Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories

Full text

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Insights into the Cultural Heritage Landscape
a Reader
stemming from an ERASMUS Intensive Programme Project
“European Cultural Management Policies and
Practices for the Creative Use of Cultural Heritage”
(2013, Pécs, Hungary)
Editor: Teréz Kleisz PhD
Lector: Dezső Kovács PhD
ISBN 9785-963-642-534-0
Technical editor: László Bodó
Published by: University of Pécs, Faculty of Adult Education and Human Resource Development (FEEK)
Pécs, 2014.

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Contents
Teréz Kleisz
The Growth in the Cultural Heritage Field ................................................................................................. 5
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO INTERACTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FOR CULTURE ........................................................................... 11
Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories ....................... 12
Nikoleta Yiannoutsou, Nikolaos Avouris and Christos Sintoris
Designing Mobile Games for Learning in Sites of Cultural Heritage ......................................................... 32
Balázs Vendler
Gamification – Beyond the Buzzword ...................................................................................................... 34
CHAPTER 2. CITY MAPPING AND PERCEPTION OF THE CITY ................................................................................................. 40
Panayotis Pangalos – Vassiliki Petridou
INFOCITY: New Cities Reading & Promotion System ................................................................................ 41
Álvaro Campelo
Metropolises. New spaces of Urban Heritage .......................................................................................... 46
Vassiliki Petridou – Eleni Antonelli – Anastasia Rousopoulou – Athina Spiliotopoulou
Patras Re-Identification Proposals: Three Demonstrating Proposals for Re-Branding the City ................. 61
Enikő Demény –Diána Jandala – Victor Kiraly – Hugo Morango –
Marco Novo – Ana Reina – Emilia Robescu – Anastasia Rousopoulou
Heritage and Community Involment in Uránváros (Housing district of Pécs, Hungary) ............................ 72
CHAPTER 3 NEW APPROACHES IN HERITAGE EDUCATION AND MUSEUM EDUCATION ............................................................... 81
Álvaro Campelo
Creative Industry, Museums: The Mediation of Cultural Heritage ........................................................... 82
Zsuzsa Koltai
Heritage Education- Museum Education .................................................................................................. 87
Vilja Arató – Bálint Takács
The Use of Interactive Media in Children’s Museums .............................................................................. 92
CHAPTER 4. ROLES IN MAPPING, DEFINING AND BUILDING RECOGNITION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ........................................... 97
Tünde Minorics
The Inscription Process of the First Item in the Hungarian Representative List of Intangible Heritage .... 98
Dezső Kovács
Development Stages and Conflicts of the First Living World Heritage Village Hollókő, Hungary ............ 105
Dezső Kovács
Heritage Site Management Plan ............................................................................................................ 109
UNESCO World Heritage Center 122
State of Conservation of World Heritage Properties in Europe .............................................................. 122
CHAPTER 5. POLITICS OF CULTURAL HERITAGE ............................................................................................................... 126
Álvaro Campelo
Cultural Policy and Politics of Culture: Communities and Society .......................................................... 127
Mária Husz
Main Aspects of Cultural Heritage Policy ............................................................................................... 134
Inez Zsófia Koller
How Do Politics Shape Culture? ............................................................................................................. 141

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CHAPTER 6. THE IMPACT OF MAJOR EVENTS .................................................................................................................. 148
Ágnes Simon
Pécs 2010 European Capital of Culture – Success or Failure? ................................................................ 149
Balázs Németh
Learning Regions, Regional Development and New Roles for Higher Education through the European
Lifelong Learning Initiative ..................................................................................................................... 156
CHAPTER 7: USEFUL SOURCES OF INFORMATION ............................................................................................................ 172
Anna Magdolna Sipos
Webguide for Reaching the Institutions and Collections of Cultural Heritage ........................................ 173
CULTURAL HERITAGE RESEARCH POLICY IN THE EUROPEAN UNION .......................................................................... 181
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS ........................................................................................................................................ 184

The Growth in the Cultural Heritage Field
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TERÉZ KLEISZ
The Growth in the Cultural Heritage Field
Introductory Notes
In recent years an expansion of heritage sites has been seen and an increase in the manifestation of heritage
consciousness in the world could be perceived. Heritage–making processes by different actors, namely nations
and increasingly local or regional communities, various minority groups and indigenous communities - they
markedly contribute to displaying their own cultural distinctiveness and (re)constructing identities through
ongoing engagements. Natural wonders, tangible artefacts (monuments, buildings, cities, bridges, landscapes,
seascapes, digital texts and images and intangible cultural phenomena (expressive art forms and rituals, oral
performative acts, distinctive practices, knowledge and skills of people, living folklore, etc.) all may qualify as
belonging to the domain of heritage. That’s why multidisciplinary angles are required to explore heritage issues.
Potentially anything in the human world can be defined as heritage and worthy of protection and re-use if it
is interpreted as such. (Re)evaluation is based on the notion of relevance in the present-day.
In our world of pluralist modes of thinking and multiple perspectives, the principle of cultural freedom for
interpretation and questioning established heritage forms of all kinds is both strengthened or, according to the
given social relations of power, often challenged. The process of interpreting can be considered as part of our
social learning, all of us are brought up surrounded by „heritages” defined by the contexts we live in and stories
that are told and countlessly retold shaping our collective sense-making. The present era of cultural diversity
makes us much more conscious of the plurality (and rivalry) of interpretations.
Over the last decades an enourmous growth in heritage discourse has appeared characterized by a growing
diversity and richness. This discourse has been prompted by the ’identity-talk’ or ’identity politics ’ in social and
cultural sciences, adding to the so called ’cultural turn’ or interpretative shifts in the academic field that
promoted a new wave of memory studies and narratologies.
Not only the cultural and moral aspects are important here but the economic dimension as well. The term
’heritage industry” has spread lately alongside the actual business and investment practices and financial benefits
accrued in and by the field of international heritage and cultural tourism. Worldwide there is a growing interest
in travelling and seeking out interesting and authentic human experiences, exploring new life-worlds beyond the
visitors’ own, so cultural and heritage tourism seems to be on the rise. Advocating and applying sustainable
tourism principles can be not only a source of economic benefit but may act as a tool for empowering local citizen
groups.
Cultural practitioners, especially museum experts are key players in displaying different forms of heritage and
at present they show renewed impetus to evoke alternative versions of previously dominant interpretations. It
is not easy to make sense of this rapid and dynamic development but it is obvious that heritage attraction
development and innovative modes of presentation became embraced by different cultural intermediary
professions and the field is perceived as a resource of multiple value. Involving the public, engaging civil society,
community development and creating partnerships are all part of the cultural practitioners’ portfolio in all
aspects of people-centred heritage management that favours participatory approaches all across the board.
Heritage is seen not only as a memory base of communities that needs to be preserved but as a resource that
can trigger innovation and can act as a force for revitalization in rural or urban development as well.
UNESCO has become a strong advocate for promoting the idea of preserving and displaying unique human
treasures of universal value, the great icons of civilisations as items of world heritage. (World Heritage
Convention 1972). Governments that sign the Convention realize that it brings responsibilities and duties to

