Category Archives: Journal

CFP – Digital Creativity Special Issue “Creative Digital Escape Rooms”

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, cfp, Digital Humanities, game, Journal, , , , , , ,

Digital Creativity – Special Issue: “Creative Digital Escape Rooms”

UPDATE: THE OFFICIAL CALL IS AT https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/creative-digital-escape-rooms/

Special Issue Editors: Erik Champion, University of South Australia, erik.champion@unisa.edu.au and Susannah Emery, University of South Australia susannah.emery@unisa.edu.au

While they are increasingly popular in urban settings, digital escape rooms can be experienced physically, digitally, virtually, or in hybrid form, inside or outside (Lucarelli 2019), or a combination of both. Their potential as learning environments has been well-researched (Makri, Vlachopoulos, and Martina 2021; Charlo 2022), as has their potential for a range of domains: engaging audiences with museum and gallery collections (Smith 2017; Antoniou, Dejonai, and Lepouras 2019; Back et al. 2019; Schaffman 2017), showcasing tourism attractions (Pakhalov and Rozhkova 2020) or even visualising big data (Lior 2020).

They have also been used to test educational techniques (McFadden and Porter 2018; Karageorgiou, Mavrommati, and Fotaris 2019; Pozo-Sánchez, Lampropoulos, and López-Belmonte 2022) and allow the training of unlikely skills and concepts, such as computer programming (Yllana-Prieto, González-Gómez, and Jeong 2023). They can integrate analogue and digital content (Krekhov et al. 2021), exist purely in the virtual realm (Pozo-Sánchez, Lampropoulos, and López-Belmonte 2022), or combine human-driven, mechanical or “smart” interaction and sensory devices (Karageorgiou et al. 2021).

But what makes a creative digital escape room? How can creative experiences be shared? How can creative content be explored and appreciated? How can creative decision-making, insight, and teamwork be fostered and encouraged? Are there digital escape rooms that allow themselves to be creatively reframed, reconfigured, or otherwise modified or extended?

We are equally open to submissions on hybrid (digital and physical) escape rooms, virtual escape rooms, and escape rooms that redefine, provoke or extend stereotypes and conventions of escape room design.

Examples include but are not limited to:

  • Creative content, creative design, creative user input, or creative experiences arising from digital escape room design;
  • The implications of different genres, platforms, equipment or the mode of delivery on creative engagement;
  • Trends, relationships, and influences relating to digital escape room design;
  • The dynamic relationships between tools, interaction, surroundings, and environment;
  • Design tools and design methods;
  • Historical, pedagogical, and/or auto-ethnographic accounts of digital escape rooms;
  • Critical reflections and interventions on the relationship of digital escape rooms, changing social phenomena, culture, and creativity;
  • Accounts and analyses of engagement and evaluation of digital escape room experiences.

Submission requirements:

 Submission to this special issue is a two-stage process. Authors interested in contributing are invited to submit an extended abstract (500 words) for review. The extended abstract should include the following information: (1) Name of author(s) with email addresses and affiliation, if applicable, (2) Title of the paper, (3) Body of the abstract, (4) Preliminary bibliography, (5) Short bio(s). Please email abstracts directly to the editors listed below. Authors whose abstracts are accepted will then be invited to submit a full paper (up to 7000 words). Full papers will then be double blind peer reviewed for acceptance into the special issue. Note that acceptance of an abstract alone does not imply acceptance for publication in the journal. Upon acceptance of the abstract, you will be sent further authors’ guidelines based on the Digital Creativity guidelines (Instructions for Authors) at https://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/NDCR.

Reference

Important Dates

Abstracts due: January 13, 2025;

Full papers due: March 31, 2025 – full essays due via ScholarOne;

Final versions due: June 30, 2025– deadline for final/revised articles;

Expected publication: End of 2025.

Submission method: see https://think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issues/creative-digital-escape-rooms/

REFERENCES

  1. Antoniou, Angeliki, Marios Ilias Dejonai, and George Lepouras. 2019. ‘Museum escape’: A game to increase museum visibility. Paper presented at the Games and Learning Alliance: 8th International Conference, GALA 2019, Athens, Greece, November 27–29, 2019, Proceedings 8.
  2. Back, Jon, Svante Back, Emma Bexell, Stefan Stanisic, and Daniel Rosqvist. 2019. The quest: An escape room inspired interactive museum exhibition. Paper presented at the Extended Abstracts of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts.
  3. Charlo, José Carlos Piñero. 2022. “The Rise of Educational Escape Rooms: Designing Games as Formative Tasks.” In Handbook of Research on the Influence and Effectiveness of Gamification in Education, 143-63. IGI Global.
  4. Karageorgiou, Zoi, Eirini Mavrommati, and Panagiotis Fotaris. 2019. Escape room design as a game-based learning process for STEAM education. Paper presented at the ECGBL 2019 13th European Conference on Game-Based Learning.
  5. Karageorgiou, Zoi, Konstantinos Michalakis, Markos Konstantakis, Georgios Alexandridis, and George Caridakis. 2021. Smart Escape Rooms for Cultural Heritage: A Systematic Review. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the European Conference on Games-based Learning.
  6. Krekhov, Andrey, Katharina Emmerich, Ronja Rotthaler, and Jens Krueger. 2021. “Puzzles Unpuzzled: Towards a Unified Taxonomy for Analog and Digital Escape Room Games.” Review of. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 5 (CHI PLAY):1-24.
  7. Lior, Solomovich. 2020. “Studying big data using virtual escape rooms.” Review of. International Journal of Advanced Statistics and IT&C for Economics and Life Sciences 10 (1):23-30.
  8. Lucarelli, Vissia. 2023. “Creating an Escape Room in a Heritage Site.” Accessed 12 July 2023. https://www.museumnext.com/article/creating-an-escape-room-in-a-heritage-site/.
  9. Makri, Agoritsa, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, and Richard A Martina. 2021. “Digital escape rooms as innovative pedagogical tools in education: A systematic literature review.” Review of. Sustainability 13 (8):4587.
  10. McFadden, Colin, and S Porter. 2018. Augmented reality escape rooms as high-engagement educational resources. Paper presented at the ICERI2018 Proceedings.
  11. Pakhalov, Alexander, and Natalia Rozhkova. 2020. “Escape rooms as tourist attractions: Enhancing visitors’ experience through new technologies.” Review of. Journal of Tourism, Heritage & Services Marketing (JTHSM) 6 (2):55-60.
  12. Pozo-Sánchez, Santiago, Georgios Lampropoulos, and Jesús López-Belmonte. 2022. “Comparing Gamification Models in Higher Education Using Face-to-Face and Virtual Escape Rooms.” Review of. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research 11 (2):307-22.
  13. Schaffman, A. 2017. “Escaping the Mundane: Using Escape Rooms in a Museum Setting.” In MuseumNext: RISK. Melbourne, Australia: MuseumNext.
  14. Smith, Amanda. 2023. “How to get millennials into your Museum with escape rooms.” MuseumNext, Accessed 12 July. https://www.museumnext.com/article/get-millennials-museum/.
  15. Yllana-Prieto, Félix, David González-Gómez, and Jin Su Jeong. 2023. “The escape room and breakout as an aid to learning STEM contents in primary schools: an examination of the development of pre-service teachers in Spain.” Review of. Education 3-13:1-17. doi: 10.1080/03004279.2022.2163183.

