Categories
Digital Humanities

ARK4 was presented at Researchers Night

ark4header-flagsThe ARK4 Digital Heritage Library presented its game platform at Researchers Night, the 23rd of September in one of the biggest events of NTNU for school students from the immediate region. Around 1300 students visited the NTNU research stand number 10 at Gløshaugen in Trondheim and ARK4 quizzes and games seem to inspire the students to check their knowledge. The most popular of the games was the quiz about Saint Olav and the city of Trondheim and the Herbs of magic.

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From the Science festival in April 2016 in Athens where DCU presented an ARK4 stand.

Ark4 has produced games in three main languages, Norwegian English and Greek and was also presented in the Researchers night at Athens the 30th of September for Greek school students by our main collaborator in phase 2 was, Digital Curation Unit Athena RC (DCU)and Europeana research. The DCU team consisted of: Agiatis Bernadou, Dimitris Gavrilis, Eliza Papaki, Nephelie Chatzidiakou, Eleni Afiontzi. DCU has developed the software and all the games in the website “ARK4 A digital heritage Library” with content produced by NTNU UB and the DCU team. The platform is now available to all as an open gaming platform called “ARK4 is a digital heritage library” of games where the users deliver their answers to surveys as well on the game experience and survey results are stored at the DCU server and is free to use.

Each game is seen as a widget that can be activated within the platform for a specific user group. It contains the questions, visuals from our archives and from Europeana archives and our common aim in phase 2 was to explore the possibility of creating an open source game platform, where all of games would become accessible to the common user. The products have been shared with teaching communities, museums, archive institutions, academics, and students and workshops and demonstration stand s have been organized for their dissemination. The project will continue with further presentations and analysis of the data collected in 2017 in order to proceed in publications.

Aiming to draw conclusions on the impact of the digital game as learning activity, among other ARK4 employed mixed methods for data collection ranged from questionnaires to observation-notes tand informal discussions with the students that passed by our stand in Researchers night in Trondheim. Similar methods have been applied at the workshops we have organized for schools and university students as well. In particular, the participants provide their own feedback by filling questionnaires evaluating the quality of the gaming experience or by answering knowledge tests before and following their interaction with the digital game. This data was further enriched by observation of the actual gaming performance and by moderated group discussions with project members. The analysis of the data in now a work in progress and focuses on three factors: investigating a) the degree of coordination among the users, b) the type of collaboration and c) the positioning of the users’ interactions and their meaning.

Knowledge gained from several workshops and the feedback delivered bu the users allowed us to draw some preliminary conclusions:

    1. digital technology and games has been an attractive tool for High School students for knowledge sharing.
    2. the idea of team work and participatory design seemed engaging.
    3. the students participated actively in seeking information.
    4. users were interacting socially, reflecting and seeking information, in the context of the activity, using mobile technology.

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Categories
Digital Humanities

ARK4 presents its games at Resaerchers night, both 10!

On Friday the 23rd,  theNTNU University library will participate at the Researchers night event organized by the Norwegian University of Trondheim at Gløshaugen Campus. Hundreds of  young students will try all kind’s of hands-on activities in order to understand what is that researchers at NTNU are working with. The purpose of this European event is to inspire young students and create engagements around research in general.

ARK4 is a heritage library of games the experiments with content, appearance and user design, to create a new virtual space of supporting learning. It also explores the role of technology in disseminating information in a way that reaches a wider public . Workshops, games, 3D environments are all tools in the new and diverse archivist kit. The relationship between the public and digital content is among the core issues the project works on. In its new phase, the project attempts to re-use digital content from the Cultural Heritage sector, mainly deriving from Europeana and other libraries to reach a wider audience through knowledge testing games.

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  • Games in English
1. Children’s Literature is the first of a series of knowledge testing games that will be produced in this context. Launched on March 3, 2016 on the occasion of the World Book Day, it is a joyful topic that aims to travel its users back to their childhood and test what they have been reading and remember from then. Among the questions, the users can have a look at beautiful visual records lying currently within Europeana. –
See more at Europeana Research.
2. Children at Granma(coming shortly)
3. Lost cultures.
  • Games in Norwegian
1. Saint Olav and Trondheim
 2. Norwegian Deaf Museum web-quiz.
3. Women`s history web-quiz.
4. Rødøy history and archaeology

Test yourself with our quizes

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Categories
Cultural Heritage Digital Humanities

ARK4 presenting the 13th of July at Digital Heritage 2016 in Krakow

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Playing With Cultural Heritage Through Digital Gaming: The New Narrative of the ARK4 Project

Continue reading “ARK4 presenting the 13th of July at Digital Heritage 2016 in Krakow”

Categories
Archaeology Digital Humanities

Lost Cultures by Europeana Reseach and Eliza Papaki

The issue of lost cultures or cultures under threat is nowadays more urgent than ever. Increasingly more archaeological sites are set as targets of terrorist attacks, leading to their severe damage or even thpalmyraeir total destruction. Such numerous examples documented in recent times call for action.