Teréz Kleisz
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conserve not only the World Heritage sites situated on their territory, but also to protect their national heritages.
Each country that ratified the Convention first has the task to consider suitable items and create their Tentative
Lists of World Heritage. After having sent it to the Paris-headquarters and after completion of the extensive
preparation work embodied in the nomination documentation (following UNESCO’s Operational Guidelines), the
submission process is forwarded to national and international bodies for approving the inclusion of the proposed
heritage site. The decision ultimately rests with the World Heritage Committee, which is made up of
representatives from 21 countries elected for 4 years. They meet once a year to decide which sites from the
Tentative List to inscribe onto the World Heritage List, which sites to put on the List of World Heritage in Danger.
Their role also includes handling the periodic reporting materials and the state of conservation reports and
requesting to take action if sites are not being properly managed. There are three advisory bodies named in the
World Heritage Convention, which advise the World Heritage Committee. These are ICOMOS (International
Council on Monuments and Sites), IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) and ICCROM
(International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property). ICOMOS advises on
cultural sites, IUCN on natural sites and ICCROM on education and training. The implementation of the World
Heritage Convention is run by the World Heritage Centre that was established in 1992. The General Assembly
determines the uniform percentage of financial contributions to the World Heritage Fund applicable to all States
Parties, and elects the members to the World Heritage Committee.
In June 2014 more than 1000 (1007)
1
items in 161 countries are inscribed on the ever-growing World Heritage
List. The first World Heritage site to be deleted from the World Heritage List took place in 2007. This year the
number of signatories totals 191. Since 2003, the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage contributes to the growth of heritage studies and policies.
In Heritage Studies Laurajane Smith is one of the authors who writes repeatedly on Authorized Heritage
Discourse (AHD) and authorizing institutions of heritage and pointing to UNESCO Charters and procedures that
weaken the subaltern and dissenting tones.
2
The 40 year anniversary of the Convention in 2012 brought analyses of the challenges that the World Heritage
Convention faces today. In the year of the 40th anniversary Director-General Irina Bokova voiced her concern on
the occasion of the opening of the 36th session of the World Heritage Committee in St. Petersburg.
„In recent years, some developments within the inscription process have weakened the principles of scientific
excellence and impartiality that are at the heart of the Convention. It is my responsibility to ring the bell. The
credibility of the inscription process must be absolute at all stages of the proceedings -- from the work of the
advisory bodies to the final decision by the States Parties, who hold the primary responsibility in this regard.
Today, criticism is growing, and I am deeply concerned.”
3
One of the articles commemmorating anniversary stated: „…requests for international assistance and field
missions mount, commitments to sustainable development and enhanced capacity building increase, and conflict
over heritage sites like Timbuktu or Preah Vihear intensifies. In addition, the recent controversy over the
recognition of Palestine as a signatory to the Convention prompted the United States to withdraw from UNESCO,
and the resultant loss in revenue has pushed the organization toward fiscal crisis. These external challenges in
the global political arena are also matched by escalating internal tensions from within among the three pillars of
the organization: the World Heritage Centre, the Advisory Bodies, and the World Heritage Committee”
4
1
Twenty six new properties added to World Heritage List at Doha meeting. http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-
services/single-
view/news/twenty_six_new_properties_added_to_world_heritage_list_at_doha_meeting/back/9597/#.U7Ptifl_uVM
(2014.06.25).
2
Smith, Laurajane (2006). Uses of Heritage. London: Routledge
3
Address by Ms Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, on the occasion of the opening of the 36th
session of the World Heritage Committee Let us rejuvenate the World Heritage Convention,24 June 2012, St Petersburg,
Russian Federation. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002167/216700e.pdf
4
Meskell, Lynn (2013): UNESCO’s World Heritage Convention at 40
Challenging the Economic and Political Order of International Heritage ConservationCurrent Anthropology Vol.54. No.4.
p.484. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/671136

The Growth in the Cultural Heritage Field
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Criticism was strong against the advisory bodies, especially ICOMOS and their demanding and rigid delimiting
criteria. („ the pyramids would never have been built if ICOMOS and the World Heritage Committee had been
there.” – a statement formulated by an ambassador).
5
The geographical imbalance in the World Heritage Map caused by Eurocentrism is also a long-held argument.
Other imbalances between culture and nature or between categories (overrepresentation of historic monuments
and churches) are voiced as well. For the sake of prestige inscriptions some states parties are ready to exercise
pressure and are inclined to form coalitions capable of vigorous lobbying to fulfil their national political agendas.
„Too great an emphasis is placed on inscription as an end in itself; in addition, one observes a reduced
technical basis for decision making; increasing Committee, Advisory Body, and Secretariat workloads; budgetary
pressure from near universal membership and global economic slowdown; and burgeoning political, economic,
environmental, and social pressures on heritage sites worldwide.”
6
UNESCO came out with a strategy “Global Strategy for a Credible, Representative, and Balanced World
Heritage List” in 2011 after an audit revealed that the Committee’s decisions had increasingly diverged from the
scientific opinions of the Advisory Bodies, factors such as a big anniversary of the site, relevant lobbying, or
political pressure came into play. On the 30th anniversary of the Convention in 2002, UNESCO developed the
strategy of the Five Cs: Credibility, Conservation, Capacity Building, Communication, and Communities. So, the
issues do come back and constantly need adressing properly.
The World Heritage system with its faults and criticism is still seen as a reference point and a forum for
knowledge transfer that hopefully will keep on motivating efforts to safeguard and promote heritages.
This idea for an e-book –stemmed from an ERASMUS Intensive Programme Project European Cultural
Management Policies and Practices for the Creative Use of Cultural Heritage (2013, Pécs, Hungary) that brought
together specialists from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and geographical regions, to provide theoretical
reflection and empirical approaches on cultural heritage management for university students interested in the
theme. We hoped the programme would broaden the participants' knowledge and understanding of the issues
surrounding heritage and cultural policy. The ERASMUS IP program aimed to address significant 3
multidisciplinary themes:
1.Developing & designing experiences for cultural/ creative tourism
2. Roles in mapping, defining & building recognition of cultural heritage
3. Evaluation of social benefits of cultural heritage projects
The international student body were are studying Cultural Studies, Andragogy, Heritage Tourism,
Management and Business, Drama and Festivals, Architectural Engineering and Electrical Engineering shared
their interests for exploring how cultural heritage can be kept alive and transformed in response to the needs of
the communities. Everyone hailed from universities in cities which once acted as a European Capital of Culture-
project, playing as motors of cultural heritage marketing and cultural tourism development. The University
Network of the European Capitals of Culture (UNEECC) network was supporting the IP project from the start. The
study program succeeded in bringing together 31 students and 12 members of teaching staff (4 Greek, one
Portuguese, one Romanian and 6 Hungarian) representing a wide range of disciplinary fields. None of the
students and teachers were specializing in Cultural Heritage Studies per se, but they had a wish to gain insights
into how heritage, culture and tourism contribute to the multidimensional nature of human development and
to be engaged in dialogue with cultural experts and key lay persons. The Intensive Programme presented a strong
multidisciplinary approach, fostering the interactions of students from differing academic disciplines to a great
extent.
In compiling this reader the intention is to provide a valuable resource for teaching purposes.
Essays, theoretical frameworks, case studies drawn from diverse contexts, opinion papers, resource materials
(documents) and teaching materials are covered in this book defining and reviewing the key concepts and
5
Ibid p.488.
6
Ibid p. 486.

Teréz Kleisz
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practical core areas of cultural heritage management in a thoroughly accessible way available to both students
and researchers alike.
It is reasonable to say that each section will provide something of interest and value for discerning readers.
There are commonalities between chapters and some overlap, which ensures that the reader does not miss out
on key issues and ideas.
The book is divided into 7 chapters.
Chapter I (Introduction to Interactive Technologies for Culture) focuses on the principles and conceptual
models guiding the processes of designing interactive artifacts for different user groups in order to shape the
visitor experience in cultural heritage sites. The authors (Nikolaos Avouris, Nikoleta Yiannoutsou and Christos
Sintoris) emphasize the significance of user involvement throughout the whole process and the multidisciplinary
perspectives and skills the creative team needs to deliver. As a result visitors are able to interact with exhibits
instead of just observing them from a distance, thus the technological tools employed can contribute to an
enhanced and more meaningful participation and to active learning by the users.
In recent years game-based learning has been introduced by cultural professionals in heritage sites and
museums in order to attract new audiences and engage visitors by generating complex memorable learning
experiences, involving all sorts of contextual knowledge and emotions. Creating quizzes, narrative or role-played
games in competitive or /and collaborative fashions for exploring museums and cities seem to increase and
facilitate the visitors’ engagement even more. Several types of game description are presented to the reader
with questions and tasks to move the insights beyond the reading. The authors point to the fact that the
proliferation of mobile technologies and social media has greatly also supported the creation of user generated
content, such as expressing preferences, offering opinions, expectations, tagging, discussing, commenting and
recording subjective experiences and interpretations, especially in the case of the hyper-connected generation
Y. It assists in getting to know the target groups more deeply and offers the chance of building up more informed
and engaged communities around the cultural institutions.
A new term „Gamification” is offered to the interested public to note the implementation of games in diverse
environments from education to marketing, and even at work places. „It can drive engagement, creativity,
production, performance and behavior change among players who can be customers, students, fans or
employees”, states the author Balázs Wendler who himself is a CEO of a game developing firm and in his paper
he shares some projects of his company as examples of gamification.
Chapter 2 (City Mapping and the new Perception of the City) provides an insight into those endeavours that
aim to address the issue of creating a renewed and competitive image of a city, using new ways of reading and
presentation with an emphasis on linking local data with those of other international areas. The authors, Petridou
and Pangalos propose a new methodological enhancement tool of mapping the multicultural identity of cities
through creating a City Identity Workshop along major reading axes such as architecture, art, religion, collective
memory, museums, archives, public places, cultural events and the economic and productive functions of
civilization. The city of Patras is set as the scope for this proposal. Cities are seen as strategic sites in the network
society, a sort of laboratory of emerging new and dynamic trends of the global era manifesting the „glocal”, yet
still claiming distinctiveness. The chosen brandname itself expresses how the given city wants to be perceived by
its residents and by the outside world. Reputational capital, the representation of a city, has always been
important in history, but nowadays the growing sense of place-competitiveness makes city leaderships use
branding as a vision-led complex policy development strategy to drive city renewal and growth as a form of re-
inventing the city in global times of transition.
The anthropologist Alvaro Campelo touches on the new scene of metropolisation, i.e. the transition from
single monocentric cities to polycentric metropolitan areas that redefines the spatial and architectural
relationship together with forms of lifestyles. He highlights that we are experiencing in our western global
societies a profound mutation of both urban and rural realities: new urbanities, new ruralities. The supposed
triumph of the urban also benefits the rural; at the same time, it is impossible to contemplate a re-emergence of
rurality without analyzing how it is constituted in an interactive dialogue with urbanism. The concept of frontiers
needs rethinking as well as the demand for theories for new rural and urban policies. Currently, cities promote