new journal article

Digital Humanities, Journal, publication

Fensham, R., Summer, T. D., Cutter, N., Buchanan, G., Liu, R., Munoz, J., Smithies, J., Zheng, I., Carlin, D., Champion, E., Craig, H., East, S., Hay, C., Given, L. M., Macarthur, J., McMeekin, D., Mendelssohn, J., & van der Plaat, D. (2024). Towards a National Data Architecture for Cultural Collections: Designing the Australian Cultural Data Engine. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 18(2). https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/18/2/000678/000678.html

This article summarises the aims, methods, information architecture, outputs, and innovations of the Australian Cultural Data Engine (ACD-Engine), a project that harnesses leading cultural databases to build bridges to research, industry, and government. The project investigates digital heritage collections, data ontologies, and interoperability, building an information architecture to enhance the open sharing of Australian cultural data. Working with a cross-disciplinary team, the ACD-Engine establishes conceptual and technical frameworks for better understanding the platforms and uses of cultural data across a range of national and international contexts. This new cyber-infrastructure advances cultural data aggregation and interoperability whilst prioritising data quality and domain distinctiveness to answer new research questions across disciplines. As such, the ACD-Engine provides a novel approach to data management and data modelling in the arts and humanities that has significant implications for digital collections, digital humanities, and data analytics.

New Journal article

Academic, Announcements, Conference, digital heritage, heritage, Journal, Linked Open Data, Open Access, publication, visualisation, Web GIS

Our article “Exploring Historical Australian Expeditions with Time-Layered Cultural Maps” has been published in IJGI and is available online:

Website: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/3/104
PDF Version: https://www.mdpi.com/2220-9964/12/3/104/pdf

Exploring Historical Australian Expeditions with Time-Layered Cultural Maps

The Australian Time Layered Cultural Map platform was created to help digital humanities scholars investigate how online geospatial tools could provide exemplars to their humanities colleagues on how historical collections and cultural data could be extended and re-examined with geospatial tools. The project discussed here investigated how Recogito/TMT could effectively extract spatial and temporal data from pure text-based historical information and generate time-layered interactive maps of that spatio-temporal data using accessible and user-friendly software. The target audience was humanities scholars relatively new to geospatial technologies and relevant programming systems. The interactive maps were created with two free, open-source web applications and one commercial GIS (Geographic Information System) mapping application. The relative pros and cons of each application are discussed. This paper also investigates simple workflows for extracting spatiotemporal data into RDF (Resource Description Framework) format to be used as Linked Open Data.

2021: my year in print

Academic, Book, book chapter, Conference, Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, Proceedings, publication

What have I been doing this year? Playing a lot of piano, badly. But also (and I hope to add 2 journal articles and a book project and a serious game design project to this mix):

Invitations:

  • Invited CI, ARC LIEF Grant LE210100021. $440,000. “Australian Cultural Data Engine for Research, Industry and Government.” Joining as a Chief Investigator, 26 April 2021. Led by Prof Rachel Fensham, Melbourne.
  • Invited CI, Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) platforms grant: Time-Layered Cultural Map of Australia 2.0 $100,000. 25/11/2020. https://ardc.edu.au/news/new-data-projects-will-help-transform-australian-research/
  • Invited reviewer, Springer-Nature.
  • Invited onto the European Science Foundation College of Expert Reviewers.
  • Invited to speak to New South Wales Local Studies Librarians group, “Virtual heritage: tools, projects, hopes and challenges,” Zoom, 23 March 2021.
  • Invited guest lecturer and tutor, Data Science Visualisation, Science & Engineering, Curtin University.
  • Invited to Professor of Design interview panel, SUSTech, China, by Dean Thomas Kvan.
  • Invited advisor for Swedish-Finnish grant application: PLATYPUS Engaging diverse publics through participatory play in heritage institutions, led by Uppsala University.
  • Opening speaker, invited, webinar on smart tourism. ASEAN Australia Smart Cities Webinar Series Part 7: Promoting Smart Tourism Recovery via Virtual Reality. ZOOM webinar 2 March 2021. Organiser: Asian Development Bank.
  • Invited to speak at University of Aberdeen Academic Forum and New South Wales Local Studies Librarians group-Zoom (date?).
  • Interviewed for Canvas8 magazine. Quine, O. (2021). Are Britons ready for virtual holidays? canvas8. Retrieved from https://www.canvas8.com/content/2021/03/23/britons-virtual-holidays.html
  • Interviewed by UNSW students on the subject of virtual tourism.
  • Invited to co-chair the EuroMed2020 conference www.euromed2020.eu, Springer-Nature LNCS. Co-chairs include Professor Marinos Ioannides, ERA and UNESCO of Chair Digital Cultural Heritage, Mrs Eleanor Fink, USA, former Getty Digital Techs Director and inventor of Object-ID standard, Professor Lorenzo Cantoni from Switzerland, UNESCO Chair in ICT.

