- Email: [email protected]
Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM): Toward a new paradigm for museums
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802 www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo
Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM): Toward a new paradigm for museums Shaochun Donga,,1, Shijin Xua, Gangshan Wub a
Department of Earth Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China Department of Computer Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China
b
Received 25 March 2005; received in revised form 10 October 2005; accepted 19 October 2005
Abstract New technologies have pushed traditional museums to take their exhibitions beyond the barrier of a museum’s walls and enhance their functions: education and entertainment. Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM) is such an emerging effort in this field. It serves as a platform for Earth Scientists to build a Web community to share knowledge about the Earth and is of to benefit the general public for their life-long learning. After analyzing the purposes and requirements of ESDM, we present here our basic philosophy of ESDM and a four-layer hierarchical architecture for enhancing the structure of ESDM via Internet. It is a Web-based application to enable specimens to be exhibited, shared and preserved in digital form, and to provide the functionalities of interoperability. One of the key components of ESDM is the development of a metadata set for describing Earth Science specimens and their digital representations, which is particularly important for building ESDM. Practical demonstrations show that ESDM is suitable for formal and informal Earth Science education, including classroom education, online education and life-long learning. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Digital museum; Metadata; Knowledge repository
1. Introduction International Council of Museums (ICOM) has previously defined the museum as ‘y a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 8359 4664;
fax: +86 25 8368 6016. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Dong), [email protected] (S. Xu), [email protected] (G. Wu). 1 Associated code available at http://digitalne.nju.edu.cn/ museum and http://dmcu.nju.edu.cn. 0098-3004/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2005.10.017
people and their environment.’2 The digital museum, as a new paradigm of a modern museum, enhances the functions of a traditional museum by using digital technologies to provide online virtual representations, instantaneous dissemination of information, personalized searching capabilities, and a virtual community of users. These advantages come from the fact that digital museums efficiently distribute resources on the network which could solve the problem of performance and reliability of exhibitions. Thus, it maximizes sharing of useful data and information through the Web. 2
ICOM Definition of a Museum, http://icom.museum/ definition.html.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 794
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Over the last decade, the booming of digital technologies and the Internet has pushed many museums to publish their collections online. Significant research efforts have been made in this area, like ARCO,3 SCULPTEUR4 in Europe, VMC5 in Canada, SciCenter and BioLearn (Corbit and DeVarco, 2000) in USA and many similar projects elsewhere in the world.6 Many museums are also offering online exhibitions over the Internet, such as the Smithsonian Museum7 in USA, the State Hermitage Museum8 in Russia, The Louvre Museum9 in France, and others. This trend has also been introduced into the field of Earth Science. The basic need for an Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM) arises from a wide call for better access to high-quality online materials about the Earth at all levels of educational facilities and research institutions: the desire to make data about the Earth available for effective use in educational activities. ESDM aims to be a resource repository and a knowledge base for educators, learners, and public users—in fact anyone interested in Earth Science. To achieve this, an ESDM should have the ability: (1) to acquire, conserve, and exhibit digitized specimens about the Earth over the Internet; (2) to create a virtual representation of the Earth on the Web so that people could explore and interact with the information about the Earth and its environment; (3) to help educators, learners, researchers find, evaluate and use resources that support active learning and research work about the Earth. Most of the current digital museums have designed Web-based systems for a wide range of two-dimensional (2D) and 3D objects presented online with users having different levels of computer experience (Wojciechowski et al., 2004). However, there still remain important problems to be solved for ESDM. One problem comes from the require3
Augmented Representation of Cultural Objects (ARCO), http://www.arco-web.org/. 4 Semantic and content-based multimedia exploitation for European benefit (SCULPTEUR) http://www.sculpteurweb.org/ html/objectives.htm. 5 Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), http://www.virtualmuseum. ca/English/index_flash.html. 6 Digital Museum Resources, http://www.daemen.edu/library/ newebresources/digitalmuseum.html. 7 Smithsonian Museum, http://www.si.edu/museums/. 8 The State Hermitage museum, http://www.hermitagemuseum. org/. 9 Louvre Museum, http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home_flash. jsp?bmLocale=en.
ment of suitable metadata standards for Earth Science specimens and data. Metadata have always been a critical aspect of describing and managing museum holdings (Patel et al., 2005). Firstly, although many systems have already worked out metadata standards for online objects for a range of processes from digitization to visualization (Mourkoussis et al., 2003; CIMI10; MDA11; ICOMCIDOC12), Earth Science specimens and data have some important characteristics that existing metadata sets cannot handle. For example, although some characteristics are important for mineral identification, such as cleavage, luster, hardness etc., they have not been covered in any existing metadata standard set. Secondly, there exist different methods for describing Earth Science specimens and data (Chang and Park, 2004). Methods should be standardized and structured as far as possible, according to different disciplines, and even then the current metadata sets cannot handle them. Thirdly, integration of large-scale, interactive and multi-level exhibitions is required to serve education and research institution’s needs for ESDM (Mei, 2004). These requirements also need a suitable metadata set to help create different views for different levels of interests: appreciation, education and research. Another problem comes from the organization of ESDM content. ESDM is targeted to be adopted for educational and research purposes, instead of simple online exhibitions. Furthermore, the core knowledge about the Earth is extracted from widely composed and interrelated aspects: natural and cultural diversities were generated, shaped, and sustained in Earth evolution history, while its records and clues are preserved in minerals, rocks and fossils13; human beings are the main actors in the scenario of discovering the Earth; scientific events take place in a geological timescale; technologies promote the contemporary Earth Science research work and so on. All these aspects should be linked together and connected by subjects and themes with special relations of domain knowledge. 10
The Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), http://www.cimi.org/. 11 Museum Documentation Association (MDA), the UK’s lead organization on documentation and information management for museums, http://www.mda.org.uk/stand.htm. 12 The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CIDOC), http:// www.willpowerinfo.myby.co.uk/cidoc/. 13 Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, http:// www.mnh.si.edu/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
795
Data Object
Physical Description
Digital Representation
Knowledge Base
Fig. 1. Tree presentation of ESDM specimen data model.
