This document provides information about a seminar on using digital technologies to add value to cultural heritage sites. It discusses topics like augmented reality, virtual reality, analyzing visitor data, and using websites and social media. The seminar aims to expose students to state-of-the-art tools and applications for improving the online presence and visitor experience of cultural sites. Students will learn how to effectively manage the digital aspects of museums and cultural heritage sites.

1. Seminar at IMT Lucca - Spring 2015
Prof. Stefano Gazziano sgazziano@johncabot.eu
Data, Value, People

2.  Physicist, when computer science began in late ‘70s.
 Fulbrighter at Georgia Tech
 Private entrepreneur
 Data analyst for ENI
 Visiting scientist at UC Berkeley, first personal web page June 1994
 ENEA the Italian National Energy Agency since 1994
◦ head of international programs,
◦ delegate to OECD and G8,
◦ head of IT services,
◦ senior assistant to CEO
◦ head of technology transfer programs.
 Adjunct prof at John Cabot University since 1999
 Seconded expert to EU, Italian government, Latin America & Middle East
institutions
 Consultant in Web Reputation Management
 Special interest for the role of Internet in the creation of democratic consensus
◦ Campaign manager for a number of political elections in Italy
◦ Author of “Internet e politica 2005” prefaced by Romano Prodi, former President of the
European Commission and former PM of Italy
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 2

3. Abstract
 How "Being Digital" adds value to a cultural heritage site.
Augmented v/s virtual reality. Data analysis and digital contact with
visitors. Internet presence, the role of website and social networks.
Tools and platforms.
Course Aims
 Expose the students to state-of-the-art technologies and
applications of Internet platforms and tools to improve the online
presence and the experience of visitors to cultural heritage sites
and museums.
Learning Outcomes
 At the end of the course students will have a clear overview, and
will have explored in-depth selected case studies, of management
of the digital side of a museum or C.H. Site.
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 3

4. Internet is a powerful a channel to spread info, and culture,
which power towards management of cultural heritages is
just being unleashed.
Topics
 Pros and cons of using internet in managing cultural
heritage assets.
 The "death of distance" and motivation to cross real
distances. "Being digital" helps increase real visits.
 Virtual Museums, Virtual reality, Augmented reality:
technologies and content to improve the user experience
of cultural heritage sites
 Internet platforms, on-site installations, mobile devices,
cloud computing platforms.
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 4

5. Internet is a gold mine, users are the nuggets. Let us learn
how we can enrich culture.
Topics
 What is “Big data” and what use it is.
 “Analytics” or who are our internet visitors, what are they
looking for, and do they found it on our internet presence ?
 Data acquisition. Open data standards.
 Digital contact with users. Before and after the visit.
 Museum analytics, assessing user satisfaction. Case study.
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 5

6. Internet has rules, netiquette, and we must conform and
be smart. A few “musts” to put cultural heritage on the
net.
Topics
 Search Engine Optimization. Content updates, internet
staff.
 Web reputation management.
 Search engine marketing: crawling, indexing, ranking.
 Analitycs and conversions of a web site.
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 6

7. The web is really a wide world, and there is a lot more to
do than just publish a web site.
Topics
 Social networks: engagement techniques and online
tools.
 Going viral. Case study
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 7

8. Stefano A Gazziano
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9. Internet is a powerful a channel to spread info, and culture,
which power towards management of cultural heritages is
yet to be unleashed.
Topics
 Pros and cons of using internet in managing cultural
heritage assets.
 The "death of distance" and motivation to cross real
distances. "Being digital" helps increase real visits.
 Augmented reality: technology and content to improve the
user experience of cultural heritage sites
 Internet platforms, on-site installations, mobile devices,
cloud computing platforms.
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 9