2021 PUBLICATIONS

Conference Proceedings (as Book):

  • Ioannides, M., Fink, E., Cantoni, L., & Champion, E. (Eds.) (2021). Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. 8th International Conference, EuroMed 2020, Virtual Event, November 2–5, 2020, Revised Selected Papers. DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-73043-7. ISBN 978-3-030-73043-7.

Published articles

  • Rahaman, H., Johnston, M., & Champion, E. (2021). Audio-augmented arboreality: wildflowers and language. Digital Creativity, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2020.186853
  • Champion, E. (2020). Culturally Significant Presence in Single-player Computer Games. Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, 13(4). DOI: 10.1145/3414831. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3414831
  • NB AWARD: in 2021 this paper won Virtual Archaeology Review Journal’s 2020 Paper of the Year. “Survey of 3D digital heritage repositories and platforms”, by Erik Champion and Hafizur Rahaman. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226

Published Fully Referred Conference Papers

  • Champion, E., Kerr, R., McMeekin, D., & Rahaman, H. (2020, 2-5 November 2020). Time-Layered Gamic Interaction with a Virtual Museum Template. Paper presented at the EuroMed 2020 Conference, Online/Cyprus. Revised Selected Papers. Springer-Nature. Published in 2021.

2021 Conference and Journal Reviewer

  • Invited committee member, Australian Museums & Galleries Association (AMaGA) National Conference (Perth). 
  • Invited onto Program Board of Culture & Computing 2021 Conference, Springer ( HCI International). 
  • Invited reviewer, Springer-Nature Scientific Reports.
  • Invited reviewer, the Journal of Open Archaeology (De Gruyter).
  • Invited reviewer, CAA2021.

2021-22 PUBLICATIONS IN PRESS

Books in press

  • Champion, E. (2021: November). Rethinking Virtual Places. Indiana University Press, Spatial Humanities series.
  • Champion, E. (Ed). (2021: May). Virtual Heritage: A Guide. Ubiquity Press, London.
  • Champion, E. (Ed). (2022: pending). Screen Tourism and Affective Landscapes.
  • Champion, E., & Hiriart, J. (Eds.). (2022: in press). Assassin’s Creed in the Classroom, Museum, and Gallery: De Gruyter: Video games and the Humanities series, 18 chapters, 25 international authors.

Book Chapters in press

  • Champion, E., Nurmikko-Fuller, T., & Grant, K. (2022: invited). Chapter 12 Alchemy and Archives, Swords, Spells, and Castles: Medieval-modding Skyrim. In R. Houghton (Ed.), Games for Teaching, Impact, and Research UK: De Gruyter. 
  • Champion, E., & Hiriart, J. (2022). Workshopping Board Games for Space Place and Culture. In M. Lasansky & C. Randl (Eds.), Playing Place: Board Games, Architecture, Space, and Heritage. Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press.
  • Champion, E. (2022). Reflective Experiences with Immersive Heritage: A Theoretical Design-Based Framework. In A. Benardou & A. M. Droumpouki (Eds.), Difficult Pasts and Immersive Experiences. London, UK: Routledge.
  • Champion, E. (2022). Not Quite Virtual: Techné between Text and World. In B. Mauer & A. Salter (Eds.), Reimagining the Humanities. Anderson, South Carolina, USA: Parlor Press.
  • Champion, E. (2021: pending). Biodiversity and Cultural Diversity: Virtual opportunities. In E. Wandl-Vogt (Ed.),Biodiversity in connection with Linguistic and Cultural Diversity. Vienna, Austria.
  • Champion, E. (2021: pending). Workshopping Game Prototypes for History and Heritage. In Digital Humanities book, Politecnico di Torino, Italy. Aracne Publishing Company. Chapter.

Conference activities to take place

  • Wright, H., et al., 2021. S12: Digital Infrastructures and New (and Evolving) Technologies in Archaeology (Roundtable). CAA2021: Digital Crossroads. Cyprus/Online. https://2021.caaconference.org/sessions/ 14-18 June.

Paper and Proceedings Published

Academic, Announcements, infrastructure, Journal, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

EuroMed2020 conference proceedings have been published by Springer.

Ioannides, M., Fink, E., Cantoni, L., Champion, E. (Eds.). Digital Heritage. Progress in Cultural Heritage: Documentation, Preservation, and Protection. 8th International Conference, EuroMed 2020, Virtual Event, November 2–5, 2020, Revised Selected Papers. Springer.

Our paper: Champion, E., Kerr, R., McMeekin, D., & Rahaman, H. (2020, 29 October-3 November). Time-Layered Gamic Interaction with a Virtual Museum Template. Paper presented at the EuroMed 2020 Conference, Nicosia, Cyprus (online).

Virtual Archaeology Review’s Paper of the Year

3D and game editors, Academic, Announcements, archaeology, digital heritage, heritage, infrastructure, Journal, Open Access, publication, respositories, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation

Virtual Archaeology Review declared my and Dr Rahaman’s 2020 paper “Survey of #3D digital heritage repositories and platforms” their paper of the year.

https://twitter.com/VARjournal/status/1348357190801780738

some Virtual Heritage journals

Academic, Journal

I’ve been asked advice on virtual heritage-related journals.