In order to meet the needs of ESDM, we have developed a metadata element set suitable for describing specimens, and implemented it in a four-tier framework to allow museums to build online exhibitions available over the Internet and address the special characteristics of Earth-related information in order to promote education and inspire research work. This paper describes our ongoing endeavor of ESDM at Nanjing University. The results show that the metadata set that we created for specimen description and management is suitable for preservation and interoperability of specimen information. It embodies specific characteristics of Earth Science specimens and could be used independently on any computer system. The four-tier framework enables specimens to be exhibited, shared and preserved in an extensible and flexible manner. It helps fulfill the purposes of ESDM as a repository for Earth Science education and research work. 2. ESDM Metadata Set One of the key components of ESDM is the design of a suitable metadata set for specimen description. It is a standard way of defining, describing, encoding, accessing, transferring and updating information independent of any particular computer system (Guillen et al., 2001). The metadata set in ESDM is used not only for description of physical and digital objects,14 but also for the maintenance of complex intrinsic relations among objects and associations with people, time, places and events. Metadata play a critical role in maintaining and managing those relationships, as well as in indicating the authenticity, structural and procedural integrity, and degree of completeness of information objects (Baca, 2000). In the ESDM Metadata Set, each specimen is considered as a single data object. A single data object has three subsets: physical description, digital 14 The OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, 2002. A Metadata Framework to support the Preservation of Digital Objects, http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/.
representation and knowledge base (Fig. 1), respectively mapped to physical objects, digital objects and background knowledge. Physical description has two branches: Core set, which is a mandatory set, and Extended set, which is designed to describe specimens in different disciplines. For example, a mineral specimen does not have the same attributes with a fossil or a rock specimen. So they have the same elements in the core set but different ones in the extended set. The extended set is used to keep the characteristics of specimens from different subjects and might be used mostly by specialists. As most of general users have no systematic knowledge about Earth Science, a museum for them is only for enjoyment and learning. The core set provides public users a brief survey of some specimens. The extended set is mostly for specialists and for users who would like to know more details. Digital representation contains element tags simplified from the Dublin Core, and is designed to keep the features of digital objects. Digital representation supplemented by physical description would be viewed and fully understood by intended viewers. The two sets described previously are sufficient for appreciation and surface learning. The Knowledge base is not always essential to understand fully the data object. Every digitized specimen in ESDM belongs to a certain catalogue and has a relation to its own scientific and/or cultural background. The knowledge base contains related concepts and terminologies, and keeps links to exhibited objects on specific subjects. It may contribute to the drawing of a concept map15 of domain knowledge and help to build deep learning. The ESDM Metadata Set is deeply influenced by the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set16 and OAIS.17 It covers the traits of Earth Science 15
Concept Map: http://users.edte.utwente.nl/lanzing/cm_home. htm. 16 Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 17 OAIS, Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), http://www.ccsds.org/documents/650x0b1.pdf.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
796
Application Layer
Service Layer
Description Layer
Storage Layer
Admin Tools
WWW Server
Exhibition-based Browsing
Other Application
Admin User
Public User
Topic-based Browsing
Search Engine
VR-based Browsing
Web Service Interface
Copyright Management
Earth Science Digital Museum Metadata Description Resource format1
Resource format2
…
Resource format n
Fig. 2. ESDM framework.
specimens, catering for different access purposes. The core set covers the basic information about a specimen which is sufficient for the general public, whereas the extended set contains more detailed descriptions from professional views: the knowledge base keeps clues and records associated with scientific terminologies, concepts, people, places, activities and events as well as their intrinsic relations with specimens so that it can cope with the other two subsets and help to build learning scenarios. Each subset is easily understood by its targeted users and may provide additional information associated with digital representations. 3. ESDM framework The framework of ESDM consists of four distinct layers as illustrated in Fig. 2. From the bottom up, the four layers are the storage, description, service and application layers, respectively. 3.1. Storage layer Just as a digital library stores more than just books, ESDM stores more information than is held in a physical museum. It holds not even a single physical specimen, but supplies digital information about specimens such as minerals, meteorites, rocks, ores and fossils in multimedia formats including text, pictures, video clips, animations, 3D models and scientific documents. Especially, it provides a more effective way to exhibit natural processes
dynamically, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and others. The storage layer is responsible for the physical storage of the digitized information. Basically, such information can be classified into two kinds: one is the description of the physical objects in text form, as would occur in a physical museum; the other is digitized information about the physical objects, such as documents, scientific papers and books, images, video clips, and others (Fig. 3). Information is not stored separately in the storage layer. Intrinsic relations among physical objects, digital representations and different levels of users are also maintained. They naturally fit the relational data model, so this layer presently consists of a relational database for storage. 3.2. Description layer In the description layer, we have implemented the metadata element set described in Section 2 and encoded it in XML.18 An example of a metadata set for minerals is illustrated in Fig. 4. 3.3. Service layer The third layer is the service layer. Some Webbased services are provided to make ESDM more flexible. At present, it provides services including: 18
XML, Extensible Markup Language, http://www.w3.org/ XML/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Video container
Image container
Model container
Audio container
Video 1 Video 2 …
Image 1 Image 2 …
Model 1 Model 2 …
Audio 1 Audio 2 …
Feature Description
Earth Science Specimen
Animation container
Document container
Animation 1 Animation 2 …
Document 1 Document 2 …
797
Fig. 3. Earth Science specimens contained in ESDM.
Mineral Item
Physical Description
Digital Representation
Knowledge Base
D_Identifier Core set
Extended set Format
Identifier
Color
Title
Luster
Subject
Transparency
Date
Hardness
Description
Morphology Cleavage
Size Contributor Author File name Description Copyright
System Parameter Composition … Fig. 4. Tree presentation of ESDM specimen Data Model—take mineral specimen data as an example.