The Growth in the Cultural Heritage Field
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community development, social cohesion and civic and cultural identity. Under the umbrella of striving for
increased competitive advantages the politics of heritage valorization (including the UNESCO World Heritage
classification) and the physical restructuring of the centers, coupled with the role of creative industrialists, has
become the focus of attention for decision makers. He analyses case studies from Porto Metropolitan Region.
Another case study was selected for this volume which deals with the students’ proposal of engaging with a
local disintegrated community on a modern housing estate, part of Pécs that was built in the 1950s (Uranic Town
- Uránváros), offering the challenge to build local identity and stimulate identifying the cultural heritage of recent
times and contexts. They suggested collecting a body of life episodes and stories told by the inhabitants of
Uránváros, which later on will be the subject matter used by theatre professionals and the community, creating
a story-telling event and community theatre. Searching and working with communities, mapping cultural
heritage requires an integrated approach and the use of participatory methodologies.
Chapter 3 (New approaches in Heritage Education and Museum Education) addresses mediation issues and
policy initiatives.
As the economic and social benefits of creative industrial development become increasingly visible, local
planning authorities are responsive for developing “creative place” ideas and policy drivers. The article on
Creative industries by Alvaro Csampelo highlights that the splitting of cities into “creative” inner cities and
“uncreative” suburbs is not valid, creative industries can be equally active in the outer suburbs as well. It is high
time not to classify them as dull sites of domestic consumption. He proposes new ways of effectively
communicating innovative social practices, and feeding research results back to stakeholder communities: use
of instruments of geo-referencing technology, mapping contextual knowledge and facilitating user-friendly
access and participation are key steps in the new policies. Collaborative, transparent relationships with audiences
based on a concept of shared authority is also an issue in cultural institutions, especially in museums, to
counteract the previously real or perceived position of authority they held. He concludes that creative urban
spaces and museums are the locus of mediation between an elite’s conception of modern cities and development
and a good appropriation and participation by marginalized groups and spaces.
Zsuzsa Koltai writes about the theoretical background of both Museum Education and Heritage Education
and shows their commonalities, especially caused by incorporating new theoretical concepts on learning and
taking up different social roles.
“The new type of cooperation with local communities requires many skills and competences which were not
necessary in traditional museum education a couple of decades ago”, she states.
Vilja Arató and Bálint Takács present the changes brought by technological innovations and media
applications toward enhanced interactivity in Children’s Museum thus providing meaningful user experience.
Chapter 4 (Roles in mapping, defining and building recognition of cultural heritage)analyzes the cultural
mediator’s roles and relationships with local communities. Some lessons learned from cultural heritage projects
show they perform at the crossroads of tradition and innovation. Tünde Minorics highlights the ingredients of
the inscription process of the first item in the Hungarian Representative List of Intangible Heritage: the Buso
Festivities in the city of Mohács. Dezső Kovács presents a retrospective analysis of the development stages and
conflicts of the first living World Heritage village Hollókő in Hungary inscribed in 1987. He is providing for perusal
some of the kind of materials (Management plan, State of Conservation Report) that are required by the World
Heritage Office.
Chapter 5 (Politics of Cultural Heritage) Alvaro Campelo presents the point „that the interests, the ability to
impose or not, rules and procedures, the definition of objectives about selection and heritage purposes, - these
have led to a conflict between institutions and actors, with the authority to define, and with communities
composed of cultural actors. The conflict is not itself a problem. The problem is when it moves from fixed and not
negotiated positions.” He proposes ethnographic methodology to be applied and its consequences in the politics
of culture. Having emphasized the new context of the growing recognition of ‘identity politics’, ‘politics of
recognition’ or ‘politics of difference’ the identifiable arena of political conflict is highlighted where „citizens’
power encounters ‘authorised heritage discourse’: diversity of heritage, diversity of participants, diversity of
‘places’ and diversity in politics’ communication of power” – all are parts of the heritage cultural policy landscape.
Cultural policies are associated with the preservation, promotion and interpretation of cultural heritage, creating
local public spaces for discussion and debates. Local participation, integrating people into decisions, the

Teréz Kleisz
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relationship of community and heritage and the social dimensions of heritage are making the criteria for a new
cultural policy, he maintains. Ethnographic mapping, via interview practices and innovative ways of
communicating research results to stakeholder communities places the experts in a different position. The
process of interpretation has become increasingly visible in public contributions to local heritage websites, online
exhibitions and archives and in the creation of new online memory communities through social media networks
employing ICT technologies.
Mária Husz firmly takes the view that politics are about power and heritage is a political phenomenon by
nature. „The ruling classes supervise carefully the content and the form of historical recreation; they legitimise
themselves by projecting their present sociocultural values onto the past.” According to her view definition-
hierarchies suggest a certain spatial ranking from local, regional and national levels, and the spatial location of a
heritage-construction has been seen as a crucial variable. As territorial borderlines have much changed in history
the legal and cultural possession and usage has shifted as well, capable of generating contradictory or strikingly
different interpretations that can be sources of serious power conflicts. She cites culture and faith-conflicts, the
destruction of material heritage as a consequence and issues of restitution (conflicts between the local
ownership status and the legal ownership demands), heritage canons and the exclusion of marginalized groups
in her text.
Inez Zsófia Koller poses the question in her essay whether politics has the power to effect notable cultural
changes by establishing political institutions, or big projects like the European Capital of Culture (ECOC) Programmes
and whether they reach the expected goal of supporting European integration and European identity. Her focus is
to suggest adequate research methods to explore this issue, such as modelling (decision making processes and
motivation) and narrative analysis by different stakeholders. („Stories people tell provide information about
people themselves, how they make sense of their lives, how they create and rank values and interpret their
world.”) These are shown within the context of the host city PÉCS which held the ECOC title in 2010.
The next chapter (Chapter 6: The impact of major events) explores the same theme. Ágnes Simon gives an
account of the European Cultural Capital initiative and its success and failures. She highlights that „at the
beginning the objectives of the ECoC cities implied cultural diversity and dialogue between cultures, but later the
regeneration of cities, heightening their creativity and improving their image came more to the forefront. Lately
it has become so significant that in certain cases the ECoC cities were turned into exemplary ’laboratories’ for
strategic investment targeting culture on local and on regional level.
Balázs Németh describes a different initiative and its stakeholders and the desired benefits in his article on
Learning Regions, Regional Development and New Roles for Higher Education through the European Lifelong
Learning Initiative. The conceptual frameworks behind learning city/region -projects are the following ones:
Knowledge economy = Learning economy; Learning within and across organizations; The spacial context of
innovative learning milieus; The wider community approach „where increasingly learning and learning processes
can be the vehicle to equip and empower whole communities.” Learning communities, local capacity
development, local economy development are in the focus. The author underlines that models/ frames for
possible local and regional partnerships needs to involve higher education institutions as the valuable attraction
of a region depends today on a balanced networking arrangement between higher education institutions,
companies and community organisations. The paper presents the history of lifelong learning policy initiatives,
Europe-wide and Hungarian programmes, research projects depicting the changing perspectives and how they
affected universities’ third mission. (i.e. engagement with the community and society beyond teaching and
research.
Closing the e-book (Chapter 7) a webguide is offered by Anna Magdolna Sipos, a sort of gateway for interested
learners who want to explore the main web sources relating to the theme of cultural heritage, especially in
European and Hungarian contexts. Digitisation of cultural heritage is a key challenge in order to make cultural
heritage accessible for all. The data was collected in July 1-10 2013, so it remains open to constant modification.
Another piece of information is added to inform on the EU Cultural Heritage Research Policies and the Joint
Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change defining key priority areas in research.
.

