Virtualization Of Museum Practices

Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR)

Virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) technologies play an increasing role in different areas every day.

Opportunities and innovations

The term “virtual reality” usually refers to the game space. Using this technology has a number of features, some of which are more complex or unusual than others.

VR/AR technologies are used in various fields (army, education, health, tourism and heritage, business, technology, sports, media, construction, cinema).

• In-depth analysis of the world practice in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and cases of gamification for the promotion of tourism, cultural heritage and museum practice is based on the methodology of interdisciplinary research.

• It should be taken into account that ICT (information and communication technologies) specialists form a group together with specialists in cultural heritage (Metzger & Zare, 2001; Rhoten, 2004).

Now opportunities and innovations appear in other sectors related to the use of VR/AR. In the Digi Capital report (2016), increasing of total revenue is projected to be very significant, especially for augmented reality (AR) solutions. Digi-Capital's new 2016 report and AR / VR database include $ 686 million of investments in augmented and virtual reality in 2015.

The aim of many researchers is to develop a baseline design for a set of technologies and use of virtual and augmented reality to find recommendations for saving of the national culture via the prism of cultural heritage. Cirulis &Co says, “this providing planned and global technological solutions that are not aimed towards individual museums and separate objects of cultural heritage but focused on the overall region” (Cirulis, De Paolis & Tutberidze, 2015).

Virtual world

A virtual person without his real body, without the problems of the real world can create anything. This virtual world gives unlimited resources for the manifestation of themselves, their creative potential. One of the results of creative activity of a person or a group of people is the phenomenon of modern culture - a virtual museum.

Virtual museum

The term "virtual museum" appeared about 15 years ago, when the first projects with this name were launched. Despite this, up to now there is confusion in terms of "museum site" and "virtual museum". By "virtual museum" we mean a set of images with explanatory texts on the Internet and virtual adventure in real museums.

Opportunities of practice of museum

The emergence and active distribution of virtual museums put before researchers the question of the feasibility of its creation and meaning of its existence. Taking into account the widespread use of the Internet, it is necessary to focus on the advantages of virtual museums over the real ones. For example, the virtual museum provides free mass access to its collections, while the real museum because of the high cost of entrance tickets or limited time of visit may not be available to a certain category of visitors. Virtual museums also seem to be a positive phenomenon in terms of accessibility to a large number of visitors, who for various reasons can not visit the real museum, for example, people with disabilities. However, the virtual museum has not yet had such impact on the visitor as visiting a real museum. First of all, it is the authenticity of the museum objects themselves, the atmosphere of the museum, the very visit to the museum as an act of familiarizing people with the beautiful and mysterious past.

Two types of museums: virtual vs traditional

The virtual museum distorts the idea of the museum itself as a cultural form historically developed by mankind for the preservation, actualization and translation to the next generations of the most valuable part of the cultural and natural heritage. Computer technologies, thanks to which there is a virtual museum, provide the possibility of unlimited filling of the subject with new meanings, creating a greater number of different exhibitions in order to present the subject in the most accurate and complete way. Such real and qualitative amount of information and multidimensional virtual museums attract new visitors (Internet users), introducing them not only the past of the object or phenomenon, but also one’s life in the present. However, in the field of sign understanding virtual museums are inferior to the traditional, as most people need visual or audio interaction with the sign in order to give the object value.

No less important aspect of the consideration of the positive and negative characteristics of virtual museums is the economic component. When referring to modern computer technologies that allow you to create and quickly fill the content of the virtual page, the answer to the question of the economic benefits of the virtual museum before the real becomes obvious. In addition, the economically advantageous model of the museum supports not only a relatively low cost at the stage of creating the project, but also less expensive than the real museum, the further life of the virtual museum.

A special moment in comparison of the two types of museums is the control of their activities. Real museums are controlled by official’s organizations, while virtual museums are limited to censorship. The openness of the virtual museum is also questioned at least by the fact that in most cases the user is not acquainted with the creators of this museum, its employees.

Thus, when considering the positive and negative aspects of the existence of virtual museums, we come to the conclusion that this cultural phenomenon has the right to life and has a sufficient number of grounds to be the object of evaluation and study.

Studies of values orientation

As abstract social conditions, values serves as prototypes from which attitudes and behaviours are created. Values also guide people through different situations telling how to act. Kahle consider that influence flows from abstract values to attitudes and ends with adequate behavior. This sequence can be called "the value - attitude - behaviour hierarchy" (Kahle, 1983). Values are ranked by importance relative to one another, and ordered in several studies (Schwartz & Bardi, 2001; Schwartz & Sagiv 1995; Schwartz, 1992, 1994).

