Creating a Digital Cultural Heritage Community

Do you want to know what happens behind the scenes of museums, archives and libraries? Have you ever wondered what these organisations do to share their collections with audiences? Would you like to learn how to build a strong digital community for cultural heritage?

If your answer is yes, then this MOOC is for you! In this course, professionals and volunteers in cultural heritage institutions, as well as teachers, students and amateurs, can learn how to create user engagement with digital cultural heritage.

We will teach you about digital curation and annotation. You will learn how to use online repositories, cutting-edge tools and digital strategies, in order to stimulate true interaction and dialogue. At the end of this program, you will be able to help others to discover and enjoy the benefits of cultural heritage. Among many other examples, we take a look at the use case of Europeana, the digital portal for European cultural heritage content.

After following the main module that teaches you all about user engagement, you will bring theory into practice by diving deeper into specific examples. Apart from the introduction and the recommended module on user engagement, you are able to craft your own path in this MOOC by picking and choosing between modules. They cover topics such as photography, museums, and dance.

These domains offer many possibilities for innovative user engagement strategies. Furthermore, they all form interesting links to perception and memory, enabling them to be used to foster dialogue around cultural heritage.

Do you want to acquire knowledge of user engagement theory? Would you like to learn how to apply these ideas and strategies to cultural heritage contexts? Have you ever wondered how to use digital collections to create new ways of engaging and inspiring audiences? Enroll now and start learning!

This MOOC is developed by theFifties in Europe - Kaleidoscope and CultureMoves projects, which are co-financed by the Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union.

Module 1: Introduction
We introduce the Kaleidoscope and CultureMoves projects and give tips on how to best navigate through the course, its modules and units.

Module 2: User engagement
This module explains core concepts and tools to help you better understand user engagement. We introduce the theory behind educating and engaging audiences and teach you how to apply this knowledge to digital cultural heritage contexts.

Module 3: Photography
How can digital collections create new ways of inspiring audiences? We try to find answers by looking at case studies from 1950s photography. Examples and exercises will help you read, understand and engage with the visual identity of the past.

Module 4: Museums
By sharing good practices, we provide insights on digital strategies used to stimulate engagement in museum contexts. We consider interaction with audiences before, during and after a museum visit takes place.

Module 5: Dance and site
In this module, we introduce you to various models of site-dance practice and the intersection of dance and cultural heritage sites through the lens of creative tourism. Learners will be encouraged to use dance tools to create digital stories or scrapbooks.

Module 6: Im/material cultural heritage
The im/material cultural heritage module considers the relationships of dance and material cultural heritage. What happens when dance enters the site of the museum? We will emphasise dance as well as artefacts such as masks and costumes in art historical and archeological museums.

Module 7: Historical dance
This module looks at dance in historical buildings and cultural heritage sites, but also considers dance notation and costumes. It offers you a chance to learn and interact with the basics of Renaissance and Baroque dancing.

Module 8: Final exam
For those that want to obtain an edX certificate, this course closes with a multiple choice exam on the theory and practice of user engagement in digital cultural heritage. It assesses your knowledge of concepts and tools and tests your ability to apply this to the contexts of photography and/or dance.