Resources for a locating and searching service: The resource-locating mechanism in ESDM is based on the CNRI handle system19 and OAI.20 ESDM combines the handle system and OAI to provide better service than either one alone. Users can use a keyword-based searching service to get a brief
19 CNRI: The Corporation for National Research Initiatives http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/. 20 OAI: http://www.openarchives.org/.
introduction about a specimen, and the handle of this specimen’s resource. According to this handle, meta-information can be obtained from the OAI service and retrieve digitalized objects of that specimen obtained from the handle system. The searching service in ESDM can also collaborate with other digital museums in DMCU21 to form an 21
Digital Museum of Chinese Universities (DMCU): http:// dmcu.nju.edu.cn.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
798
integrated searching service. Users can choose a region for searching to do information retrieval, such as the digital museums of selected universities, or the whole DMCU. Copyright protection and access control: Object resources may have a high commercial value and/or importance to research. They should be protected from potential copyright violation, so images are shown on the Web with the visible mark ‘@DMCU’, as well as an invisible digital watermark embedded to meet different protection needs. A special program can be used to analyze and extract the hidden data to identify their origins. The purpose of visible marks and digital watermarks is to provide protection for intellectual property in digital form and prevent them from copyright violation. Besides that, every digitalized specimen in ESDM has access control information associated with it. This information is defined by the resource contributor and preserved by the metadata element copyright. According to this value, different access rights are granted to different levels of users.
browsing. For system administrators, access is provided to software tools to manage the information stored in ESDM by developing and maintaining metadata sets and enabling/disabling Web services.
3.4. Application layer In the top layer, the application layer, we seek a different level of viewers’ participation and interaction in multiple modes. To address this requirement, the application layer enables dynamic arrangement of integrated multimedia information into Web pages in three modes: exhibition-based browsing, topic-based browsing and virtual museum-based
Exhibition-based browsing: In exhibition-based browsing, information is presented in a specimen-centered mode. Specimens are organized by certain systematic classification schemes and listed in a catalogue according to the metadata elements: subject and identifier. The physical features and locations of specimens in multimedia formats can be extracted dynamically and organized and rendered on the Web pages from metadata sets. These textual elements can help viewers grasp the natural value of the specimen. In a single Web page (Fig. 5), textual presentation is on the left-hand side, which is abstracted from metadata set in layer 2. Users can navigate a specimen’s properties from the left column. Thumbnails of its images, videos and 3D objects are listed in the right column. All of them are linked to higher resolution versions for further viewing. Users can interact with the page by scrolling the content, or by displaying the multimedia resources one after another. Topic-based browsing: In topic-based browsing, information in the Knowledge base is arranged in a topic-centered mode. It is normally used in presenting natural and scientific phenomena. Contents are re-
Fig. 5. Exhibition-based browsing: take fluorite as an example.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
organized according to topics so that viewers can build a ‘big picture’ of relevant geologic events in a broader scope, and can adopt ‘an onion skin approach’, which provides information in layers to give people access to as much or as little as they choose (Soren, 2005). For example, fossils hold the record of evolving life. In the topic ‘the evolution of life’, stories about how life has evolved from the Precambrian to the Cenozoic are integrated with adequate fossil records to form a non-linear navigation for viewers to draw a scaffold of Earth history (Fig. 6). Users may navigate the topic through the left menu and ‘jump’ from one story to another and are not restricted to a linear path. Users can choose a path that best suits them, and be able to link to related materials to discover connections (Powell, 2003). Virtual museum-based browsing: Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging technology that can be utilized to simulate a real museum visiting experience within the framework of a digital museum. It may involve users in a more realistic and interactive participation. threedimesional digital objects can be extracted from databases and placed into a virtual exhibition room (Fig. 7) by administrators, so that a map-based approach can be used by the general public to zoom in quickly to their area of interest and retrieve the desired resources based on
799
location (Lim et al., 2002). Teaching and learning in the presence of real objects, which inspires curiosity and creative thinking, give museums the potential to develop distinctive and meaningful educational experiences (Smith and Blunkett, 2000). Each layer in the four-tier hierarchical framework has distinctive functions and provides interfaces to the layer above, so that the whole system can support a wide range of operations, including the processes associated with: preservation and interoperability of specimen information; information presentation to different levels of users; and information sharing among different applications and information management. This structure allows each layer to work independently and makes the whole system robust and interoperable. It enables ESDM to be accessed by different users, applications and systems from different locations. Specialists who have some research goals, or students who need some specific information, might require the availability of the entire body of information. The general-public users, rather than achieving a well-focused goal, may have a ‘looking around’ attitude and will be attracted by well-organized visual contents and interactive material (Garzotto et al., 1999). All these needs can be met through the interoperable and integrated four-tier hierarchical framework of ESDM.
Fig. 6. An example of topic-based browsing presentation page: the evolution of life.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 800
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Fig. 7. A virtual exhibition room in virtual museum-based browsing.
4. Application and evaluation of ESDM The most straightforward application of ESDM is the ability to cater for different levels of educational use. In the minerals section, the history of mineralogy in China and abroad may be interesting both to public viewers and to students. Some of the less common and rare minerals such as brucite, as well as dozens of common minerals or gemstones such as quartz and feldspar, are included. Mineral descriptions cover the basic physical and chemical data, including chemical formulas and crystal systems. Sizes of crystals and color play an important role in attracting the public interest. In the exhibition-based browsing model, not only wellformed and colorful crystals but many aggregates are listed according to chemical composition and crystal structure. Description of simple physical properties and 3D crystal models give general users a multi-perspective and interactive view of minerals. Detailed descriptions of individual minerals are more helpful for geoscience students. As a complement to traditional practical work, geoscience students can gain access to a large library of sample images and their properties online which provide much more variety than those available in teaching laboratories or laboratory manuals (Dodson et al., 2000). Secondary-school teachers have access to
unlimited background knowledge in the knowledge base to fulfill education needs such as linking, interacting, inquiring, problem solving, classifying and ‘rolling up’ of concepts (Mei, 2004). An example of how this might work is to demonstrate how cleavage is related to atomic structure. An obvious example is graphite. This mineral exhibits a layered structure with only very weak forces between the sheets. The distance between sheets is much greater than one atomic diameter, and forces perpendicular to the sheets are weak. This gives rise to perfect basal cleavage and easy gliding parallel to the sheets. Terminologies and concepts such as crystalline lattice, atomic structure, cleavage and others can be used to draw a concept map. Fig. 8 is a snapshot of graphite 3D crystal models in VRML.22 It shows the layered nature of the structure, and conveys the relationship between atomic structure and cleavage, even to students unaccustomed to structure diagrams. ESDM was available on China Education and Research Network (CERN) in 2002. The Web log from September 2002 to March 2005 showed that most of the visitors are students and teachers: 57% among 80,000 visitors are from education domains, 22
Virtual Reality Modeling Language, http://www.w3.org/ MarkUp/VRML/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
801
5. Conclusion and future work ESDM can play an important role in providing content and services to audiences. As part of DMCU, ESDM has been prototyped since 2001 at Nanjing University. The metadata standard set is a key component of the whole ESDM. The metadata set is extensible and integrated to help support information sharing, interoperability and management. The Web-based four-tier hierarchical framework has provided access to a wide variety of collections and related materials useful both to educators and to students. Like all active Web sites, it is constantly under construction. Experience from the program has indicated that several areas could be benefitted from continued development: Fig. 8. Three-dimensional crystal structure of graphite in VRML.
