Virtualization and the Democratization of Heritage and ArchaeologyHerbert Maschner and Matthew Vincent
This panel will highlight and openly discuss a new multi-million dollar research initiative to make some of the world important archaeological collections available on line for global research access. The key to making archaeological collections relevant in the twenty-first century is through the creation of virtual repositories with built –in analytical tools. While many museums and archaeological repositories are now making efforts in 3D visualization, virtual collections, and integrated database management presentations, we must take this further by putting entire collections online in a virtual repository. The goal of the Democratization of Science Project is to use 3D technologies to put entire archaeological collections, or entire museums, online so that any student, any child, any scientist, or any politician, anywhere, can do their own analyses. We suspect that important scientific and educational advancements are often not made simply because people do not have access to the collections. We hope to change this by democratizing access through virtualization, and we have developed the model for how this should be done and implemented the first examples. A new global $10 million project has been funded to get this initiative started.
Herbert Maschner (15min)
- What we are doing
- Why we are doing it
- Issues of Access to Data
- Not a Virtual Museum
Matthew Vincent (30 min)
- The Virtual Repository
- The User Experience
- The User Interface
- Conducting online research
- Media
Corentin Metgy (20 min)
- Private industry and Cultural Heritage
- The 3D Revolution
- Heritage Business Models
Herbert Maschner (30 min)
- The Big Picture
- The Politics of Open Science in Archaeology and Heritage
- The Democratization of Science – Heritage Model
- Call to Action – The Democratization of Heritage Project