I’d suggest (and this is not a comprehensive list):

I am no longer a fulltime professional academic (and not on the editorial boards of the above) so caveat emptor.

Article popularity

archaeology, Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, publication, respositories, virtual heritage

I am impressed that the Virtual Archaeology Review Journal (@VARjournal) has a stats page with % comparing views to downloads and abstracts listed (and a 3D -model- filter!) It can help authors check their abstract is on target (i.e. catchy). Our (with Dr Hafizur Rahaman @hafi2018) 2020 article Survey of 3D digital heritage repositories and platforms was 6th most downloaded article (3rd for 2020). NB had trouble viewing, had to refresh several times.

CHAMPION, Erik; RAHAMAN, Hafizur. Survey of 3D digital heritage repositories and platforms. Virtual Archaeology Review, [S.l.], v. 11, n. 23, p. 1-15, July 2020. ISSN 1989-9947. Available at: <https://polipapers.upv.es/index.php/var/article/view/13226>. Date accessed: 04 Jan. 2021. doi:https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226.

New journal article

Journal, publication

New article out today:

Dawson B, Joseph P, Champion E. Evaluating User Experience of a Multimedia Storyteller Panorama Tour: The Story of the Markham Car Collection. Collections. 2020;16(3):251-278. doi:10.1177/1550190620940966. URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1550190620940966

A storyteller panorama tour, The Story of the Markam Car Collection, was developed as an example for museums and cultural institutions concerning the use of panoramas combined with multimedia to tell stories of specific large objects (antique cars). It was designed for multiple platforms to involve and engage audiences via large curved screens while allowing for access via portable devices. Understanding users’ requirements is essential when designing and developing virtual museum tours. Measuring digital productions’ usability is an ongoing challenge that affects the improvement of user experience and the actual output. A variety of techniques and approaches are available to test digital productions’ usability and the related user experience. It is possible to measure and evaluate the production’s usefulness, including users’ engagement and understanding. However, the best method for assessing museum-related digital productions varies depending on aims, capacity, audience, and local context. In this paper, we demonstrate the strategy we employed to evaluate the particular storyteller panorama tour’s usability, user experience, engagement, and resulting audience understanding. The results of the evaluations showed that storyteller panorama tours could be an effective, attractive, and engaging storyteller method for cultural institutions. However, the findings also indicated that the users’ age, gender, and computer-related experience influence the use and enjoyment levels. We share our experiences and offer an example of how to evaluate a storyteller panorama tour. We believe that the presented evaluation strategy would be applicable to other museum-related projects, as well.

Not actually published yet, but accepted

Academic, archaeology, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Journal, publication, serious games, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , , , ,

I’m very happy that my rather large article “Culturally Significant Presence
In Single-Player Computer Games” has been accepted for the ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage. This is despite its 12,587 words covering 4 major games, and attempting to be more conceptual and provocative than normal in a traditional ACM IT-oriented journal..

Very good reviewers too, actually. They made me work hard. I think my abstract is a bit over JOCCH length so that may change but at moment it is:

Cultural presence is a term that researchers have used to explain and evaluate cultural learning in virtual heritage projects, but less frequently in video games. Given the increasing importance of video games to cultural heritage, this paper investigates explanations of cultural presence that could be communicated by games, especially concerning UNESCO and ICOMOS definitions of cultural significance. The aim is to determine if cultural presence can be communicated via video games and across a range of game genres.

Observations derived from game prototyping workshops for history and heritage were incorporated to help develop a teachable list of desirable game elements. To distinguish itself from the vagueness surrounding theories of cultural presence, a theory of culturally significant presence is proposed. Culturally significant presence requires three components: culturally significant artifacts and practices; an overarching framework of a singular, identifiable cultural viewpoint; and awareness by the participant of both the culturally significant and the overarching cultural framework and perspective (which gives cultural heritage sites, artifacts and practices their cultural significance and relational value).

As awareness of cultural presence requires time to reflect upon, single-player games were chosen that were not completely dependent on time-based challenges. Another criterion was cultural heritage content, the games must simulate aspects of cultural heritage and history, communicate a specific cultural framework, or explore and reconstruct a past culture. Four games were chosen that simulate a culture, explain archaeological methods, portray indigenous intangible heritage, or explain historical-based ecosystems of the past based on educational guidelines. The games are Assassin’s Creed: Origins (and its Discovery Tour); Heaven’s Vault; Never Alone; and a Ph.D. game project: Saxon. Their genres could be described as first-person shooter/open world/virtual tour; dialogue-based puzzle game; 2D platform game; and turn-based strategy game.

The aim is not to evaluate the entire range of interactive and immersive virtual environments and games, but to examine the applicability and relevance of the new theory, and to ascertain whether the four games provided useful feedback on the concept and usefulness of culturally significant presence. A more clearly demarcated theory of cultural presence may not only help focus evaluation studies but also encourage game developers to modify or allow the modification of commercial games for classroom teaching of digital heritage. Game content, core gameplay, secondary gameplay, and game mechanics could be modified to engagingly compel players to consider cultural heritage values and perspectives that are not their own.

Virtual Archaeology Review journal (recommended)

Announcements, digital heritage, Journal, Open Access, publication, virtual heritage

Dr Hafizur Rahaman and I will have an article on virtual /digital 3D heritage repositories published/in press at open-access journal Virtual Archaeology Review – they have interesting articles in press I recommend the journal.

The article is called Survey of 3D Digital Heritage Repositories and Platforms, update: an early version is online:

Champion, E., & Rahaman, H. (2020). Survey of 3D Digital Heritage Repositories and Platforms. The Virtual Archaeology Review (VAR), 11(23). https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2020.13226

 Despite the increasing number of three-dimensional (3D) model portals and online repositories catering for digital heritage scholars, students and interested members of the general public, there are very few recent academic publications that offer a critical analysis when reviewing the relative potential of these portals and online repositories. Solid reviews of the features and functions they offer are insufficient; there is also a lack of explanations as to how these assets and their related functionality can further the digital heritage (and virtual heritage) field, and help in the preservation, maintenance, and promotion of real-world 3D heritage sites and assets. What features do they offer? How could their feature list better cater for the needs of the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector? 