14% from research facilities and 29% from public users. A number of Earth Science courses, such as Introduction to Earth Science and Mineralogy, used ESDM as the vehicle for course delivery. Comments on all aspects of the ESDM system such as content organization, portals to collections and supporting services are released online. Different levels of museum users provide positive feedback. Statistics to-date show that ESDM is a valuable tool for Earth Science education. Images of dinosaurs, 3D visualization of Earth structure, an animated sequence of tsunami images and story-like topics are interesting to public viewers. With content well described and presented in an orderly sequence, classroom instructors and online learners build inquiry and discovery into Earth Science related courses. ESDM is serving as a portal and repository for anyone interested in learning more about the Earth. It is also suggested that cooperative work between other colleges and universities should be undertaken to broaden and deepen the knowledge and experience to create a sustainable and robust ESDM covering the multi-dimensional space of Earth Science.23
23 DSpace Internal Reference Specification—Technology & Architecture, http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/technology/ architecture.pdf&e=10001.
Earth Science related classroom teaching and learning; online learning activities, and appreciation and life-long learning for the general public.
Improvement of the capability of visualizing 3D objects online, implementation of a 3D environment for interactive manipulation, full support of Web service, flexible protection of intellectual property rights, and research of Web semantics for interconnecting knowledge from different disciplines, are the focus of our current and future work. Acknowledgments Our work is funded mainly by the Chinese National Science Foundation and the grant awarded by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. The authors would like to thank Professor H.Q. Zhou, Dr. H.W. Yin and Dr. X.C. LU at Nanjing University for their discussion and suggestions about this paper. The careful reviews from Wayne Powell and the anonymous reviewer are greatly appreciated.
References Baca, M. (Ed.), 2000. Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information http://www.getty.edu/research/ conducting_research/standards/intrometadata/index.html. Chang, Y.S., Park, H.D., 2004. Development of a web-based geographic information system for the management of
ARTICLE IN PRESS 802
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
borehole and geological data. Computers & Geosciences 30 (8), 887–897. Corbit, M., DeVarco, B., 2000. SciCenter and BioLearn: two 3D implementations of CVE science museums. In: Proceedings of Third International Conference on Collaborative Virtual Environments, CVE 2000, Sept 10–11, San Francisco, CA, pp. 65–71. Dodson, H., Levin, P., Ride, S., Souviney, R., 2000. The EarthKAM project: creating space imaging tools for teaching and learning. Computers & Geosciences 26 (6), 683–691. Garzotto, F., Paolini, P., Savino, P., 1999. Using & re-using archive information for multimedia applications: the virtual museum of Italian computer science history. Archives and Museum Informatics 13 (2), 95–111. Guillen, A., Meunier, Ch., Renaud, X., Repusseau, Ph., 2001. New Internet tools to manage geological and geophysical data. Computers & Geosciences 27 (4), 563–575. Lim, E.P., Goh, D., Liu, Z., Ng, W.K., Khoo, C., Higgins, S.E., 2002. G-Portal: a map-based digital library for distributed geospatial and georeferenced resources. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM+IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2002), July 14–18, Portland, OR, pp. 351–358. Mei, Q.Z., 2004. A knowledge processing oriented life cycle study from a digital museum system. In: Proceedings of the ACM
South East Conference, April 2–3, Huntsville, AL, pp. 116–121. Mourkoussis, N., White. M., Patel, M., Chmielewski, J., Walczak, K., 2003. AMS-metadata for cultural exhibitions using virtual reality. In: Proceedings of the International DCMI Metadata Conference and Workshop—Metadata Research and Applications, (DC-2003), Seattle, WA, ISBN0-9745303-0-1, http:// purl.oclc.org/dc2003/03mourkoussis.pdf Patel, M., White, M., Mourkoussis, N., Walczak, K., Wojciechowski, R., Chmielewski, J., 2005. Metadata requirements for digital museum environments. International Journal on Digital Libraries 5 (3), 179–192. Powell, W., 2003. Essential design elements for successful online courses. Journal of Geoscience Education 51 (2), 221–230. Smith, C., Blunkett, D., 2000. The Learning Power of Museum— A Vision for Museum Education. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport of UK http://www.culture. gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/71BD0E4C-0079-4274-B433-E49A7612E E05/0/musuem_vision_report.pdf. Soren, B.J., 2005. Best practices in creating quality online experiences for museum users. Museum Management and Curatorship 20, 131–148. Wojciechowski, R., Walczak, K., White, M., Cellary, W., 2004. Building virtual and augmented reality museum exhibitions. In: Proceedings of Web3D 2004 Symposium, ACM Siggraph, April 5–8, 2004, Monterey, CA, pp. 135–144.
Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802 www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo
Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM): Toward a new paradigm for museums Shaochun Donga,,1, Shijin Xua, Gangshan Wub a
Department of Earth Sciences, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China Department of Computer Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, PR China
b
Received 25 March 2005; received in revised form 10 October 2005; accepted 19 October 2005
Abstract New technologies have pushed traditional museums to take their exhibitions beyond the barrier of a museum’s walls and enhance their functions: education and entertainment. Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM) is such an emerging effort in this field. It serves as a platform for Earth Scientists to build a Web community to share knowledge about the Earth and is of to benefit the general public for their life-long learning. After analyzing the purposes and requirements of ESDM, we present here our basic philosophy of ESDM and a four-layer hierarchical architecture for enhancing the structure of ESDM via Internet. It is a Web-based application to enable specimens to be exhibited, shared and preserved in digital form, and to provide the functionalities of interoperability. One of the key components of ESDM is the development of a metadata set for describing Earth Science specimens and their digital representations, which is particularly important for building ESDM. Practical demonstrations show that ESDM is suitable for formal and informal Earth Science education, including classroom education, online education and life-long learning. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Digital museum; Metadata; Knowledge repository
1. Introduction International Council of Museums (ICOM) has previously defined the museum as ‘y a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 25 8359 4664;
fax: +86 25 8368 6016. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (S. Dong), [email protected] (S. Xu), [email protected] (G. Wu). 1 Associated code available at http://digitalne.nju.edu.cn/ museum and http://dmcu.nju.edu.cn. 0098-3004/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2005.10.017
people and their environment.’2 The digital museum, as a new paradigm of a modern museum, enhances the functions of a traditional museum by using digital technologies to provide online virtual representations, instantaneous dissemination of information, personalized searching capabilities, and a virtual community of users. These advantages come from the fact that digital museums efficiently distribute resources on the network which could solve the problem of performance and reliability of exhibitions. Thus, it maximizes sharing of useful data and information through the Web. 2
ICOM Definition of a Museum, http://icom.museum/ definition.html.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 794
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Over the last decade, the booming of digital technologies and the Internet has pushed many museums to publish their collections online. Significant research efforts have been made in this area, like ARCO,3 SCULPTEUR4 in Europe, VMC5 in Canada, SciCenter and BioLearn (Corbit and DeVarco, 2000) in USA and many similar projects elsewhere in the world.6 Many museums are also offering online exhibitions over the Internet, such as the Smithsonian Museum7 in USA, the State Hermitage Museum8 in Russia, The Louvre Museum9 in France, and others. This trend has also been introduced into the field of Earth Science. The basic need for an Earth Science Digital Museum (ESDM) arises from a wide call for better access to high-quality online materials about the Earth at all levels of educational facilities and research institutions: the desire to make data about the Earth available for effective use in educational activities. ESDM aims to be a resource repository and a knowledge base for educators, learners, and public users—in fact anyone interested in Earth Science. To achieve this, an ESDM should have the ability: (1) to acquire, conserve, and exhibit digitized specimens about the Earth over the Internet; (2) to create a virtual representation of the Earth on the Web so that people could explore and interact with the information about the Earth and its environment; (3) to help educators, learners, researchers find, evaluate and use resources that support active learning and research work about the Earth. Most of the current digital museums have designed Web-based systems for a wide range of two-dimensional (2D) and 3D objects presented online with users having different levels of computer experience (Wojciechowski et al., 2004). However, there still remain important problems to be solved for ESDM. One problem comes from the require3
Augmented Representation of Cultural Objects (ARCO), http://www.arco-web.org/. 4 Semantic and content-based multimedia exploitation for European benefit (SCULPTEUR) http://www.sculpteurweb.org/ html/objectives.htm. 5 Virtual Museum of Canada (VMC), http://www.virtualmuseum. ca/English/index_flash.html. 6 Digital Museum Resources, http://www.daemen.edu/library/ newebresources/digitalmuseum.html. 7 Smithsonian Museum, http://www.si.edu/museums/. 8 The State Hermitage museum, http://www.hermitagemuseum. org/. 9 Louvre Museum, http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home_flash. jsp?bmLocale=en.
ment of suitable metadata standards for Earth Science specimens and data. Metadata have always been a critical aspect of describing and managing museum holdings (Patel et al., 2005). Firstly, although many systems have already worked out metadata standards for online objects for a range of processes from digitization to visualization (Mourkoussis et al., 2003; CIMI10; MDA11; ICOMCIDOC12), Earth Science specimens and data have some important characteristics that existing metadata sets cannot handle. For example, although some characteristics are important for mineral identification, such as cleavage, luster, hardness etc., they have not been covered in any existing metadata standard set. Secondly, there exist different methods for describing Earth Science specimens and data (Chang and Park, 2004). Methods should be standardized and structured as far as possible, according to different disciplines, and even then the current metadata sets cannot handle them. Thirdly, integration of large-scale, interactive and multi-level exhibitions is required to serve education and research institution’s needs for ESDM (Mei, 2004). These requirements also need a suitable metadata set to help create different views for different levels of interests: appreciation, education and research. Another problem comes from the organization of ESDM content. ESDM is targeted to be adopted for educational and research purposes, instead of simple online exhibitions. Furthermore, the core knowledge about the Earth is extracted from widely composed and interrelated aspects: natural and cultural diversities were generated, shaped, and sustained in Earth evolution history, while its records and clues are preserved in minerals, rocks and fossils13; human beings are the main actors in the scenario of discovering the Earth; scientific events take place in a geological timescale; technologies promote the contemporary Earth Science research work and so on. All these aspects should be linked together and connected by subjects and themes with special relations of domain knowledge. 10
The Consortium for the Computer Interchange of Museum Information (CIMI), http://www.cimi.org/. 11 Museum Documentation Association (MDA), the UK’s lead organization on documentation and information management for museums, http://www.mda.org.uk/stand.htm. 12 The International Committee for Documentation of the International Council of Museums (ICOM-CIDOC), http:// www.willpowerinfo.myby.co.uk/cidoc/. 13 Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, http:// www.mnh.si.edu/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
795
Data Object
Physical Description
Digital Representation
Knowledge Base
Fig. 1. Tree presentation of ESDM specimen data model.