In the aftermath of these attacks, individuals or groups, spontaneously or more organized, were activated having as goal to preserve or reconstruct as much as possible of the threatened heritage. In this way, several – mainly crowdsourcing – projects made their appearance in the Web calling people and institutions to contribute in order to virtually rebuild the sites damaged or destroyed. Among the endangered sites recently declared as targets of terrorism are Palmyra, Mosul and Nineveh.

In a different angle, with the aim of spreading the word and knowledge on these sites, the topic of Lost Cultures was set as the theme of two new knowledge testing games. Created in the context of the project ARK4 and in collaboration with Europeana Research, these games constitute an initiative of the Digital Curation Unit, Athena RC, project partner of both Europeana Research and ARK4. Adding to a series of knowledge testing games initiated with a Children’s Literature quiz, these games attempted to reuse digital content from the Cultural Heritage field, and in particular Europeana, to reach a wider audience.

The first game entitled “Lost cultures 1: Nineveh of Henry Layard” focuses on the ancient sites of Nineveh and Nimrud, excavated by Austen Henry Layard in the 19th century. The second game (Lost Cultures 2), which reuses digital content entirely deriving from Europeana, focuses on the ancient site of Palmyra. Since its destruction, the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria has been a popular topic among archaeologists and the public and has been reconstructed in various ways, from crowdsourcing projects to 3D virtual modeling initiatives. These games, which have been widely circulated in social media, could be considered as another effort to preserve the memory of the sites of Palmyra and Nineveh.

For those of you who did not have the chance to visit those sites or for the lucky ones who did, give a try to these knowledge testing games and have a glimpse of these important heritage sites.

– See more at: http://research.europeana.eu/blogpost/lost-cultures-within-europeana#sthash.7gLjWyR8.co4fN0M4.dpuf

By Eliza Papaki

Categories
Archaeology Digital Humanities

A digital heritage library

ARK4 is a digital heritage project that explores the role of technology in disseminating information in a way that reaches a wider public . Workshops, games, 3D environments are all tools in the new and diverse archivist kit. The relationship between the public and digital content is among the core issues the project works on. In its new phase, the project attempts to re-use digital content from the Cultural Heritage sector, mainly deriving from Europeana and other libraries to reach a wider audience through knowledge testing games.
FloraD
  • Games in English
1. Children’s Literature is the first of a series of knowledge testing games that will be produced in this context. Launched on March 3, 2016 on the occasion of the World Book Day, it is a joyful topic that aims to travel its users back to their childhood and test what they have been reading and remember from then. Among the questions, the users can have a look at beautiful visual records lying currently within Europeana. –
See more at Europeana Research.
2. Children at Granma(coming shortly)
3. Lost cultures.
  • Games in Norwegian
1. Flora Danica for touch screen.
 2. Norwegian Deaf Museum web-quiz.
3. Women`s history web-quiz.
4. Rødøy history and archaeology
  • Methodology: ARK4 applies user-centred methods and collects new narratives, to be shared by the national and regional community of libraries, schools and archives through surveys and interviews.
  • Collaborators
ARK4 is a cooperation project between four Trondheim institutions and an international collaborator financed by the National Library of Oslo.

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Categories
Archaeology Digital Humanities

Lost cultures and gaming!

Niniveh by H. Layard, picture by Åge Høyem

Ark4 a digital heritage library, started in 2014 by NTNU University library and is exploring new ways to approach culture and heritage and attempts to re-use digital content from the Cultural Heritage sector, mainly deriving from Europeana and other libraries and museums to reach a wider audience through knowledge games.  We also aim in creating engagement and educational activities in the immediate academic community, among colleagues and university students in the investigation of approaching the past from different angles.

Our main partner in this phase is Athena the Digital Curation unit and we collaborate with three archaeologists and IT experts.

We use visual material from old archives and create games with questions about endangered sites, Palmyra, Niniveh and Nimrud with the purpose to spread knowledge about past cultures that are now destroyed or even threatened.

Archaeologists have been playing a role in informing on the atrocities committed as a result of war and ethnic or nationalistic turmoil but there is always a demand for an approach that is not only theoretical but it contains actions and proactive protection. Such initiatives have been collaborating with Unesco and Icomos that are commited to protect sites in danger, either that is done through documentation  or projects as CYARK500 or New Palmyra or through social media as Archaeology in Syria Facebook group , where professionals archaeologists from USA Europe and middle East participate in letting information about the destructions happening as they happen.

I believe that we as academics, have an obligation to keep these memories alive and not let them slide in oblivion. It is not a secret anymore that antiquities that are stolen from these countries are sold to the western countries and the money goes to finance weapons for the ones actually stealing and destroying those countries and its heritage. In Syria when the war started, there were armed groups that would destroy sites to lift up mosaics from the floors and sell them.

ARK4 is not providing a solution to all that but intends to create engagement and spread knowledge about those sites through educational workshops and gaming tools.

More on Ark4 here.