Internet Lectures Research: Other multimedia projects

An interesting project that will create an online template for presenting Web lectures is the Pachyderm 2.0 Project. It is a partnership led by the New Media Consortium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The project is funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. According to the New Media Consortium's "About the Project" page "The new tool will be based on Pachyderm, the authoring and publishing tool developed by SFMOMA to author its successful series, Making Sense of Modern Art." SFMOMA also used Pachyderm 1.0 to create Web presentations featuring the works of Romare Bearden and Frank Stella. These online presentations feature Macromedia Flash plus QuickTime movies to produce interactive features.

Creation of high quality Macromedia Flash presentations, specific to the needs of museums, will be made more affordable and easy to author by non-technical persons as a result of the project. Pachyderm 2.0 should eventually allow museum staff with limited budgets to use Pachyderm to create multimedia features for interactive learning on the Web. Museum staff will choose from several pre-designed Flash templates to create sophisticated Web presentations, such as those created by SFMOMA.

In an undated template overview handout named Pachyderm Display Templates, templates at that point under consideration included these screens:

Context, a visual table of contents such as in the Ansel Adams page of SFMOMA's site -- which includes a seven-slide narrated slide show.
Artwork, with artwork at its center, which allows a user to zoom in and pan on artwork images, plus link to subjects of further study.
Zoom, which provides for zoom and pan plus audio commentaries and credit lines.
Variety of Media, giving the look of a "coffee table book."
Onion Skin, with multiple "layers" on a topic.
Book Viewer, a document viewer for paper-based media such as books and manuscripts.
Collaboration Web, showing relationships between artworks and artists
Formal Analysis, a way of revealing close up details with related commentary.
Slider Gallery, for a chronology or typology.
Timeline, provides a way to enlarge artworks along a timeline with comparison functions.
Comparison, which displays artworks by selected keywords and provides analysis.

In August, 2004 the Pachyderm team prepared a timing sequence for making templates. In order of priority:

Context
Artwork
Variety of Media
Enlargement (a name not included in the above list)
Zoom
Slider
Collaboration
Video Focus (a name not included in the above list)
Book Viewer
Formal Analysis
Onion Skin
Comparison

Timeline was not included in the sequence list. Within the Artist in Context table of contents screen could be links to Web lectures. TFAO has not located to date within the descriptions of Pachyderm any plans to specifically develop Flash or QuickTime programming to author and present narrated slide shows. Testing of Pachyderm among the participating institutions is scheduled for 2005. The Pachyderm 2.0 Project is comprised of team members from six Canadian and United States universities and five art museums located in the United States. Museum team members include education directors and curators.

Nebraska Digital Alliance for the Arts

The Nebraska Digital Alliance for the Arts web site explains NDAA as "...a vision for the application of digital technologies as a tool for Nebraska arts organizations, artists, performers, musicians, theatres, symphonies, museums, educators, and universities." NDAA is a project of the Nebraska Arts Council, Nebraska Educational Telecommunications and the National Endowment for the Arts. A QuickTIme video explains the inter-agency opportunities for NDAA.

Art museum members on the NDAA Executive Design Group included

Leslie Byers, Director of Information Technology, and Sherrie Gauley, Head of Education, for the Joslyn Art Museum;
Magdalena Garcia, Executive Director of El Museo Latino;
Karen Janovy, Director of Education; and Stuart Wheat of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden.

TFAO's research on Web lectures is in many ways aligned with some of the goals of the NDAA study including:

design of video streaming
distance learning opportunities for students and lifetime learners
electronic archiving and library
interactive multimedia production
instructional modules, e.g. placing art history courses online
on-demand retrieval
programs for arts outreach
provision for state and world wide exposure
research materials development
staff and volunteer interaction and training

The above links, names and addresses are provided only as referrals for your further study and consideration. Please use due diligence in employing referenced consultants or vendors. Traditional Fine Art Organization, Inc. takes no responsibility for the accuracy of the information from the named organizations or firms which may be inaccurate or out of date. Traditional Fine Art Organization, Inc neither recommends or endorses the above referenced organizations.