In order to meet the needs of ESDM, we have developed a metadata element set suitable for describing specimens, and implemented it in a four-tier framework to allow museums to build online exhibitions available over the Internet and address the special characteristics of Earth-related information in order to promote education and inspire research work. This paper describes our ongoing endeavor of ESDM at Nanjing University. The results show that the metadata set that we created for specimen description and management is suitable for preservation and interoperability of specimen information. It embodies specific characteristics of Earth Science specimens and could be used independently on any computer system. The four-tier framework enables specimens to be exhibited, shared and preserved in an extensible and flexible manner. It helps fulfill the purposes of ESDM as a repository for Earth Science education and research work. 2. ESDM Metadata Set One of the key components of ESDM is the design of a suitable metadata set for specimen description. It is a standard way of defining, describing, encoding, accessing, transferring and updating information independent of any particular computer system (Guillen et al., 2001). The metadata set in ESDM is used not only for description of physical and digital objects,14 but also for the maintenance of complex intrinsic relations among objects and associations with people, time, places and events. Metadata play a critical role in maintaining and managing those relationships, as well as in indicating the authenticity, structural and procedural integrity, and degree of completeness of information objects (Baca, 2000). In the ESDM Metadata Set, each specimen is considered as a single data object. A single data object has three subsets: physical description, digital 14 The OCLC/RLG Working Group on Preservation Metadata, 2002. A Metadata Framework to support the Preservation of Digital Objects, http://www.oclc.org/research/pmwg/.
representation and knowledge base (Fig. 1), respectively mapped to physical objects, digital objects and background knowledge. Physical description has two branches: Core set, which is a mandatory set, and Extended set, which is designed to describe specimens in different disciplines. For example, a mineral specimen does not have the same attributes with a fossil or a rock specimen. So they have the same elements in the core set but different ones in the extended set. The extended set is used to keep the characteristics of specimens from different subjects and might be used mostly by specialists. As most of general users have no systematic knowledge about Earth Science, a museum for them is only for enjoyment and learning. The core set provides public users a brief survey of some specimens. The extended set is mostly for specialists and for users who would like to know more details. Digital representation contains element tags simplified from the Dublin Core, and is designed to keep the features of digital objects. Digital representation supplemented by physical description would be viewed and fully understood by intended viewers. The two sets described previously are sufficient for appreciation and surface learning. The Knowledge base is not always essential to understand fully the data object. Every digitized specimen in ESDM belongs to a certain catalogue and has a relation to its own scientific and/or cultural background. The knowledge base contains related concepts and terminologies, and keeps links to exhibited objects on specific subjects. It may contribute to the drawing of a concept map15 of domain knowledge and help to build deep learning. The ESDM Metadata Set is deeply influenced by the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set16 and OAIS.17 It covers the traits of Earth Science 15
Concept Map: http://users.edte.utwente.nl/lanzing/cm_home. htm. 16 Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1: Reference Description, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 17 OAIS, Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS), http://www.ccsds.org/documents/650x0b1.pdf.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
796
Application Layer
Service Layer
Description Layer
Storage Layer
Admin Tools
WWW Server
Exhibition-based Browsing
Other Application
Admin User
Public User
Topic-based Browsing
Search Engine
VR-based Browsing
Web Service Interface
Copyright Management
Earth Science Digital Museum Metadata Description Resource format1
Resource format2
…
Resource format n
Fig. 2. ESDM framework.
specimens, catering for different access purposes. The core set covers the basic information about a specimen which is sufficient for the general public, whereas the extended set contains more detailed descriptions from professional views: the knowledge base keeps clues and records associated with scientific terminologies, concepts, people, places, activities and events as well as their intrinsic relations with specimens so that it can cope with the other two subsets and help to build learning scenarios. Each subset is easily understood by its targeted users and may provide additional information associated with digital representations. 3. ESDM framework The framework of ESDM consists of four distinct layers as illustrated in Fig. 2. From the bottom up, the four layers are the storage, description, service and application layers, respectively. 3.1. Storage layer Just as a digital library stores more than just books, ESDM stores more information than is held in a physical museum. It holds not even a single physical specimen, but supplies digital information about specimens such as minerals, meteorites, rocks, ores and fossils in multimedia formats including text, pictures, video clips, animations, 3D models and scientific documents. Especially, it provides a more effective way to exhibit natural processes
dynamically, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and others. The storage layer is responsible for the physical storage of the digitized information. Basically, such information can be classified into two kinds: one is the description of the physical objects in text form, as would occur in a physical museum; the other is digitized information about the physical objects, such as documents, scientific papers and books, images, video clips, and others (Fig. 3). Information is not stored separately in the storage layer. Intrinsic relations among physical objects, digital representations and different levels of users are also maintained. They naturally fit the relational data model, so this layer presently consists of a relational database for storage. 3.2. Description layer In the description layer, we have implemented the metadata element set described in Section 2 and encoded it in XML.18 An example of a metadata set for minerals is illustrated in Fig. 4. 3.3. Service layer The third layer is the service layer. Some Webbased services are provided to make ESDM more flexible. At present, it provides services including: 18
XML, Extensible Markup Language, http://www.w3.org/ XML/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Video container
Image container
Model container
Audio container
Video 1 Video 2 …
Image 1 Image 2 …
Model 1 Model 2 …
Audio 1 Audio 2 …
Feature Description
Earth Science Specimen
Animation container
Document container
Animation 1 Animation 2 …
Document 1 Document 2 …
797
Fig. 3. Earth Science specimens contained in ESDM.
Mineral Item
Physical Description
Digital Representation
Knowledge Base
D_Identifier Core set
Extended set Format
Identifier
Color
Title
Luster
Subject
Transparency
Date
Hardness
Description
Morphology Cleavage
Size Contributor Author File name Description Copyright
System Parameter Composition … Fig. 4. Tree presentation of ESDM specimen Data Model—take mineral specimen data as an example.