10.  The Death of Distance: How the Communications
Revolution Is Changing our Lives by Frances CairnCropss,
2001.
 Being Digital, by Nicholas Negroponte, 1995
 Augmented Reality from Wikipedia
 Europeana
 Augmenting Phenomenology: Using Augmented Reality to
Aid Archaeological Phenomenology in the Landscape
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Volume 19,
Issue 4 , pp 582-600
 Apps for augmented reality in Tourism
 Digital Meets Culture
Stefano A Gazziano
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11.  Augmented reality and cultural heritage
 Techcooltour
 Personalized access to cultural heritage
 Muse apps for Europe
 Saving Ancient Egypt one tweet at a time
 Digital Invasions
 Social media and crowdsourcing v/s cultural heritage
 Digital Cultural Heritage Roadmap for preservation
 Digital Heritage 2013 – France
 MIT Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage
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12. Stefano A Gazziano
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13.  Our priority is to have real visitors or just disseminate
culture ?
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14.  Our priority is to have real visitors or just disseminate
culture ?
 Virtual tour is just a vicarious experience or encourages
real visits ?
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 14

15.  Our priority is to have real visitors or just disseminate
culture ?
 Virtual tour is just a vicarious experience or encourages
real visits ?
 Is the money worth spending ?
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16.  Our priority is to have real visitors or just disseminate
culture ?
 Virtual tour is just a vicarious experience or encourages
real visits ?
 Is the money worth spending ?
 Do we have adequate skills / staff / knowledge for a
suitable and updated web presence ?
Stefano A Gazziano
sgazziano@johncabot.edu 16

17.  Our priority is to have real visitors or just disseminate
culture ?
 Virtual tour is just a vicarious experience or encourages
real visits ?
 Is the money worth spending ?
 Do we have adequate skills / staff / knowledge for a
suitable and updated web presence ?
 … any other issues …
Stefano A Gazziano
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18.  MIT Media Lab 1995 seminal
book
 From Atoms to bits
 Sixth sense project , imagine that
applied to a museum or site visit
 Lure visitors, be at the frontier
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19.  Negroponte presents a strong belief that humanity is
inevitably headed towards a future where everything that
can will be digitalized (be it newspapers, entertainment, or
sex). This leads Negroponte to a quote repeated often in
promoting and explaining the book's material, that the
book is made of "unwieldy atoms" that will probably be
replaced by a digital copy by the time anyone reads it.
Several e-books exist of Being Digital [2] making the quote
rather prophetic.
 Being Digital also introduced the "Daily Me" concept of a
virtual daily newspaper customized for an individual's
tastes. This prediction has also come to pass with the
advent of web feeds and personal web portals.
Stefano A Gazziano
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20.  "Negroponte Switch".[1][2][3]
◦ Put simply he suggested that due to accidents of engineering history we
had ended with static devices - such as televisions receiving their
content via signals travelling over the airways while devices which
should have been mobile and personal - such as telephones were
receiving their content over static cables.
◦ It was his idea that a better use of available communication resource
would result if the information (such as phone calls) going through the
cables was to go through the air and that going through the air (such as
TV programmes) was to be delivered via cables.
◦ Negroponte called this "trading places," but his co-presenter (George
Gilder), at an event organised by Northern Telecom called it the
"Negroponte Switch" and that name stuck.
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21. First published in 1997, Cairncross' provocative book -
based on evidence from two sweeping surveys on
telecommunications – argues that new communications
technologies are rapidly obliterating distance as a
relevant factor in how we conduct our business and
personal lives.
For the first time in the history of mankind, where we
were born may not matter. The story today is not only
the diminishing importance of distance, but also the
mobility and ubiquity of technology
Digital natives travel easy, and choose where to go
based on quality and detail of info available
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22.  Philippe de Montebello, ex-director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, acknowledged the
growing importance of new technologies for the museum. In his own words, “Internet will
force us to reinvent museums“.
 However, is this really the case? What is the impact
that new technologies – particularly virtual reality –
are having on the institution?
http://interartive.org/2009/11/virtual-
museums/#sthash.9OR2jaXQ.dpuf
 In the end: any CH management simply cannot avoid
to face the digital world. Question is just: how.
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23.  We shall focus on the visitor experience, virtual and real,
and the digital contact with CH audience via the Internet
 We will not touch many other significant technologies e.g. :
to support discovery, study, restoration, like 3D scan, e.m.
analysis (gamma, x-ray, THz…), seismic protection, if
interested please see http://patrimonioculturale.enea.it/
 Sample applications
◦ Reconstruction of the past (e.g. Rome Reborn)
◦ Digital Technologies for C.H.
◦ Digital Libraries : Europeana
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24. Stefano A Gazziano
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Virtual Museum
Virtual Reality
Augmented Reality