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Chapter 1.
Introduction to Interactive Technologies for Culture

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
12
NIKOLAOS AVOURIS – NIKOLETA YIANNOUTSOU – CHRISTOS SINTORIS
Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in
Museums Through Games and Stories
Introduction to Interactive Technologies for Culture

Interactivity: definitions
In this introductory section, we discuss interactive technologies, their main characteristics and the role they can
play in cultural experience. We are going to introduce interactivity as a notion, the cognitive aspects of interactive
media and then as a result, to identify the key characteristics of interactive artifacts that may be introduced in
cultural contexts like museums and other memory institutions and how they can affect the visitor experience. It
is a fact that interactive technologies have been spreading and they are interweaved in many everyday activities
of modern life. However we need to start this discussion on some review of the notion of interactivity and
interactive media.
Interactivity is the situation in which two agents (e.g. a human and a digital artifact) exchange messages, in
such a way that a message is related to a number of previous messages and to the relationship between them.
The definition can be made more clear if we distinguish interactive behaviour with non-interactive one, i.e. when
the exchanges are not related to previous ones, or to reactive behaviour, when a message is related just to the
immediately previous one. While interactivity is a typical characteristic of human communication, it is in recent
years that digital interactive artifacts have emerged that are capable to maintain a dialogue with their users and
a state that is related to the task that is performed through them.
It should be observed, that what is important for this discussion is that interactivity refers to the artifact’s
interactive behavior as experienced by the human. This is affected also by the visual appearance of the artifact,
its internal working, and the meaning of the signs it might mediate. Related to interactive technologies, are the
interactive media, that are described by the relationship established by a symbolic interface between its
referential, objective functionality and the subject.
Fig 1. Interaction with an exhibit through a
mobile device in a museum
 Authors: Nikolaos Avouris

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
13
A model of action
An analysis of interaction with artifacts of this nature has been proposed by D. Norman (1988) in the seven stages
model of action.
Fig. 2 The seven stages model of interaction
This model is based on the assumption of intentionality of action, i.e. that action is the result of intentions
that are translations of agent's goals. A goal is to be achieved, then, an action is done to the world, i.e. manipulate
an object, through an interactive device in order to achieve the goal. Next, the agent needs to check if the goal
was achieved. This model thus contains two phases related to execution and evaluation. Execution relates to
performing actions. The goal has to be translated into an intention, which in turn has to be made into an action
sequence. In figure 2, this is initiated in the left with goal (1) formation by the agent, the state that is to be
achieved. The goal is translated into an intention (2) to do some action. The intention must be translated into a
set of internal commands, an action sequence (3) that can be performed to satisfy the intention. The action
sequence then is executed (4) performed upon the world, using typically input devices. Evaluation of the new
state of the interface display is related to examination of the new state of the world, which is the result of the
action. Evaluation starts with perception (5) of the world, which then must be interpreted (6) according to the
agent's expectations. Then it is compared (evaluated, (7)) with respect to both the original intentions and goals.
This cycle of action is repeated until the final goal is achieved.
This model of intentional action has been proposed for human activity involving interactive media, and is
particularly relevant to the case of interaction in cultural heritage, where the goal of action is either learning or
achieving the goals in a game activity in a site of culture. A use of this model is to guide design of interactive
artifacts. A design principle that is related to this model is to identify and eliminate the so called gaps of execution
and evaluation. In particular, the gap of execution is the difference between the intentions and the allowable
actions, as presented to the user through the user interface of the artifact. The designer should strive to build an
artifact that presents the user with the right means to achieve her goals. On the other hand, the gap of evaluation
reflects the effort that the person must exert to interpret the new state of the system and to determine how
well the expectations and intentions have been met. The designer of the artifact should make sure that presents
the state of the system, clearly enough, using the symbols and signs that are meaningful for the typical user.

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
14
On designing Interactive Artifacts
A key question thus is how to design interactive artifacts that are intuitive to use in particular in the case of
cultural heritage, where the users are of a wide spectrum, as culture is relevant for large sections of modern
societies. It is evident that the designer needs to know the user in order to make sure that the gaps of execution
and evaluation are narrow enough to be applicable for the user.
Human-centered design (HCD) is an approach to design that grounds the process in information about the
typical users who are expected to interact with the artifact. HCD processes focus on users throughout the artifact
design. It is described in ISO 9241-210 international standard. The main characteristics of the process are
summarized as the following: The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and
environments, the users are involved throughout design and development, the design is driven and refined by
user-centred evaluation, the process is iterative, the design addresses the whole user experience, while the
design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives (Gould & Lewis 1985).
In this model, once the need to use a human centered design process has been identified, four activities form
the main cycle of work: First specify the context of use, then identify the people who will use the artifact, what
they will use it for, and under what conditions they will use it. Next specify requirements or user goals that must
be met for the artifact to be successful, create design solutions, in an iterative way, from rough conceptual to
more detailed designs. Throughout the process evaluation needs to be performed involving actual users. This
process ends once the requirements are met. The steps of this process are shown in figure 3.
Fig.3 The key activities of the ISO 9241-210 human-centered design process (HCD)
An important notion in the use of interactive artifacts is the development of a user mental model of the
artifact. This is a representation of a user’s understanding of how the artifact works. It is based on past
experiences and intuition. The user mental model of the artifact helps shaping actions and behavior, influencing
what the users pay attention to in complicated situations and define how the users approach and solve problems
encountered during interaction. Mental models are very important in designing user interfaces. The human -
centered design process is focused in defining a conceptual model of the artifact through user involvement. This
artifact conceptual model is the actual model that is given to the user through the interface of the artifact. It is
important that that the user mental model will be matching the interface’s conceptual model. In the next section

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
15
we will describe some empirical methods for evaluating interactive artifacts and examining if they are usable, i.e.
their conceptual model matches the mental model of their typical users.
Usability of interactive artifacts
The usability of an interactive artifact is a quality characteristic that relates to typical user experience. ISO 9241-
11 is an international standard for human-computer interaction. Part 11 discusses usability for the purposes of
both design (requirement specifications) and evaluation. According to this standard, usability refers to the extent
to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and
satisfaction in a specified context of use. So according to ISO 9241, the dimensions of usability are: effectiveness:
the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve specified goals, efficiency: the resources expended in
relation to the accuracy and completeness with which users achieve goals and satisfaction: the comfort and
acceptability of use. Effectiveness measures usability from the point of view of the output of the interaction. The
first component of effectiveness, accuracy, refers to the quality of the output and the second, completeness,
refers to the quantity of the output in relation to a specified target level. Efficiency relates effectiveness of
interaction to resources expended. It may be measured in terms of mental or physical effort, time, materials or
cost. A model of this definition is shown in fig.4
Revision Questions:
(I) Provide and discuss an example interactive application for culture.
(II) Define the design process and briefly discuss the typical users involved in it.
(III) Provide examples of possible gulf of execution and gulf of evaluation problems.
Fig.4 ISO 9241 Definition of product usabilit y
There are various methods proposed to measure usability and evaluate an interactive system. In the next
section we describe the most widely adopted method of heuristic evaluation of interactive artifacts.
Usability heuristics
The main goal of heuristic evaluations is to identify any problems associated with the design of user interfaces.
Usability consultant J. Nielsen developed this method on the basis of several years of experience in usability
engineering. Heuristic evaluations are one of the most informal methods[1] of usability inspection in the field of
human-computer interaction. There are many sets of usability design heuristics; they are not mutually exclusive
and cover many of the same aspects of user interface design.
Quite often, usability problems that are discovered are categorized—often on a numeric scale—according to
their estimated impact on user performance or acceptance. Often the heuristic evaluation is conducted in the