Resources for a locating and searching service: The resource-locating mechanism in ESDM is based on the CNRI handle system19 and OAI.20 ESDM combines the handle system and OAI to provide better service than either one alone. Users can use a keyword-based searching service to get a brief
19 CNRI: The Corporation for National Research Initiatives http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/. 20 OAI: http://www.openarchives.org/.
introduction about a specimen, and the handle of this specimen’s resource. According to this handle, meta-information can be obtained from the OAI service and retrieve digitalized objects of that specimen obtained from the handle system. The searching service in ESDM can also collaborate with other digital museums in DMCU21 to form an 21
Digital Museum of Chinese Universities (DMCU): http:// dmcu.nju.edu.cn.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
798
integrated searching service. Users can choose a region for searching to do information retrieval, such as the digital museums of selected universities, or the whole DMCU. Copyright protection and access control: Object resources may have a high commercial value and/or importance to research. They should be protected from potential copyright violation, so images are shown on the Web with the visible mark ‘@DMCU’, as well as an invisible digital watermark embedded to meet different protection needs. A special program can be used to analyze and extract the hidden data to identify their origins. The purpose of visible marks and digital watermarks is to provide protection for intellectual property in digital form and prevent them from copyright violation. Besides that, every digitalized specimen in ESDM has access control information associated with it. This information is defined by the resource contributor and preserved by the metadata element copyright. According to this value, different access rights are granted to different levels of users.
browsing. For system administrators, access is provided to software tools to manage the information stored in ESDM by developing and maintaining metadata sets and enabling/disabling Web services.
3.4. Application layer In the top layer, the application layer, we seek a different level of viewers’ participation and interaction in multiple modes. To address this requirement, the application layer enables dynamic arrangement of integrated multimedia information into Web pages in three modes: exhibition-based browsing, topic-based browsing and virtual museum-based
Exhibition-based browsing: In exhibition-based browsing, information is presented in a specimen-centered mode. Specimens are organized by certain systematic classification schemes and listed in a catalogue according to the metadata elements: subject and identifier. The physical features and locations of specimens in multimedia formats can be extracted dynamically and organized and rendered on the Web pages from metadata sets. These textual elements can help viewers grasp the natural value of the specimen. In a single Web page (Fig. 5), textual presentation is on the left-hand side, which is abstracted from metadata set in layer 2. Users can navigate a specimen’s properties from the left column. Thumbnails of its images, videos and 3D objects are listed in the right column. All of them are linked to higher resolution versions for further viewing. Users can interact with the page by scrolling the content, or by displaying the multimedia resources one after another. Topic-based browsing: In topic-based browsing, information in the Knowledge base is arranged in a topic-centered mode. It is normally used in presenting natural and scientific phenomena. Contents are re-
Fig. 5. Exhibition-based browsing: take fluorite as an example.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
organized according to topics so that viewers can build a ‘big picture’ of relevant geologic events in a broader scope, and can adopt ‘an onion skin approach’, which provides information in layers to give people access to as much or as little as they choose (Soren, 2005). For example, fossils hold the record of evolving life. In the topic ‘the evolution of life’, stories about how life has evolved from the Precambrian to the Cenozoic are integrated with adequate fossil records to form a non-linear navigation for viewers to draw a scaffold of Earth history (Fig. 6). Users may navigate the topic through the left menu and ‘jump’ from one story to another and are not restricted to a linear path. Users can choose a path that best suits them, and be able to link to related materials to discover connections (Powell, 2003). Virtual museum-based browsing: Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging technology that can be utilized to simulate a real museum visiting experience within the framework of a digital museum. It may involve users in a more realistic and interactive participation. threedimesional digital objects can be extracted from databases and placed into a virtual exhibition room (Fig. 7) by administrators, so that a map-based approach can be used by the general public to zoom in quickly to their area of interest and retrieve the desired resources based on
799
location (Lim et al., 2002). Teaching and learning in the presence of real objects, which inspires curiosity and creative thinking, give museums the potential to develop distinctive and meaningful educational experiences (Smith and Blunkett, 2000). Each layer in the four-tier hierarchical framework has distinctive functions and provides interfaces to the layer above, so that the whole system can support a wide range of operations, including the processes associated with: preservation and interoperability of specimen information; information presentation to different levels of users; and information sharing among different applications and information management. This structure allows each layer to work independently and makes the whole system robust and interoperable. It enables ESDM to be accessed by different users, applications and systems from different locations. Specialists who have some research goals, or students who need some specific information, might require the availability of the entire body of information. The general-public users, rather than achieving a well-focused goal, may have a ‘looking around’ attitude and will be attracted by well-organized visual contents and interactive material (Garzotto et al., 1999). All these needs can be met through the interoperable and integrated four-tier hierarchical framework of ESDM.
Fig. 6. An example of topic-based browsing presentation page: the evolution of life.
ARTICLE IN PRESS 800
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
Fig. 7. A virtual exhibition room in virtual museum-based browsing.
4. Application and evaluation of ESDM The most straightforward application of ESDM is the ability to cater for different levels of educational use. In the minerals section, the history of mineralogy in China and abroad may be interesting both to public viewers and to students. Some of the less common and rare minerals such as brucite, as well as dozens of common minerals or gemstones such as quartz and feldspar, are included. Mineral descriptions cover the basic physical and chemical data, including chemical formulas and crystal systems. Sizes of crystals and color play an important role in attracting the public interest. In the exhibition-based browsing model, not only wellformed and colorful crystals but many aggregates are listed according to chemical composition and crystal structure. Description of simple physical properties and 3D crystal models give general users a multi-perspective and interactive view of minerals. Detailed descriptions of individual minerals are more helpful for geoscience students. As a complement to traditional practical work, geoscience students can gain access to a large library of sample images and their properties online which provide much more variety than those available in teaching laboratories or laboratory manuals (Dodson et al., 2000). Secondary-school teachers have access to
unlimited background knowledge in the knowledge base to fulfill education needs such as linking, interacting, inquiring, problem solving, classifying and ‘rolling up’ of concepts (Mei, 2004). An example of how this might work is to demonstrate how cleavage is related to atomic structure. An obvious example is graphite. This mineral exhibits a layered structure with only very weak forces between the sheets. The distance between sheets is much greater than one atomic diameter, and forces perpendicular to the sheets are weak. This gives rise to perfect basal cleavage and easy gliding parallel to the sheets. Terminologies and concepts such as crystalline lattice, atomic structure, cleavage and others can be used to draw a concept map. Fig. 8 is a snapshot of graphite 3D crystal models in VRML.22 It shows the layered nature of the structure, and conveys the relationship between atomic structure and cleavage, even to students unaccustomed to structure diagrams. ESDM was available on China Education and Research Network (CERN) in 2002. The Web log from September 2002 to March 2005 showed that most of the visitors are students and teachers: 57% among 80,000 visitors are from education domains, 22
Virtual Reality Modeling Language, http://www.w3.org/ MarkUp/VRML/.