This article’s priority is to examine the useful features of 8 institutional and 11 commercial repositories designed specifically to host 3D digital models. The available features of their associated 3D viewers, where applicable, are also analysed, connecting recommendations for future-proofing with the need to address current gaps and weaknesses in the scholarly field of 3D digital heritage. Many projects do not address the requirements stipulated by charters, such as access, reusability, and preservation. The lack of preservation strategies and examples highlights the oxymoronic nature of virtual heritage (oxymoronic in the sense that the virtual heritage projects themselves are seldom preserved). To study these concerns, six criteria for gauging the usefulness of the 3D repositories to host 3D digital models and related digital assets are suggested. The authors also provide 13 features that would be useful additions for their 3D viewers. 

Calls for articles in 2020

digital heritage, Digital Humanities, game, heritage, Journal, virtual heritage, visualisation

ETC press: Well Played

Special Issue Call for Proposals: Well Played: Playable Theatre: For this special issue we invite experiential play-throughs, theoretical papers, critical analyses, and post-mortems by practitioners, across domains from around the world, that explore the many facets of live, interactive experiences. As an interdisciplinary issue, we welcome researchers and creators from theatre, digital and analog game studies, performance studies and related disciplines.

All submissions are 31 May 2020. All submissions and questions should be sent to: well-played (at) lists (dot) andrew (dot) cmu (dot) edu

Change over time Journal

The concept of “integrity” is central to the organizing principles and values of heritage conservation and is frequently evoked in international charters, conventions, and official recommendations. Generally speaking, integrity refers to the wholeness or intactness of a tangible object, place, or property and is a measure by which UNESCO determines the Outstanding Universal Value of a site.1 As a guiding principle of conservation practice, the concept of integrity has evolved from 19th century ideas of the artist’s intent, which located integrity in a moment in time (Viollet le Duc), to 21st century framings of integrity as an emergent condition as proposed by the 2005 Faro Framework Convention which suggests that integrity is neither fixed nor static but is understood through a process of interpreting, respecting, and negotiating complex, and at times, contentious values. Abstracts of 200-300 words are due 5 June 2020. Authors will be notified of provisional paper acceptance by early July 2017. Final manuscript submissions will be due 3 January 2021.

MIT Presence

Guest Editors: GunasekaranManogaran, Hassan Qudrat-Ulla, Ching-Hsien Hsu, Qin Xin Paper Submission Deadline 25-08-2020; Author notification 15-11-2020; Revised papers submission 25-01-2021; Final Acceptance 30-03-2021

JOCCH

ACM Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage – emerging computational and analytical methods and technologies with archival practice (including record keeping), and their consequences for historical, social, scientific, and cultural research engagement with archives. We want to identify potential in these areas and examine the new questions that they can provoke. At the same time, we aim to address the questions and concerns scholarship is raising about issues of interpretation raised by such methods, and in particular the challenges of producing quality – meaning, knowledge and value – from quantity, tracing data and analytic provenance across complex knowledge production ecosystems, and addressing data privacy and other ethical issues.

World History Connected

World History Connected is seeking papers for its next three issues 17.2 ( June 2020), 17. 3  (October, 2020) and 18.1, (February 2021), for special sections that will address new research on, and fresh approaches to, the teaching of 1) the place of the Classical World in World History, from the militarization of Roman elephants to the concept of the Axial Age (deadline for submissions is April  6, 2020); (2) themes in Southeast Asia in World History from Lidar to maritime subjects (deadline for submissions is August 3, 2020) and 3) Games and Simulations in World History, from the use of historical content, to the process of construction and marketing, to use in the classroom (deadline for submissions is November 2, 2020).

 

 

 

 

Changing review affiliations

Journal

Looking at my resume at long last I noticed I am so much busier for some journals than for others and review for others-quite a lot! Time to trim, scale down and maybe talk to a new journal. Ideas are only fresh for so long. I also notice most of the journals are not digital heritage-related and quite a few are not serious games-related!

In the last year or so have been asked to (blind) review for Computers & Graphics, Entertainment Computing, Nature, Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (and book proposals for Routledge, MIT, Oxford..) and I am sure I missed quite a few..

Hmm, quite a few are Elsevier journals..hmm..

Program Committees, Conference Reviews & Journal Boards

Editorial Board member of

  1. The Journal of Computing Applications in Archaeology (I finish my term this month)
  2. Digital Creativity (been a reviewer for a decade I think? Review a lot for them)
  3. Games & Culture (not sure what happened there)
  4. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds (still review occasionally for them)
  5. The Journal of Interactive Humanities (not sure what happened there)
  6. Studies in the Digital Humanities (not sure what happened there)
  7. Journal of Media Critiques (not sure what happened there, they are busy enough, probably don’t need me
  8. Editorial board member of new Explorations in Heritage Studies book series, Berghahn Books. URL: http://www.berghahnbooks.com/series.php?pg=expl_heri (but never asked to review books. Time to leave officially?)
  9. Invited Scientific Committee member Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting (JVRB) (nice people, but not asked to review many articles).

WAS

  • Loading editorial member (I recommend them, nice group of people)
  • 2011-2018 Editorial board member, International Journal of People-Oriented Programming.
  • International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC) editorial board for 2009-2014.
  • Invited Scientific Committee of Virtual Heritage Network: Ireland.
  • Invited Foundation member, China-Australia Writing Centre, Curtin University.
  • Co-editor of special issue (“Games and Virtual Worlds for History and Heritage”) for Games and Culture, 2011.
  • EU COST trans-domain application reviewer (2013-2015).
  • Invited editor-in-chief of the 2010 CAADRIA special issue, International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC).
  • Special Issue editor or co-editor of Techné: Real and Virtual Places, International Journal of Heritage Studies: Sense(s) of Place, Leonardo: Creative Data.
  • Book/Book Chapter Reviewer: Oxford, Routledge, Bloomsbury, MIT Press, UNPE, and Springer.
  • Past Book Review Co-editor of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS).

