MCN 2012 Horizon Report Preview

Editor's Notes

1. Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/4272427598/
2. NMC and Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation partnership Began in 2005 with goals of providing:Systemic Support to Art MuseumsProfessional DevelopmentLearning within an entire region
3. In 2010, MIDEA (Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts) was formed to be a digital hub where:People IdeasTools and Resources come together
4. The Edward and Betty Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the arts provides TIMELY, SUCCINCT AND PRACTICAL knowledge about emerging technologies that museums can use to advance their missions.
5. LIKE TO TAKE A MOMENT TO ACKNOWLEDGE the ADVISORY BOARD FOR THIS YEAR’S REPORT as well as my fellow P.I.’s : Larry Johnson, Chief Executive Officer, The New Media Consortium and Koven Smith, Director of Technology at the Denver Art Museum. ,
6. http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki
7. We (all of us) are prolific creators of content-- photographs, audio, and video are uploaded to the cloud by the billions.  Producing, commenting, and classifying these media have become just as important as the more passive tasks of searching, reading, watching, and listening.
8. ArtClix, created by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, brings together photo-recognition and social media to provide visitors with an interactive experience. Artworks are automatically recognized and the comments and photos taken by visitors are shared as part of an online community: go.nmc.org/azman.  The Danish National Gallery along with nine other museums in Denmark is adopting Twitter as the platform to actively engage patrons while they view artwork: go.nmc.org/reayx. 
9. Information is everywhere; the challenge is to make effective use of it. Open content embraces not only the sharing of information, but the sharing of pedagogies and experiences as well.  The movement toward open content reflects a growing shift in the way academics in many parts of the world are conceptualizing education to a view that is more about the process of learning than the information conveyed in their courses.  Part of the appeal of open content is that it presents a cost-effective alternative to textbooks and other materials. In this sense, the open content movement has fostered the exploration of alternative licensing.  As new forms of publication and scholarship begin to take hold, educators are examining standard forms of licensing and rights management and finding them lacking. Traditional copyright and intellectual property laws focus on restricting use of materials, authors are beginning to explore new models that center on enabling use while still protecting the academic value of a publication.
10. The aim of the GLAM WikiProject is to involve museum professionals and archivists in the contribution and revision of articles on this open-content platform: go.nmc.org/fpomh.Google Art Project allows users to virtually explore museum content from partner museums. Images of the artwork are accompanied by supplementary information. Users compile their favorite pieces from different places into their own virtual museum: go.nmc.org/affom.
11. The Internet of Things is a sort of shorthand for network-aware smart objects that connect the physical world with the world of information.  A smart object has four key attributes:  it is small, and thus easy to attach to almost anything;it has a unique identifier; it has a small store of data or information; and it has a way to communicate that information to an external device on demand.  The Internet of Things extends that concept by using TCP/IP as the means to convey the information, thus making objects addressable (and findable) on the Internet.  Objects that carry information with them have long been used for the monitoring of sensitive equipment or materials, point-of-sale purchases, passport tracking, inventory management, identification, and similar applications. Smart objects are the next generation of those technologies — they “know” about a certain kind of information, such as cost, age, temperature, color, pressure, or humidity — and can pass that information along easily and instantly upon electronic request.  They are ideal for digital management of physical objects, monitoring their status, tracking them throughout their lifespan, alerting someone when they are in danger of being damaged or spoiled — or even annotating them with descriptions, instructions, warranties, tutorials, photographs, connections to other objects, and any other kind of contextual information imaginable.  The Internet of Things would make access to these data as easy as it is to use the web.
12. Cosm is a platform that connects devices and apps so they can store and exchange data. Developers are using it to create their own smart products: go.nmc.org/kzhep. In the Interactive Storytelling exhibit at The Brighton Fishing Museum, patrons participate by searching for 'time keys' that are linked to historical data in order to complete the narrative: go.nmc.org/ufyrk.
13. Photo credit http://flickr.com/photos/mybigtrip/74665861/