ARTICLE IN PRESS S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
801
5. Conclusion and future work ESDM can play an important role in providing content and services to audiences. As part of DMCU, ESDM has been prototyped since 2001 at Nanjing University. The metadata standard set is a key component of the whole ESDM. The metadata set is extensible and integrated to help support information sharing, interoperability and management. The Web-based four-tier hierarchical framework has provided access to a wide variety of collections and related materials useful both to educators and to students. Like all active Web sites, it is constantly under construction. Experience from the program has indicated that several areas could be benefitted from continued development: Fig. 8. Three-dimensional crystal structure of graphite in VRML.
14% from research facilities and 29% from public users. A number of Earth Science courses, such as Introduction to Earth Science and Mineralogy, used ESDM as the vehicle for course delivery. Comments on all aspects of the ESDM system such as content organization, portals to collections and supporting services are released online. Different levels of museum users provide positive feedback. Statistics to-date show that ESDM is a valuable tool for Earth Science education. Images of dinosaurs, 3D visualization of Earth structure, an animated sequence of tsunami images and story-like topics are interesting to public viewers. With content well described and presented in an orderly sequence, classroom instructors and online learners build inquiry and discovery into Earth Science related courses. ESDM is serving as a portal and repository for anyone interested in learning more about the Earth. It is also suggested that cooperative work between other colleges and universities should be undertaken to broaden and deepen the knowledge and experience to create a sustainable and robust ESDM covering the multi-dimensional space of Earth Science.23
23 DSpace Internal Reference Specification—Technology & Architecture, http://libraries.mit.edu/dspace-mit/technology/ architecture.pdf&e=10001.
Earth Science related classroom teaching and learning; online learning activities, and appreciation and life-long learning for the general public.
Improvement of the capability of visualizing 3D objects online, implementation of a 3D environment for interactive manipulation, full support of Web service, flexible protection of intellectual property rights, and research of Web semantics for interconnecting knowledge from different disciplines, are the focus of our current and future work. Acknowledgments Our work is funded mainly by the Chinese National Science Foundation and the grant awarded by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. The authors would like to thank Professor H.Q. Zhou, Dr. H.W. Yin and Dr. X.C. LU at Nanjing University for their discussion and suggestions about this paper. The careful reviews from Wayne Powell and the anonymous reviewer are greatly appreciated.
References Baca, M. (Ed.), 2000. Introduction to Metadata: Pathways to Digital Information http://www.getty.edu/research/ conducting_research/standards/intrometadata/index.html. Chang, Y.S., Park, H.D., 2004. Development of a web-based geographic information system for the management of
ARTICLE IN PRESS 802
S. Dong et al. / Computers & Geosciences 32 (2006) 793–802
borehole and geological data. Computers & Geosciences 30 (8), 887–897. Corbit, M., DeVarco, B., 2000. SciCenter and BioLearn: two 3D implementations of CVE science museums. In: Proceedings of Third International Conference on Collaborative Virtual Environments, CVE 2000, Sept 10–11, San Francisco, CA, pp. 65–71. Dodson, H., Levin, P., Ride, S., Souviney, R., 2000. The EarthKAM project: creating space imaging tools for teaching and learning. Computers & Geosciences 26 (6), 683–691. Garzotto, F., Paolini, P., Savino, P., 1999. Using & re-using archive information for multimedia applications: the virtual museum of Italian computer science history. Archives and Museum Informatics 13 (2), 95–111. Guillen, A., Meunier, Ch., Renaud, X., Repusseau, Ph., 2001. New Internet tools to manage geological and geophysical data. Computers & Geosciences 27 (4), 563–575. Lim, E.P., Goh, D., Liu, Z., Ng, W.K., Khoo, C., Higgins, S.E., 2002. G-Portal: a map-based digital library for distributed geospatial and georeferenced resources. In: Proceedings of the Second ACM+IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL 2002), July 14–18, Portland, OR, pp. 351–358. Mei, Q.Z., 2004. A knowledge processing oriented life cycle study from a digital museum system. In: Proceedings of the ACM
South East Conference, April 2–3, Huntsville, AL, pp. 116–121. Mourkoussis, N., White. M., Patel, M., Chmielewski, J., Walczak, K., 2003. AMS-metadata for cultural exhibitions using virtual reality. In: Proceedings of the International DCMI Metadata Conference and Workshop—Metadata Research and Applications, (DC-2003), Seattle, WA, ISBN0-9745303-0-1, http:// purl.oclc.org/dc2003/03mourkoussis.pdf Patel, M., White, M., Mourkoussis, N., Walczak, K., Wojciechowski, R., Chmielewski, J., 2005. Metadata requirements for digital museum environments. International Journal on Digital Libraries 5 (3), 179–192. Powell, W., 2003. Essential design elements for successful online courses. Journal of Geoscience Education 51 (2), 221–230. Smith, C., Blunkett, D., 2000. The Learning Power of Museum— A Vision for Museum Education. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport of UK http://www.culture. gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/71BD0E4C-0079-4274-B433-E49A7612E E05/0/musuem_vision_report.pdf. Soren, B.J., 2005. Best practices in creating quality online experiences for museum users. Museum Management and Curatorship 20, 131–148. Wojciechowski, R., Walczak, K., White, M., Cellary, W., 2004. Building virtual and augmented reality museum exhibitions. In: Proceedings of Web3D 2004 Symposium, ACM Siggraph, April 5–8, 2004, Monterey, CA, pp. 135–144.