Member of

  1. CIC-The Curtin Institute for Computation, Programme Leader of Visualisation, http://computation.curtin.edu.au/ and on the Steering Committee. [Will leave in September]
  2. ICOMOS-International Council on Monuments and Sites (New Zealand branch) and Was ICIP (ICOMOS International Committee on Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites) member, think they left me off the list. Time to leave ICOMOS?
  3. VSMM-On the Board of Directors, Virtual Systems and Multimedia Society (http://vsmm.org/about/leadership/).
  4. Explore-AT   International Steering Committee. ExploreAT! Exploring Austria’s culture through the language glass is a 751,000€ European research project. (1.4.2015-31.3.2019). Hmm, finished!
  5. ARC Indigenous Discovery Advisory Group member: https://news.curtin.edu.au/media-releases/new-biodiversity-research-project-aims-to-heal-land-and-people/ Healing Land, Healing People: Novel Nyungar Perspectives, a 5 year project led by Mr Darryl Kickett (2020-2025).
  6. 2020 European Architectural History Network member.
  7. Past (invited) member of Virtual Heritage Network’s Scientific committee, Ireland (http://www.vhnireland.org/).
  8. Ex-AAPI Australia Asia Pacific Institute, Curtin University (2014-2018, the year of its closure).
  9. Ex ACM member.

Past history (ongoing and one-off reviews)

2021     Invited committee member, Australian Museums & Galleries Association (AMaGA) National Conference (Perth).

2020     Reviewed for Digital Humanities 2020, CAA2020. Reviewer for Journal of Aesthetics and Culture and Computers & Graphics Journal.

2019     Invited reviewer: ISEA-International Symposium on Electronic Art (South Korea); CAA (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology) (Krakow); CAADRIA 2019 (New Zealand); ILRN -Immersive Learning Research Network (London); ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual Reality Continuum and Its Applications in Industry (VRCAI 2019); International Conference on Entertainment Computing and Joint Conference on Serious Games; The Fourth International Conference on Economic and Business Management (FEBM2019) (China), http://www.febm.org/.
Invited journal article reviewer for International Journal of Heritage Studies; invited external reviewer for New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF), Canada; reviewed Australian Research Council (ARC) applications.

2018     Invited reviewer: Digital Heritage 2018 (San Francisco), ICADL-International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries (Hamilton), ISEA-International Symposium on Electronic Art (Durban), Web3D ’18 (Poznań), eHeritage (Brasov). Invited reviewer: Journal of Cultural Heritage, Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage.

2017     Invited reviewer for Journal of Archaeological Science. Invited respondent for Current Anthropology (“3D Virtual Replicas and Simulations of the Past: ‘Real’ or ‘Fake’ Representations?” by Fabrizio Galeazzi). Reviewer for DiGRA2017 (Melbourne).
Local Programme Committee co-chair www2017 (Perth), ISEA 2017 (Columbia), CAA2017 (Atlanta) track director, CAADRIA (China), eCAADE2017 (Rome), web3D 2017 tutorials co-chair conference (Brisbane), iLRN2017 (Coimbra), local organizing committee co-Chair, www2017 (Perth), ILRN 2017, Portugal.

2016     ILRN reviewer. Board of Reviewers for CAA (Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology). CAADRIA 2016 reviewer. Programme Committee and Local Organizing Committee for JCSG 2016: Joint Conference on Serious Games 2016, Brisbane 26-27 September 2016. Reviewer: DiGRA 2016. Invited Committee member, CAADRIA 2016 Melbourne, Web3D 2016 Los Angeles, USA and TEEM 2016, Salamanca Spain (also as Scientific Committee member).

Invited book submission reviewer, University Press of New England (UNPE). JCSG 2016 (7th Serious Games Development & Applications (SGDA 2016) and 6th GameDays 2016) conference, Brisbane.

2015     Board of Reviewers for CAA. Reviewed for Slactions 2015, ILRN 2015 International Co-Chair Asia Pacific. ECGBL2015. Invited committee member, VIRTUAL ARCHAEOLOGY: Museums & Cultural Tourism (VAMCT: Delphi, Greece) and Digital Heritage 2015 (Granada, Spain), Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Australasia 2015 (EVAA 2016: Canberra, Australia), and CHINZ2015: New Zealand Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (Waikato, NZ), Virtual Heritage Network (VHN) Ireland conference.

2014     On editorial board of DiRT (Digital Research Tools) wiki: http://dirt.projectbamboo.org/about.
Invited reviewer for Journal of Cultural Heritage and Computing, ECGBL 2014, CHi2014, ICEC Entertainment Computing 2014, and CAADRIA 2014 Postgraduate Committee. On the committee of Digital Humanities Australia 2014. Invited reviewer for Architectural Design Research Symposium, 20-21 November 2014, Venice. http://www.victoria.ac.nz/fad/research/architectural-research-through-design

2013     Invited conference reviewer for ACM CHI2013: Changing Perspectives, CAADRIA 2013 (and proceedings), ACM Creativity and Cognition 2013 and Slactions 2013. Book proposal reviewer for Routledge. Invited book reviewer for Understanding Machinima (MIT Press), and Heritage and Society (journal).

