Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CULTURATI (CUSTOMIZED GAMES AND ROUTES FOR CULTURAL HERITAGE AND ARTS)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-02-01 bis 2024-04-30
Along with the tourism industry, cultural and creative industries (CCIs) are most affected by the pandemic. All CCIs need systems or management tools to make them more resilient today. Thus, CULTURATI aims to build an inclusive culturaleducational ecosystem with visitor and capacity management by using digital solutions and cutting-edge technologies to (1) enhance and support collaboration between CCIs, and citizens to promote Europe’s culture, values, and interests, (2) increase accessibility, awareness, and understanding of cultural heritage and arts, (3) preserve cultural heritage by preventing deterioration due to overcrowding and sustain valuable resources (4) enhance the audience experience through customized games, and routes by optimizing the number of people on the venue or site-based CCIs, ensuring social distancing between them in case of a pandemic. CULTURATI is a global content platform that enables CCIs, creative professionals, and citizens to create content collectively for cultural heritage and arts across Europe. Consequently, CULTURATI curates content in its database and delivers customized information with the help of its algorithm. Therefore, the principal objective of the CULTURATI project is to design, develop, evaluate and validate mainstream technologies for its ecosystem utilizing the Internet of Things, cloud and mobile technologies, sensors (people counters), and Artificial Intelligence. Our user-centered design methodology situates user needs at the center by actively involving them in five pilot sites across Europe to validate CULTURATI, as well as increase engagement with broader audiences. Accordingly, our interdisciplinary consortium involves computer scientists, CCIs, academia from various disciplines, including social sciences, SMEs, public authorities, and non-profit community initiatives to focus on engaging citizens, and ensuring widespread communication and exploitation of CULTURATI in Europe and internationally
In Work Package 2, we identified, developed, and evaluated the mainstream technologies of CULTURATI, ensured quality measurement, managed and protected data, and prepared user manuals. All these activities have been successfully completed, establishing a solid technical foundation. In Work Package 3, we are in the process of testing and verifying the technological outcomes of CULTURATI in two environments, conducting comprehensive evaluations, and organizing training sessions and workshops for system users. We have coordinated content creation and submitted the first prototype (Prototype v.1). Currently, we are testing the system with experts using the System Usability Scale and through interviews to further refine its usability and functionality.
Our work in the CULTURATI project has yielded advancements in cultural heritage technology and content management, surpassing current standards. We have developed innovative solutions that enhance cultural heritage preservation and dissemination, as well as visitor engagement, management and navigation. These solutions integrate customized content management with adaptable interfaces tailored to the needs of individual sites. By providing comprehensive user manuals and conducting training programs, we aim to enhance the accessibility and impact of our technologies. Testing our solutions in real-world environments in Türkiye has provided valuable feedback on content creation, ensuring their practicality and effectiveness. Moving forward, further research and development, system validation and demonstration in pilot sites in Europe, intellectual property rights protection (especially concerning AI algorithms), and policy recommendations will be key to maximizing our impact and success.