Artcasting and ARTIST ROOMS on Tour: Using mobilities-informed methods to support new approaches to arts evaluation

It is hard to measure the most important things that educators and stakeholders want to know about the effectiveness of art-based learning and engagement. Engagement, inspiration and active learning are high priorities for museums and galleries, but methods for evaluating them often lack a sense of the richness of participants' experience. New approaches for evaluation of engagement are needed. In particular, more can be done to leverage the profound rethinking of place and space that has come along with digital incursions into our day-to-day lives. The problem to be addressed in this research is that the significance of 'place' - imagined and real - is not being built upon to inform the evaluation of engagement with cultural heritage. A theoretical perspective drawing on mobilities theory, which focuses on tracing trajectories, networks, and the movement of people and objects, will be used to reimagine arts evaluation.

This project will develop, test and assess 'artcasting', a new digital and mobile form of evaluation of arts-based engagement, in the context of ARTIST ROOMS On Tour (AROT). ARTIST ROOMS is a collection of more than 725 works of international contemporary art acquired in 2008 by National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. It is being shared throughout the UK in a programme of exhibitions organised in collaboration with local galleries of all sizes. AROT aims to ensure the collection engages new, young audiences, and this will be mirrored in this project by a focus on young people (ages 13-25).

Artcasting involves the visitor in selecting an image of an artwork from a ROOM, and digitally 'casting' it outward to another location, where it can be received on mobile devices in the future (see visual evidence). The artwork will be linked with a significant place in the mind of the visitor, evoking memories and emotions, and supporting lasting learning. In addition, through brief stories visitors record about their choice of location, artcasting shows how the impact of an exhibition may be extended imaginatively and literally through space and time. Artcasting simultaneously encourages visitors to make connections and reflect on what they have experienced, and captures those connections for sharing, analysis and evaluation. In this way, it challenges dominant approaches that separate engagement from evaluation.

The objectives of the project are to understand how mobilities approaches can enrich arts evaluation; to design, develop and pilot the artcasting platform; to generate a new approach to evaluation that can be built upon in the future; and to influence ARTIST ROOMS evaluation practice.

These objectives will be met through a three-stage research process involving qualitative methods and a design-based approach to generating, piloting and evaluating artcasting prototypes. Methods will include interviews, workshops with young visitors, iterative design of the artcasting application, in-gallery observations, and analysis of usage data and user-generated content shared by artcasting users.

This project is interdisciplinary, involving researchers from Digital Education and Design Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, and drawing in expertise from the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, associate galleries and young people. It will contribute to scholarly and practical understanding of cultural heritage evaluation of learning and engagement.

The following groups and organisations will benefit from this research within the project funding period (2015-16):

- The network of sixty-six associate galleries across the UK which have hosted ARTIST ROOMS exhibitions, and galleries which subsequently join the network.

- The National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, joint hosts of ARTIST ROOMS.

- Cultural heritage educators, such as those represented by the 'engage' network.

These groups will be invited to attend workshops, participate in regular Twitter chats, and engage with the project team via the web site and blog. The project's steering group includes representatives from each group, and will ensure that emerging opportunities to engage with the wider groups are taken up. The key anticipated impact of this project is an influence on evaluation practice amongst these groups, leading to a greater enthusiasm for the possibilities of evaluation, and a new mobilities-based framework with which to explore those possibilities, and ultimately to more digital innovations like artcasting.

Researchers in the fields of arts evaluation, museum and gallery learning, and digital education (see academic beneficiaries) will be able to engage with and benefit from the project from the outset, with the publicly available and continually updated web site, and regular events such as the Twitter chats open to all interested participants. The project's dissemination strategy aims to ensure that these three fields are targeted via conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications.

Software developers and programmers will engage with the project through the open hack event, and this will extend the reach of the project's activities and findings to the technology sector. The artcasting application will be preserved and shared, benefiting other developers and researchers interested in this type of intervention.

In the longer term, the project will be of use to funding bodies, policymakers and cultural heritage organisational leadership involved in making decisions about evaluation practice in museums and galleries, by providing robust, well-theorised evidence of the impact of innovation on evaluation in the context of a major national exhibition.

Finally, evaluation approaches which build on this research will positively impact upon the experience of museum and gallery users, as galleries learn more about what engages and inspires audiences. Ultimately, the project aims to enrich cultural heritage engagement and learning for members of the public.