2012     Invited conference reviewer for the International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR 2012). Invited by the ICOMOS ICIP chair onto the Program Committee of High-Tech Heritage: How Are Digital Technologies Changing Our Views of the Past? Conference, May 2-4, 2012 Amherst, MA USA. (http://www.umass.edu/chs/news/conference2012.html). Invited conference reviewer for Digital Humanities 2012 and IHCI 2012(declined), CAADRIA 2012. Invited conference reviewer for CHINZ 2012, VSMM2012, OZCHi2012, Creativity & Cognition 2012.

2011     Program committee member, 39th Annual Conference of Computer Applications and Quantitative Methods in Archaeology (CAA2011), Beijing, and CAAD Futures 2011, Belgium, Annual ACM SIGCHI NZ Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHINZ 2011), Waikato NZ, Creativity and Cognition 2011 (CC2011), United States, IADIS Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2011 (IHCI 2011), Rome.

Reviewer: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems CHI2011, Vancouver, Canada.

Invited book chapter reviewer for Alkhalifa, Eshaa and Gaid, Khulood, (Eds.). Cognitively Informed Interfaces, IGI Global Publishers, 2012.

Program committee member, IADIS Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction 2011.

2010     Invited onto the editorial board of International Journal of People-Oriented Programming.
Co-Programme chair of Computer Human-Interaction New Zealand (CHINZ 2010) in Auckland. Programme Chair Interactive Entertainment 2010 (ie2010), Wellington. Invited Scientific Committee member, 11th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, Paris, and European Computer Game-Based Learning (ECGBL 2010), Copenhagen and Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage 2010 (DMACH), Jordan. Committee member, Interactive Entertainment 2010 (ie2010), New Zealand. Invited paper reviewer, special issue “Graphics for Cultural Heritage”, Computers & Graphics (Elsevier).

2009     Invited to be editor of special issue of International Journal of Architectural Computing (IJAC). Invited as Committee reviewer for Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM 2009), Vienna and for European Computer Game-Based Learning (ECGBL 2009), Austria. Invited Programme Committee and Conference Reviewer, (CAADRIA 2009), Taiwan. Invited onto Scientific Committee, International Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting. Committee member, 10th VAST International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archeology and Cultural Heritage, Malta.

2008     Invited onto the Best Presentation Award Committee at CAADRIA 2008 in Chiang Mai. Invited onto the editorial board of Games & Culture: A Journal of Interactive Media (Sage Journal) and International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations. Invited technical committee member for Digital Media and its Applications in Cultural Heritage 2008 (DMACH), Jordan; for Interactive Entertainment 2008 (IE2008), Brisbane; and committee member, Australasian Computer-Human Interaction Conference 2008 (OZCHI), Townsville. Conference paper reviewer, ECGBL 2008.

2007     Invited co-editor for Leonardo Special Issue, MIT Press, and for The International Journal of Heritage Studies. Special issue editor of Techné (2007). On the editorial board of Loading…: The Journal of the Canadian Games Studies Association. Reviewer for The Journal of Virtual Reality and Broadcasting (JVRB), as well as Digital Humanities Quarterly. Invited book proposal reviewer for Routledge. Invited program committee member for OZCHI 2007 Adelaide, Creativity and Cognition 2007 Washington DC, DIMEA 2007 Perth, VSMM 2007 Sydney, Interactive Entertainment (IE2007) Melbourne. Program Committee member, ECGBL 2007: The European Conference on Games Based Learning, Scotland. Invited paper reviewer for DiGRA Situated Play conference, (Digital Games Research Association) Japan, and INTERACT 2007 Conference-Socially Responsible Interaction, Brazil.

2006     Invited panellist for Gaming and Education panel, Greater Brisbane Chapter, IGDA, International Game Developers Association, Sunday, 5 November 2006, http://www.igda.org/brisbane/education_report.html Invited program committee member /reviewer for Digital Interactive Media Entertainment & Arts (DIME 2006) Thailand, OzCHI2006 Sydney; VSMM 2006 China; Interactive Entertainment 2006, New Media and Heritage conference 2006 Hong Kong, SAHANZ 2006, Perth. Paper reviewer for Virtual Reality Journal (Springer). Invited external reviewer for Master’s Thesis examination, Creative Arts, RMIT.

2005     Invited Panellist for VSMM 2005. Journal and chapter reviewer for Enhancing Learning Through Technology (2006), Encyclopedia of Virtual Communities and Technologies (2005), Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage (2007). Invited program committee member for International Conference on Virtual Storytelling 2005 conference, France; OzChi2005 conference, Canberra, Interaction Entertainment 2005 Conference, UTS, Sydney. Programme Committee member VSMM2005, Belgium.

Conferences, Journals: h-index, Impact

Academic, Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, Journal, Proceedings, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , , , , ,

Cultural heritage journals, especially digital heritage journals (and a few related conferences) don’t fare well at SJR-Journal Search. Compare their H-index and Quartiles to games journals and conferences. In the more VR side of things, Presence still does quite well but Virtual Reality journal is not doing as well as I expected.*

*CAVEAT: In many cases the latest figures seem to be from 2017 or 2018.

new article: A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage

augmented reality, Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, visualisation, , ,

A Comparison of Immersive Realities and Interaction Methods: Cultural Learning in Virtual Heritage

by Mafkereseb Kassahun Bekele and Ear Zow Digital

Open access article in Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 24 September 2019 | https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2019.00091

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Virtuality (AV), and Mixed Reality (MxR) have become popular immersive reality technologies for cultural knowledge dissemination in Virtual Heritage (VH). These technologies have been utilized for enriching museums with a personalized visiting experience and digital content tailored to the historical and cultural context of the museums and heritage sites. Various interaction methods, such as sensor-based, device-based, tangible, collaborative, multimodal, and hybrid interaction methods, have also been employed by these immersive reality technologies to enable interaction with the virtual environments. However, the utilization of these technologies and interaction methods isn’t often supported by a guideline that can assist Cultural Heritage Professionals (CHP) to predetermine their relevance to attain the intended objectives of the VH applications. In this regard, our paper attempts to compare the existing immersive reality technologies and interaction methods against their potential to enhance cultural learning in VH applications. To objectify the comparison, three factors have been borrowed from existing scholarly arguments in the Cultural Heritage (CH) domain. These factors are the technology’s or the interaction method’s potential and/or demonstrated capability to: (1) establish a contextual relationship between users, virtual content, and cultural context, (2) allow collaboration between users, and (3) enable engagement with the cultural context in the virtual environments and the virtual environment itself. Following the comparison, we have also proposed a specific integration of collaborative and multimodal interaction methods into a Mixed Reality (MxR) scenario that can be applied to VH applications that aim at enhancing cultural learning in situ.