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
16
context of use cases (typical user tasks), to provide feedback to the developers on the extent to which the
interface is likely to be compatible with the intended users’ needs and preferences.
The simplicity of heuristic evaluation is beneficial at the early stages of design. This usability inspection
method does not require user testing which can be burdensome due to the need for users, a place to test them
and a payment for their time.
Nielsen's heuristics are probably the most-used usability heuristics for user interface design. Nielsen
developed the heuristics based on work together with R. Molich in 1990. The final set of heuristics that are still
used today were released by Nielsen in 1994 (Nielsen 1994).
H1. Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on,
through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
H2. Match between system and the real world: The system should speak the user's language, with words,
phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions,
making information appear in a natural and logical order.
H3. User control and freedom: Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly
marked "emergency exit" to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue.
Support undo and redo.
Revision Questions:
(I) Usability (ISO definition): Define the main aspects and what they depend on.
(II) Heuristics: identify 3 heuristics that you believe they are of high importance for interactive cultural
media.
(III) Propose a way to use the usability heuristics in design and evaluation of interactive media
H4. Consistency and standards: Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or
actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
H5. Error prevention: Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem
from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users
with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
H6. Recognition rather than recall: Minimize the user's memory load by making objects, actions, and options
visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions
for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
H7. Flexibility and efficiency of use: Accelerators—unseen by the novice user—may often speed up the
interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users.
Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
H8. Aesthetic and minimalist design: Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely
needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and
diminishes their relative visibility.
H9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors: Error messages should be expressed in plain
language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
H10. Help and documentation: Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it
may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused
on the user's task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
17
Location based games and
stories to support learning in cultural heritage sites

In this section of chapter one
1
, we will discuss how technology based games and stories can support learning in
sites of cultural heritage
2
. We begin by putting forward two observations:
The first involves the audience of the cultural institutions and more specifically its number and characteristics:
“Over the last twenty years, audiences for museums, galleries, and performing arts institutions have decreased,
and the audiences that remain are older and whiter than the overall population. Cultural institutions argue that
their programs provide unique cultural and civic value, but increasingly people have turned to other sources for
entertainment, learning, and dialogue”. (Simone 2010)
The second observation involves a phenomenon called museum fatigue (Bitgood 2009) which is used to
describe visitor’s limited ability to remember, digest and do something with the information offered
In the light of the above observations, we noticed that technology is used by cultural institutions as a medium
to “change” cultural experience and make it more attractive to their audience. In this direction we identified
three major strands:
 Rethinking the ways the visitor can interact with the exhibits (Instead of observing them from a
distance now technology can be used for interaction with digital models, for interaction with content
relevant to the exhibit, etc.)
 Rethinking and re-designing the information provided: Personalization, games, stories, etc.
 Rethinking the relationship between the visitor and the museum (participatory experience)
In this section we will focus on the last two uses: i.e. a) on how the content of cultural institutions is integrated
in games and stories and what kind of learning is pursued and b) on how technology can be employed to support
participatory cultural experiences. These two topics will be discussed from the perspective of the learning
experience they can support. Thus, it is first important to address a rather crucial question: What do we learn in
a museum?
Learning in cultural institutions
Joshua Landy in his course “The Art of Living
3
” at Stanford University discusses the question “what do we learn
from artists
4
”. In his talk, he makes two interesting remarks which are relevant here:
One is that artworks are experiences. The artwork as experience is illustrated by J. Landy with a very
eloquent metaphor: “Imagine that you have tickets to a big game and you invite a friend to come and his
response is: "That's all right, I will just catch the result later". Won’t you think that he will be missing a
great experience here?”.
Artworks are not just fancy ways of delivering messages. One of their most interesting and useful
functions is not to provide answers but to offer questions we have to answer ourselves. Answering the
questions does not involve guessing the author's intention. Instead, it involves injecting something of
ourselves.
In the light of the above remarks let’s consider again the question we posed at the beginning of this section
and try to provide some answers:
What do we expect the visitors of a museum to learn while visiting or when leaving the museum?
 Information
 Authors: Nikoleta Yiannoutsou
1
The content of this section is not original work as it is based on the authors’ previous work and publications.
2
The material presented in this section is customized at certain points (revision questions, section about participation) to
reflect on a specific site visit (i.e. The Zsolnay Cultural Quarter) which was part of the Erasmus Course in Pecs.
3
http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/artofliving#videos
4
Art here is not restricted to the exhibits of a cultural institution but also involves literature, theatre etc.

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
18
 Life Skills- Learning skills,
 Pleasure/ Satisfaction (is this learning?)
 Expanding our horizons
 All the above
 Other
Dodd & Jones (2009) in an effort to respond to the above question offer a set of Generic Learning Outcomes
which groups learning in the museum to the following categories:
 Knowledge / understanding
 Skills
 Values
 Fun
 Inspiration
 Creativity
 Action
 Behaviour
 Progress
This categorization shows that the learning experience in a cultural institution is a complex phenomenon with
many facets to be taken into account. Furthermore, in order to be able to construct a better idea of what kind of
learning we pursue in cultural institutions we need to define not only what we pursue (learning outcomes) but
also how. Hein (1998) introduced the constructivist perspective in the museum learning experience, which
stresses the active role of the visitor, who constructs meaning through the interaction with the exhibits. In the
same line of thought Falk & Dierking (2000) advocate that meaning lies not in the individual artefacts but in the
connections the visitor can make with each other and with overarching concepts, beliefs and narratives.
The “what” and the “how” of learning in the museum is better conceptualized if they are considered in
relation to the metaphor of learning adopted or pursued by the museum.
On two metaphors of learning: “Agora” and the “consumption metaphor”
Cultural experience as information consumption: In this case the cultural experience is structured around the
information the cultural institution has created for the exhibits. User experience is limited in viewing the exhibits
and listening or reading information about them. As we mentioned earlier a recent trend in the use of technology
focuses on refining and redesigning the information delivered to the user so that it becomes more attractive and
more easily consumed.
“From Parthenon to Agora
5
” (Proctor 2009) The main elements of this metaphor is a)Parthenon which
represents cultural experience as something that the cultural site holds and the visitors see but don’t touch and
b)Agora which represents a “gathering place”: a centre for meeting, opinion exchange and discussion. Thus this
metaphor illustrates the shift from the perception of cultural experience as something that the museum holds
and transfers to the visitors, to something that can be discussed, shared and negotiated. In this metaphor of
learning, cultural experience is created through the development of a dialectic relationship between the visitor
and the museum. In this context, the visitor has an active role in the process of culture generation and he/she is
more like a partner to the museum and a collaborator.
5
“The agora was a central spot in ancient Greek city-states. The literal meaning of the word is "gathering place" or
"assembly". The agora was the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life of the city” Definition offered by
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agora

