The Museum3D advisory team kicked off the IMLS grant in early October. This group consists of representatives from the departments of Digital Information and Access, Museum Education and external artists and advisors.

Public program leads from the Museum Education department shared initial summaries and goals of the planned programs. The evaluation strategy for the grant needs to be broad enough to assess overall learning from the five programs, which have different modes and are positioned for different audiences.

Elory Rozner, the project’s evaluator, guided the team on a discussion to determine three broad guiding questions from which we would evaluate the year-long project as a whole. These guiding questions determine the evaluating strategy and implementation for each individual program.

Though the team is still honing the guiding questions, initial ideas center around a primary and two supporting questions.

Draft Overall Questions

  1. Primary Question: In what ways (and/or to what degree) does the use of 3-D scanning/printing in education programming impact visitor engagement with the AIC collection? To explore impact and engagement, we can look at cognitive, affective, and behavioral measures, including: dwell time, “looking closely,” distractions/disruptions, questions, work/output, conversation, content understanding/interpretation/meaning-making, appreciation for art/making/AIC/more, feelings (of wonder, frustration, other), retention/memory, and much more (will need to explore more fully). We will not be able to measure all of these things; we will choose what we want to focus on for particular programs and determine what is feasible given the program mode/setting/audience/other.
  2. Supporting Question: In what way (and/or to what degree) do the program characteristics affect the impact of 3-D technology on visitor engagement with the AIC collection?
    We can look at such factors as facilitation, setting, mode, audience, and more.
  3. Supporting Question: In what way does three-dimensionality differentiate this form of “making” from other art-making experiences and this form of “viewing” from other art appreciation experiences at AIC?

The Museum3D advisory team will meet again in early December to hone these questions and review the evaluation process as used in the Program 2: Pose Like a Statue (Families) event held November 9, 2013.

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Kick-off Agenda
October 11, 2013 10am-12pm

* Welcome (Liz) – (15-20 min)
— Quick Intro to the Grant/team Intros
— Purpose of Advisory Team
— Guiding Principles
— Google Drive
— Who to talk to if you have questions
— Communications Plan

* Team Introductions & Programs (everyone) (45 minutes)
— describe each of 5 programs – working from worksheets developed this week

* Evaluation (Elory) (45 min)
— Introduction of Elory Rozner and strategy for the grant and program evaluation
— Lead an evaluation discussion to determine the proper questions to address

* Wrap-up remaining questions.