MOOCs and Museums | Edgital. Video by Dave Cormier, coiner of the term “MOOC”. I just participated in my first Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) – the University of Edinburgh’s E-Learning and Digital Culture. While the content was interesting, if somewhat more theoretical than I was looking for, the experience itself was the educational payoff. Forty thousand students enrolled for the course (and it felt like every one of them replied to the discussion thread I experimentally requested email me all responses – I was cleaning out my inbox for weeks!).
I don’t know how many completed the course. Full disclosure: I didn’t since it turned out not to be quite what I was after. But one of the beauties of MOOCs for the student is a low barrier to enrollment. The whole experience has gotten me thinking about the possibilities for museums to offer MOOCs. Okay – there is one, and it’s the one that generally plagues us: opportunity cost. What’s Really Involved in Creating a MOOC Full disclosure again – the C.H. Like this: It’s Google, but is it art? Museums wonder whether they should open their galleries to digitizing. National Pulse Troy Klyber, IP manager for the Art Institute of Chicago, sees participation in Google's Art Project as a means to further its public mission. Photo by Saverio Truglia. Google’s mission to digitize artwork from around the world is testing the bounds of copyright protection and the fairness of licensing contracts. Launched in February 2011, the Google Art Project provides access to more than 30,000 high-resolution images of paintings, sculptures and photographs from more than 180 museums and institutions in 40 countries, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
With the ability to zoom in to see precision details up close, the Google Art Project was designed to make artwork more widely available and to promote popular interest. But museums, while appreciating the attention, are wary about which art they share. “Is it Google? Report: Museums’ Engagement With Audiences Through Social Media Is Helping, Mostly. According to a newly released report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, which used data compiled by surveying some 1,244 arts organizations that received National Endowment for the Arts funding in recent years, museum administrators around the country overwhelmingly agree that social media help them engage with their audiences in meaningful ways that deepen understanding. Almost as many are annoyed that said engagement means visitors and users expect museum content to be free.
“As much as the Internet and mobile connectivity have changed the lives of individual users, they have also produced sweeping disruptions in organizational activities across a wide spectrum of groups,” Pew Internet director Lee Rainie, one of the report’s co-authors, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “the internet and related technologies have created an expectation among some audiences that all digital content should be free. . ” — Benjamin Sutton. Colleendilen / Pinterest. Museums on Social Media. The Collective. Engaging Youth Audiences Report 1.16.2012_final.pdf.