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
19
REVISION QUESTIONS:
1. What are the two metaphors of learning?
2 Pick something (an artefact, a building, a story?) from our visit in the Zsolnay factory and link it with
something else (another artefact of the visit, or your experience or y our values/ beliefs).
Examples of technology based games and stories for sites of cultural heritage
In this section, we discuss the role of technology in rethinking the cultural experience by through game and story
play activity by presenting a set of representative examples:
Museum Scrabble
In MuseumScrabble
6
(http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/museumscrabble/), players compete against each other as
they try to link exhibits with specific conceptual ideas (called hints) that describe properties and characteristics
of exhibit. Thus the main components of museum scrabble are the topics and the hints (for an illustration see
the picture at the end of this description):
 Topics: represent concept or field of knowledge or category, related to parts of the museum
collection or the themes of the museum. Examples are geography, feminism, religion, art etc.
 Hints: Each topic contains several hints. A hint is a short sentence that can be applied to exhibits in
the museum related to the topic.
To better explain the game we present an example of play activity: A team decides to work on the topic
“Women and Zakynthos”. Next, the team members have to decide on their strategy in order to identify the most
relevant exhibits for each one of the topic's hints. If, for example, the first hint is examined (“the first woman
feminist of Zakynthos”), provided that the players do not know beforehand who may be the first feminist of the
region, then they have to search further among the exhibits, making some assumptions: When this person may
have lived, what social class she may have belonged to, etc. The players have to scan candidate exhibits and look
for further information either on the labels or in text on the screen of the PDA. For instance, in one of the halls
of the museum there is a portrait of Elisavet Moutzan-Martinengou (1801-1832), an autobiographer, story writer,
feminist, and woman of letters. The additional information is provided that “...many scholars consider E.
Martinengou as the first modern Greek female writer and feminist”. A lot of contemplation and physical
movement within the halls of the museum are required in order to reach the portrait of this lady and find the
relevant information so that the players can establish that the portrait matches the hint of “the first woman
feminist of Zakynthos”. The hint, once the team links it with the portrait, cannot be used by the other teams.
However, not all hints and topics are of equal degree of difficulty. There are topics, like “Animals”, that can be
identified easily by observing the exhibits, while others, like the example given on the topic of “Women and
Zakynthos”, need further searching, involving in addition non-perceptual cognitive activity. Also the complexity
of the task depends on the spatial distribution of the relevant exhibits of a particular topic.
6
The description of the game is drawn from Sintoris et al (2010)

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
20
Topics
The hint
The hint connected to the exhibit
Rebels vs Spies:
This is an open space game, designed for the city of Patras (http://www.invisiblecity.gr/)
7
. The game is played
by two groups who compete in solving puzzles related to sites of the city. Specifically, the rebels are the team of
the uninformed majority and the spies are the informed minority. The rebels try to successfully carry out missions
but their team has been infiltrated by spies who will sabotage the missions while remaining undercover. The
game is structured as alterations between meetings of the players, where they discuss and vote for a leader, and
individual missions in various locations in a city centre. This cycle of: a) player gathering, b) voting for a leader, c)
carrying out of missions, is repeated until the spies have been exposed or until one of the teams wins a minimum
number of rounds.
At the beginning of a round the players assemble and use their hand-held devices (Android phones) to vote
for a leader. The elected leader of the round has to assign missions to all the players. The players receive their
missions in their devices. Some missions are critical, and if a critical mission fails, the round goes to the spies.
Otherwise, if all critical missions of the round succeed, the round goes to the rebels. Only the leader knows which
missions are critical. There are as many critical missions as spies. If the elected leader is actually a spy, she can
assign critical missions to her fellow spies who can then intentionally try to foil the missions. After the missions
7
The description of the game is taken from the publication Sintoris et al (2013)

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
21
have been assigned, the players move out to locations for performing the individual missions. Each player can
choose to perform the mission correctly or fail, but has no way of knowing whether the mission was critical.
When a player completes the mission, the location of the next meeting is disclosed. At the end of the round all
players meet at the new location and the new round begins with the voting for a new leader. In the following
picture we show some typical mobile device screenshots in various phases of the RvS game are shown.
Frequency 1550:
This is also a city game
8
about medieval Amsterdam (Akkerman et al 2009, Huizenga et al 2009, Raessens
2007), designed to be played in the historic centre of the city. This game has a strong narrative element, however
the role of this narrative in learning has been debated (e.g. Akkerman et al 2009). The back-story of Frequency
1550 asked the students to move to medieval Amsterdam using their mobile devices. For one day, they roamed
through the city in small groups, using GPS to help them identify their own positions as well as that of other
players and objects. The players needed to demonstrate their knowledge of medieval Amsterdam by doing
location-based media-assignments on the city's history. The location was a strong element of the action. Most
assignments had to be performed in specific parts of the city, were related to specific buildings, points of interest
etc., and were intended to trigger environmental awareness. In particular, the old city of Amsterdam was divided
into six areas. In each of these areas, one of six different themes of medieval times was addressed; labour, trade,
religion, rules and government, knowledge and defence. An interesting aspect of this game, then, was a mapping
between themes and space. Each assignment was related to one of these themes and so was undertaken in the
corresponding area of the city. In addition, part of each team, located in a different space, the headquarters,
where they were assigned a different role, that of receiving the information from the field and making further
investigations to assist with specific tasks. Here, we observe a distinct role assignment related to physical and
virtual space activity.
In terms of the interaction and technology used, the field teams used smartphones with multimedia capturing
capabilities and GPS. Through them, the team members could capture snapshots of the urban setting and relate
8
The description of this game is taken from the following publication of the authors: Avouris & Yiannoutsou (2012a)

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
22
them to their tasks. The non-mobile members of the team at the headquarters interacted with desktop
equipment that allowed them to search for further information in order to complete the task.
Strong interactions took place between the team members, and in particular between the city and the
headquarter teams, since the former supplied the latter with information while navigation instructions flowed
in the other direction. Lastly, at a final plenary meeting, all team members interacted and discussed the
experience with other groups.
Who Killed Hanne Holmgaard?
This is an example of mobile fiction
9
where users experience the mystery story ‘Who killed Hanne Holmgaard’
interactively, as they move through the city of Aalborg, Denmark (Paay et al 2008). Different episodes of the
story were “attached” to the places of the city (e.g. the killing of Hanne took place in a park, interrogation of
some of the suspects took place in a convent of the city as Hanne was a nun, etc). The users become part of the
narrative as they undertake the role of two detectives who have to collaborate in order to find out who is the
killer. They in a sense enact these roles through a set of predefined questions, differentiated according to the
character enacted and to the virtual character interrogated. The two detectives need to complete the collection
of evidence in a “key location”. (the park, or the convent etc.) Collection of evidence involves solving a puzzle,
obtaining a response from a suspect or discovering a hotspot. Then the system awards the user with half a sign
which when combined with the other half obtained by their partner indicates on the map which will be their next
stop. Thus, in order to solve the case of the murder, players had to visit each of the different places, where the
story was taking place, in order to collect the necessary information. Information related to the story and to the
city, is delivered to the user in different ways: (in the form of newspapers, torn letters etc.). These pieces of
information are clues which aim to support the users to solve the case of the murder.
Mystery at the museum
Mystery at the Museum
10
(Klopfer et al 2005), is a game designed to be played in the Boston Museum of
Science by children with their families. It is a role-play game combined with a mystery story. Players in the game
were required to visit a wide variety of places in the museum, and to examine exhibits closely to find and
understand some of the “clues”. Several codes, for example, were woven into the storyline (the thieves used
codes to communicate with each other). The authors argue that the game engages players in connecting the
exhibits with broad scientific fields (such as mathematics, models, communication). This way they have the
chance to engage with the details of some exhibits and to think more broadly about multiple exhibits (combining
depth and breadth).
REVISION QUESTION: Pick one of the games presented. The one that appeals more to you or the one
that you think that you would like to play AND describe in bullets what do you think that you would
learn if you played this game in the Zsolnay factory.
Analyzing the learning experience
Games
11
have been used by museum educators to provide a context where the visitor actively constructs
meaning through interaction with the exhibits. The proliferation of digital technologies and especially of mobile
technologies resulted in revisiting the idea of game play in museums for many different purposes (for a detailed
analysis and overview see Beale 2011). One type of mobile game designed for museums follows the scavenger
hunt motif where players look for exhibits following clues (for a presentation of representative examples see
Avouris & Yiannoutsou 2012) or try to answer correctly questions or quizzes in order for the game to continue.
Although studies on these games report player engagement, motivation and knowledge about the exhibits
9
The description of this example is drawn from Yiannoutsou & Avouris (2010)
10
Description taken from author’s publication: Yiannoutsou & Avouris (2012a)
11
The analysis of this chapter is taken from author’s publication Yiannoutsou & Avouris (2012a)