Socio cultural values orientation

Socio cultural values orientation in these studies was defined as the direction and intensity among the basic culture models (Bond & Smith, 1996; Henry, 1976; Komorita & Parks, 1994; White, 2005; Williams, 1979).

These studies have repeatedly found that cultural values orientation influences the attitudes of people towards traditional museums conservation.

However, the virtual museum presents all visitors some new opportunities, including disabled. This is an important point of ensuring equal rights for all.

The goal of this research was to determine attitudes of regional people about virtualization of museum practice through values orientation by innovation.

Methods of examination

The attitude towards museum practice virtualization was measured directly from the answers to 15 questions.

A study of the attitude to the virtualization of museum practice

The study of the attitude to the virtualization of museum practice began with expert interviews and a pilot survey, followed by an Internet survey, during which respondents in Kursk region were interviewed from 10.01.2018 to 01.03.2018.

250 respondents were collected in proportion to the entire region. 59.2% of respondents are women and 40.8% are men.

By analysing answers to 15 questions, respondents were divided into different groups.

The indirect and detailed measurement of the attitude towards museum practice virtualization was no different from the attitude towards virtualization at all, revealed through direct questions (what your attitude towards virtualization is?) that have already been analysed in previous articles of the authors (Andriyanova, Kirnosova, & Starodubtseva, 2017; Matassa, 2014).

A museum virtualization possibility

We found out from the respondents what possibilities a museum virtualization have. 51.2% of respondents chose the answer "availability of a large number of interactive exhibits"; 34% chose "availability of QR-codes for each exhibit"; 50.4% chose "availability of equipment (TVs, tablets and other electronic installations), reproducing basic information about the exhibits"; 38.4% chose "the presence of audio guides"; 20.8% chose "the presence of their own Wi-Fi network", 38.4% chose "the presence of a virtual tour".

Interactive exhibits, QR-code

The question about interactive exhibits yielded the following results: 82.4% of respondents agree to go to the museum with interactive exhibits; 17.6% said that despite the appearance of interactive exhibits, they will not go to the museum.

The question of increasing visitor’s awareness of the exhibits in the presence of QR-code gave the following results: 39.3% of respondents answered this question positively; 49.4% of respondents believe that the QR-code can slightly raise awareness; 11.2% said that the QR-code does not raise visitors' awareness of the exhibits.

• The main advantage of QR-code is easy recognition by scanning equipment, including a camera of a mobile phone.

• It is enough to run the QR-code reader, point the lens of the mobile device to the QR-code, and the visitor will have quick access to information about the object. With this technology, the museum visitor can get much more interesting and rich information than through text and additional illustrations.

We figured out which virtualization definition respondents are more inclined to. Two definitions were given for the choice, one of which is interpreted within the framework of the structural and functional approach, and the other-within the framework of the socio – phenomenological approach. The results can be seen in Table 1 .

To the question "What should a museum be like to become a regular visitor?" 51% of respondents answered that a museum should have modern technology and qualified staff; 25.2% believe that a museum should quite often change the exhibitions and expositions; 10.4% say about the need for a museum to have its own original face, to represent a unique collection.

The transfer of information about the museum object

Thus, it is necessary to take into account the increasingly technological development of museums, which means that in the near future we will have to think about the boundaries of the transfer of information about the museum object.

Virtual museum to be an educational or training ground in the educational process

The most advantageous, in our opinion, is the possibility of a virtual museum to be an educational or training ground in the educational process: for example, in a virtual museum you can pass a quest or perform test tasks.

Despite the absence of clear definitions of the concepts of "virtual reality" and "virtual museum", the spread of virtualization of museum practice and research interest in this phenomenon indicate the further growth of this type of museums both in quantitative and qualitative terms.

• As a result of the survey, it was found out that respondents wants to see more different exhibits and, in particular, interactive exhibits, interesting expositions and exhibitions, as well as unusual events in a Museum.

• Residents of the region are sufficiently aware of the main opportunities of virtualization of museum space and, in addition, would like to see and use some of them.

Almost respondents all positively evaluated virtualization but the positive attitude towards of variables like «virtual reality" and "virtual museum" was considerably ranged depending on innovation potential of region.

Generally, this study provides information on socio-cultural values and attitudes towards of virtualization of museum practice which can help all stakeholders to understand the diversity of value orientations and improve their performance in virtualization development.