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26.  Virtual Museum
◦ 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
 Google cultural institute and Rijksmuseum
 The leading international conference in the field of museums and their
websites is the annual Museums and the Web conference.
 In 2004, Roy Hawkey of King's College London reported that "Virtual visitors to
museum websites already out-number physical (on-site) visitors, and many of
these are engaged in dedicated learning".[15]
 In establishing virtuality and promoting cultural development, the goal is not
merely to reproduce existing objects, but to actualize new ones. Information
and communication technologies are not merely tools for processing data and
making it available, but can be a force and stimulus for cultural
development.[16]
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30.  Artificial representation of a simulated world, existing
only on a computer platform
Vassar College
Sistine Chapel
In Second Life
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31.  Artificial representation of a simulated world, existing
only on a computer platform
Cinquecentenario
Palladiano
In Second Life
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32.  Recreating the past v/s real world 3D scan
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33.  Virtual school CINECA
 Virtual Archeology 2014
 Virtual Museum of Iraq
 Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
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34.  Europeana
 Google Cultural Institute
 Google Open Gallery
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35.  Virtual Reality
◦ “an artificial environment which is experienced through
sensory stimuli (as sights and sounds) provided by a computer
and in which one’s actions partially determine what happens
in the environment“ 2 - See more at:
http://interartive.org/2009/11/virtual-
museums/#sthash.9OR2jaXQ.dpuf
 Augmented Reality
◦ Special tools and devices to offer Information to visitors of real
world sites “augmented” vision with digital info overlay
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36.  Geolocalization + Image recognition + database info
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Available
Technology
Available
Technology
Internet

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 The Case of Google Glass
◦ wearable technology with an optical head-mounted display (OHMD).
◦ developed by Google with the mission of producing a mass-market
ubiquitous computer.
◦ Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free
format.
◦ Wearers communicate with the Internet via natural language voice
commands.
◦ Google started selling a prototype of Google Glass to qualified "Glass
Explorers" in the US on April 2013, for $1,500. Available to the public on
May 2014 for the same price.
◦ On January 15, 2015, Google announced that it would stop producing
the Google Glass prototype but remained committed to the
development of the product. In their eyes Project Glass was ready to
'graduate' from Google Labs, the experimental phase of the project.

38. Stefano A Gazziano
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“a live direct or indirect view of a
physical, real-world environment whose
elements are augmented (or
supplemented) by computer-generated
sensory input such as sound, video,
graphics or GPS data. It is related to a
more general concept called mediated
reality, in which a view of reality is
modified (possibly even diminished
rather than augmented) by a computer.
As a result, the technology functions by
enhancing one’s current perception of
reality”

39.  Create content: pictures , information, video, sounds
 Define and edit a layer on the publishing site
 Prepare the database create information, video
 Gather POIs information using Google Maps
 Build a web service using Layar API
 Test the layer
 Publish the layer
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40.  Layar
 Google
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41.  real visitors come when they cross our disseminated
culture ?
 Virtual tour should not be a vicarious experience but a
powerful advertisment to encourage real visits
 Is the money worth spending ? Use free tools and cloud
platforms as much as possible. Do not enter into costly
proprietary committments. You are not Google let’s face it.
 Do we have adequate skills / staff / knowledge for a
suitable and updated web presence ?
 Please express your opinion: what use can you do of
today’s learning.
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