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
23
integrated in the game, there is also criticism pointing out that in the context of this type of games, museum
artefacts are treated as a bunch of disconnected and de-contextualized things (Klopfer et al. 2005).
To further understand the above statements let’s return to the game examples we presented earlier and try
to respond to the following question:
What do visitors learn when engaged with the above games?
To answer this question, we discuss some examples of the learning activity described for the games presented
earlier. These extracts attempt to cast light on the learning focus either presenting the tasks assigned to the
players or the comments of the players after game play.
‘…We did see parts of the museum we weren't aware of,’… ‘hadn't ever seen the monkeys,’ …’We
come a lot, and I still saw stuff in exhibits that I had never seen before.’ …’I learned things that I had
never seen before, like reading about the mummy or the banana tree. It made me read things that I
wouldn't have otherwise.’ (Klopfer et al. 2005,: 319)
(Extract 1: Player comments from the mobile game: Mystery at the Museum)
‘Participants all enjoyed walking through the city of Aalborg; in fact current residents of Aalborg
claimed that they had learned new things about their city. For example, the existence of the Aalborg
Convent, hidden near the central city shopping precinct, and its historical associations with the Danish
resistance during World War II had not previously been known to any of the participants’ (Paay et al.
2008: 128)
(Extract 2: Player comments from the playful narrative ‘Who killed Hannae?’)
In the comprehensive assignment, the City Teams (CTs) are asked to search for several details – such
as a plaque with the medieval name of the area – and take pictures of the details while the Head Quarters
(HQTs) are asked to select the correct picture from various pictures on the Internet or somewhere else…
Imagination assignment: For this assignment, the CTs are asked to act out particular idioms/sayings such
as ‘this is monks’ work’, which is the equivalent of ‘this is sheer drudgery’ in English and refers to the
days when monks meticulously copied books by hand. The acting out of the sayings is videotaped, while
the HQTs are asked to find out what these sayings mean… The orientation assignment includes texts and
tasks which are intended to trigger environmental awareness. This may be done via the creation or
selection of photos, the answering of questions about the site. (Huizenga et al. 2009:. 335-336)
(Extract 3: Tasks from the Frequency 1550 mobile game)
R: So, what would you say that you learned?
S. That the church of Pantocratoras was an ancient temple before.
M: I was impressed with the information about the Mayor (information about an ex Mayor during
the period 1949-1967)
(Extract 4: Player comments from the Rebels vs Spies)
Our main observation that runs through all above studies is that they focus on enriching visitors’ factual
information: ‘we did see parts of the museum we weren’t aware of’ or ‘current residents learned new things
about their city… such as the Convent’ or ‘search for a plaque with the mediaeval name of the area’ or “the
church of Pantocratoras was an ancient temple before”. Even the imagination assignment (Extract 3) ends up
aiming at factual information where players are asked to find the meaning of the enacted saying. In several cases
we can see that the game has become a vehicle for transferring new, more or ‘hidden’ information to be stored
by the visitor.
On the other hand, in the context of games the search of this factual information might take place in an
intriguing and pleasant way for the visitors and might involve interesting processes such as hypothesis testing,
reflection on actions etc. (Costabile et al. 2008). There is no doubt that factual information is an important part
of cultural experience. But when it comes to learning in museums we need to ask: Is this all what we can get from
a technology mediated playful interaction with cultural content?

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
24
The idea of Participation
A trigger to discuss the idea of participation is the following picture, which depicts a wall close to the cafeteria in
the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter in Pécs, Hungary.
Picture taken from the Zsoln ay Cultural Quar ter in Pécs
Pay attention to the tiles integrated in the wall. What is interesting in these tiles is that they were designed
and created by visitors, under the guidance of the staff of the cultural centre while this wall was under
construction. This way, visitors became acquainted with one of the important activities of Zsolnay factories i.e.
the tile making process. Members of the staff say that many of those who participated in this experience return
to the cultural centre bringing their friends and family to show them their tile and have coffee under it.
Two things are of interest in this experience:
a) the rich and profound cultural experience obtained by the visitors during the participation in the process
of tile making (to better understand this contrast it with a text or a video describing how the tiles were produced)
and
b) the sense of ownership shown by those who participated in this experience (i.e. they feel that they have
contributed in this cultural centre with something they are proud of and they can say this is mine!)
Based on these two points we made for the visitor made tiles we observe that participatory cultural
experiences
12
imply a new relationship between the visitor and the museum which is not restricted to one off or
first time visits. Instead, participation aims also at building an enduring relationship with existing audiences and
communities (museum friends, volunteers, etc.) related to the museum (Black 2005). Building an enduring
relationship between the visitor and the museum through active participation of the visitor enhances the cultural
experience for the visitor and enriches the content and the impact of the museum also on first time or one off
visitors (ibid).
In the wide spectrum of participatory activities (for a detailed presentation see Simon2010) we identified two
types of activities relevant to our analysis. The first type of activity reserves for the visitor a role similar to the
documentation process performed by the museum. The proliferation of mobile technologies and social media
has supported the creation of user generated content using various crowd-sourcing practices (Oomen & Aroyo
2011) like the ones presented next:
 Stating preferences, voting on interesting objects, comments etc.
 Tagging: unstructured text associated with objects
 Debunking, criticizing: arguing against other peoples’ ideas, tags etc.
12
This analysis on participation is taken from authors publication: Yiannoutsou & Avouris (2012)

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
25
 Recording personal stories: personal memories associated to a museum object
 Linking objects or categorising: grouping of objects or associating them with themes (e.g. card
sorting, museumscrabble)
The second type of activity aims at resuming or approaching cultural experience through engaging visitors in
the creations of “meta-artefacts” – i.e games or stories based on compositions of elements of cultural content -
which are supposed to have a public status. The idea of involving visitors in creating computer-based public
artefacts that make use of cultural content is new. It builds on a theoretical background that acknowledges the
gap in the communication between the museum and the visitor and calls for active participation of visitors in the
dialogue with the museums (Hein 2006; Simon 2010).
Although both activity types reserve an active role for the visitors they have a drawback: visitor generated
“products” -content or artefacts- are almost never integrated in the museum’s assets because of their low quality
(Simon 2010). This problem is related to the open ended and unstructured participatory activities:
When it comes to participatory activities, many educators feel that they should deliberately remove
scaffolding to allow participants to fully control their creative experience. This creates an open-ended
environment that can feel daunting to would-be participants. … What if I walked up to you on the street and
asked you to make a video about your ideas of justice in the next three minutes? Does that sound like a fun and
rewarding casual activity to you? (ibid, chapter 1, p.13)
What Simon described above draws upon an approach which asserts that learning in museums should focus
in triggering visitor creativity and subjective interpretation of cultural content leaving aside the “knowledge of
the museum” which prevails in the information consumption metaphor. Simon showed that in participatory
activities this perspective has its weaknesses. In the same line comes the idea of “objectified cultural capital”
(Bourdieu, 1986) which explains that cultural experience is not just an issue of access but it is also an issue of
background knowledge that supports the person to appreciate and understand the value of a piece of art.
Museums and cultural institutions offer in the process of culture creation not only the objects-exhibits but also
the background knowledge about the exhibits. In our view the key in this process is how we integrate and
combine exhibits and background knowledge in the cultural learning experience. For example, museum
knowledge does not have to be presented as an axiom to the visitor but it needs to come to his/her attention as
material to be negotiated, discussed, shared and used for the construction of something new (like in the example
with the visitor tiles designed for the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter).
Game design workshop:
a mobile learning game for Pompeii

This section describes a hands’ on activity
13
that followed the material presented in sections 1.1. and 1.2. The
students are expected to work in groups of four of five and they are asked to design a mobile game to support
informal learning for the site of Pompeii.
Structure of the game
Specifically, the participants of the design activity follow a 'scenario' where they impersonate game designers. In
this scenario:
 They belong to a group of game designers
 They are tasked with designing a game for the archaeological site of Pompeii
 The aim is the design of a game where the players
o move in the archaeological site
 Authors: Christos Sintoris
13
The activity and the material presented here are designed and implemented by C.Sintoris in the context of his PhD Thesis
at the University of Patras. (Sintoris 2014)

