MU.S.EU.M. Project, with the aim of pointing out their ability to migrate to a Virtual Museum. The analyses, focused on Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats of any participating Museums, pointed out that the major factors of weakness and threats come, in order of importance, from : Lack of human resources Lack of funds These problems can be solved easily by having a strong model for training specific human resources. This is also confirmed by the four case –studies. SWOT analysis of the participating Museums

The Report pointed out a lack of skills and consequent training needs for the following key-role necessary for building, running and managing a Virtual Museum: E-learning experts Web experts Content creation experts Communication experts The report, nevetheless, pointed out that the nine museums, all having important collections, look all at the development of the European Virtual Museum as a grat opportunity to increase their visibility and to better deal with the possibilities provided by the IT.

Built on the results of the previous five researches, this last Report was focused on the actions aimed to implement the MU.S.EU.M. model and to transfer its methodology and results to nine European Museums participationg in the F-MU.S.EU.M. Project. Actions to be undertaken: Training tools for museums experts in order to achieve specific professional skills; Adoption of distance-learning methodologies, on-line and in situation; as we saw, the learning model is one of the most remarkable point of strengths of our prototype. Activation of learning laboratories Report on the actions for transferring the MU.S.EU.M. Prototype to the F- MU.S.EU.M. Partners