To 3D or Not 3D: Choosing a Photogrammetry Workflow for Cultural Heritage Groups

Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, publication, ,

To 3D or Not 3D: Choosing a Photogrammetry Workflow for Cultural Heritage Groups, Heritage journal article by Dr Hafizur Rahaman and myself is out:

Rahaman, H., & Champion, E. (2019). To 3D or Not 3D: Choosing a Photogrammetry Workflow for Cultural Heritage Groups. Heritage, 2(3), 1835-1851. Retrieved from https://www.mdpi.com/2571-9408/2/3/112

The 3D reconstruction of real-world heritage objects using either a laser scanner or 3D modelling software is typically expensive and requires a high level of expertise. Image-based 3D modelling software, on the other hand, offers a cheaper alternative, which can handle this task with relative ease. There also exists free and open source (FOSS) software, with the potential to deliver quality data for heritage documentation purposes. However, contemporary academic discourse seldom presents survey-based feature lists or a critical inspection of potential production pipelines, nor typically provides direction and guidance for non-experts who are interested in learning, developing and sharing 3D content on a restricted budget. To address the above issues, a set of FOSS were studied based on their offered features, workflow, 3D processing time and accuracy. Two datasets have been used to compare and evaluate the FOSS applications based on the point clouds they produced. The average deviation to ground truth data produced by a commercial software application (Metashape, formerly called PhotoScan) was used and measured with CloudCompare software. 3D reconstructions generated from FOSS produce promising results, with significant accuracy, and are easy to use. We believe this investigation will help non-expert users to understand the photogrammetry and select the most suitable software for producing image-based 3D models at low cost for visualisation and presentation purposes.

New Journal Article Out

design, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, heritage, Journal, virtual heritage, , , , ,

Another journal article is out:

Dawson, Beata, Pauline Joseph, and Erik Champion. 2019. “The Story of the Markham Car Collection: A Cross-Platform Panoramic Tour of Contested Heritage.” Collections 15 (1): 62-86. OR https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1550190619832381

In this article, we share our experiences of using digital technologies and various media to present historical narratives of a museum object collection aiming to provide an engaging experience on multiple platforms. Based on P. Joseph’s article, Dawson presented multiple interpretations and historical views of the Markham car collection across various platforms using multimedia resources. Through her creative production, she explored how to use cylindrical panoramas and rich media to offer new ways of telling the controversial story of the contested heritage of a museum’s veteran and vintage car collection. The production’s usability was investigated involving five experts before it was published online and the general users’ experience was investigated. In this article, we present an important component of findings which indicates that virtual panorama tours featuring multimedia elements could be successful in attracting new audiences and that using this type of storytelling technique can be effective in the museum sector. The storyteller panorama tour presented here may stimulate GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) professionals to think of new approaches, implement new strategies or services to engage their audiences more effectively. The research may ameliorate the education of future professionals as well.

3D Digital Heritage Models as Sustainable Scholarly Resources

Conference, digital heritage, Digital Humanities, Journal, Open Access, publication, respositories, virtual heritage, visualisation, , , ,

Dr Hafizur Rahaman and I just had an open access article published (online)  “3D Digital Heritage Models as Sustainable Scholarly Resources” in MDPI Sustainability in a Special Issue.

Abstract

If virtual heritage is the application of virtual reality to cultural heritage, then one might assume that virtual heritage (and 3D digital heritage in general) successfully communicates the need to preserve the cultural significance of physical artefacts and intangible heritage. However, digital heritage models are seldom seen outside of conference presentations, one-off museum exhibitions, or digital reconstructions used in films and television programs. To understand why, we surveyed 1483 digital heritage papers published in 14 recent proceedings. Only 264 explicitly mentioned 3D models and related assets; 19 contained links, but none of these links worked. This is clearly not sustainable, neither for scholarly activity nor as a way to engage the public in heritage preservation. To encourage more sustainable research practices, 3D models must be actively promoted as scholarly resources. In this paper, we also recommend ways researchers could better sustain these 3D models and assets both as digital cultural artefacts and as tools to help the public explore the vital but often overlooked relationship between built heritage and the natural world.

CFP: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing

augmented reality, cfp, Conference, digital heritage, heritage, Journal, publication, virtual heritage, Virtual Reality, , , , ,

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (Springer Science)

Special Issue on Virtual and Mixed Reality in Culture and Heritage:

Details:

This special issue solicits research related to Virtual and Mixed Reality in Culture and
Heritage. Authors are encouraged to submit articles presenting original and
innovative studies that address new challenges and implications and explore the
potential of immersive technologies in museums, galleries, heritage sites and
art/cultural institutions.

Guest Editors:
Damianos Gavalas, University of the Aegean, Greece dgavalas@aegean.gr
Stella Sylaiou, Hellenic Open University, Greece, sylaiou@gmail.com
Vlasios Kasapakis, University of the Aegean, Greece, v.kasapakis@aegean.gr
Elena Dzardanova, University of the Aegean, Greece, lena@aegean.gr

Important Dates:
Submission: July 31, 2019
1st round notification: Sept 30, 2019
Revision deadline: Nov 15, 2019
Final notification: Dec 31, 2019
Expected publication: 4nd Q 2020