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
26
o use smartphones to interact with exhibits, buildings, locations in the site of Pompeii
o interact with each other forming teams, collaborating, competing or antagonizing
o have fun and enjoy the game
o learn about Pompeii
Phases
The purpose of the activity is to design the concept of a location-sensitive multiplayer (learning) game to be
played in Pompeii.
The designers form groups of 3-5 people and receive the relevant material.
The activity is structured into two symmetrical phases. Each phase is followed by a presentation. The aim of
the first phase is to familiarize the team members with the material. The actual design work is expected to
happen in phase two.
Phase one (10-15 minutes)
 A rapporteur is chosen from each team
 Each team formulates an idea about a location based mobile game using the A3-sized Worksheet to
describe it
 Presentation (20-25 minutes): The rapporteur explains and pitches the idea in a very short
presentation (1 minute per team) Very fast!
Phase two (1 hour)
 The teams get back and improve, detail and modify their games. They can use any of the other teams'
ideas
 Final presentation and discussion
 The rapporteur explains and pitches the final idea in a detailed presentation this time
Material
 One instruction card for the participants: Instructions explain the phases of game design described
above and how to use the material
 One map of Pompeii, showing the location of six important places
 A description of six sites of Pompei, in the form of some text with photos (print on a single-sided A3
sheet)
 Two concept cards, that describe in some detail concepts that might be interesting learning topics
 A Worksheet, where the designers record their design. The worksheet consists of empty boxes to be
filled in. The instructions printed on the worksheet are intended as guides and one should insist on
"filling" them out with vigour.
Next we present the material developed for this workshop in detail. The material can also be found in a
printable form in http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/
14
14
The material is free to use but please give credits.

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
27
I THE MAP OF POMPEII
II THE SIX SITES OF POMPEII
The six sites of Pompeii
Garden of the House of the Vettii
This garden belongs to one of the most famous houses in Pompeii, the House of the Vettii. The house is
named for its possible owners, the Vettii brothers, whose signet-rings were discovered during the excavations;
they are thought to have been free men and may have been wine-merchants. The ornate and formal garden
would have been glimpsed through the front door of the house, allowing passers-by a glimpse of the wealth
and taste of its owners. The garden was full of marble and bronze statues, 12 of them fountain-heads that
spouted water into a series of basins. The garden is enclosed on four sides by an elaborately decorated portico,
onto which opens into a series of rooms that were probably used for entertaining guests.
The garden is surrounded by a peristyle which has been restored. The garden itself contains many of the
original Roman plants. Archaeologists can discover what plants the Romans had in their gardens.

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
28
Thermopolium
This one of Pompeii's many thermopolia - which were shops or 'bars' that are thought to have sold food
(restaurants). They consist of terracotta containers (dolia) sunk into a masonry counter (sometimes covered
with polychrome marble) that are believed to have contained hot food that was sold to customers.
Some thermopolia have decorated back rooms, which may have functioned as dining-rooms. In one
thermopolium, the remains of a cloth bag were discovered in one of the dolia, along with over a thousand
coins; these are thought to represent the day's takings and demonstrate the popularity of the establishment.
Lararia (domestic shrines) are a fairly common feature of thermopolia, and sometimes depict Mercury and
Dionysus, the gods of commerce and wine respectively.
Villa of the Mysteries
The villa is large and luxurious, overlooking the sea. It faces outwards to take advantage of its position,
unlike the inward facing town houses. It is not known who owned the villa. The most famous feature is the
series of life-size frescoes. The panels of the fresco appear to show a series of consecutive events which give
the villa its name. It is believed to represent an initiation into the secrete cult of Dionysus, though its
interpretation is still unclear. This scene is a detail from a fresco that runs round all four walls of a room in a
suburban villa just outside Pompeii. The fresco is a megalographia (a depiction of life-size figures), and is
unique in Pompeii. In the scene pictured here, the initiate is flogged, while another woman dances beside her.
A wine-press was discovered when the Villa was excavated and has been restored in its original location. It
was not uncommon for the homes of the very wealthy to include areas for the production of wine, olive oil,
or other agricultural products, especially since many elite Romans owned farmland or orchards in the
immediate vicinity of their villas
Bakery
The lava mills and the large wood-burning oven identify these premises as a bakery. Each mill consists of
two mill-stones, one stationary and one hollow and shaped like a funnel. The funnel-shaped stone had slots,
into which wooden levers could be inserted so that the stone could be rotated; these can be seen in the photo.

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
29
Each mill would have been operated either by manpower or with the help of a donkey or horse (in one
bakery, the skeletons of several donkeys were discovered). In order to make flour, grain was poured from
above into the hollow stone and then was ground between the two stones.
In total, 33 bakeries have so far been found in Pompeii. The carbonised remains of 81 loaves of bread were
found in the Bakery of Modestus, demonstrating that the oven was in use at the time of the eruption in AD
79.
The Forum
Shown here is Pompeii's forum, which would have been at the political, commercial and social heart of the
town, as in all other Roman towns. As was typical of the time, most of the most important civic buildings at
Pompeii - the municipal offices, the basilica (court-house), the principal temples (such as the Capitolium), and
the macellum (market) – were located in or around the forum.
Recent archaeological work has demonstrated that in the years immediately before Vesuvius (seen in the
background of the photo here) destroyed Pompeii, building work was taking place to improve the appearance
of the forum. Wall-paintings in one of the houses excavated illustrate scenes from the forum, such as bustling
market-stalls set up in the colonnade fronting many of the forum buildings. Such evidence highlights the
importance of this area in the everyday lives of the town's inhabitants.
The House of the Faun
The House of the Faun built during the 2nd century BC, was one of the largest, and most impressive private
residences in Pompeii, Italy, and housed many great pieces of art. It is one of the most luxurious aristocratic
houses from the Roman republic. It is thought that this house was built shortly after the Roman conquest of
Pompeii, and is likely to have been the residence of one of Pompeii's new, Roman, ruling class.
The House of the Faun was named for the bronze statue of the dancing faun. Fauns are spirits of untamed
woodland, which literate and Hellenized Romans often connected to Pan and Greek satyrs, or wild followers
of the Greek god of wine and agriculture, Dionysus.
The third photograph shows a detail from one of the most celebrated ancient mosaics. The mosaic depicts
Alexander the Great's defeat of the Persian king Darius; the detail here illustrates Alexander himself. The
mosaic highlights the wealth and power of the occupier of the house, since such grand and elaborate mosaics
are extremely rare, both in Pompeii and in the wider Roman world.

Nikolaos Avouris – Nikoleta Yiannoutsou – Christos Sintoris
30
III. CONCEPT CARDS:
CARD1: ECONOMY
 Ways in which the economy is based on agriculture.
 Professions in Pompeii.
 Merchants' and crafts-men's shops
Wine and olive oil
 Wine production in the villas
 Inscriptions mentioning the selling of wine
Bakeries
 30 bakeries with mills
 The bakery of Modestus
Markets
 around the forum
 Thermopoliums (restaurants)
CARD 2: ART AND ARCHITECTURE
 Greek and Egyptian influences in art
 Influences in the architecture
The House of the Faun has mosaics of Greek and Egyptian influence
 Greek: flowers and fruits with tragic masks. Dionysus as a child. An erotic satyr with nymphs
 Egyptian: A mosaic with Alexander. Scene from the Nile
IV. WORKSHEET: The main elements of the worksheet are the following:
 The title of the game. The title can be something funny, curious, strange and/or representative of
what the game is about
 The goal of the game: The goal of the game involves what the players need to do in order to win.
Examples of such goals can be accumulation of points and scoring higher than their opponents, first
to reach a specific place, collecting all or the most clues etc.
 The rules of the game: The rules delineate the behavior of the players and define the way they can
interact with the objects of the game with their co-players or with their opponents. Examples: if you
pick up a clue for an object and you don’t use it in the next five minutes then the clue is available to
your opponents. Or in order to visit a site (e.g. the house of the Faun) you need permission which
might mean a minimum number of points.
 Use of technological means and tools: Mobile games employ technology in various ways: as
information screens, as communication media, as barcode scanners, as GPS, as map displays etc.
 Mechanisms: The mechanisms of the game involve mainly the pacing of the game and the type of
interaction between players. Will the game be competitive or collaborative (i.e. in order for the game
to proceed to the next stage all players need to collaborate in order to collect the required amount
of evidence or clues). Are the players allowed to communicate between each other? Are players
aware of the actions of their opponents or co-players?
 Location and real world objects: This item involves how space and the real world objects are
integrated in the game. Is space just the background for player action? Are real-world objects part
of the game? How will players interact with them?
 Behaviors and aesthetic result: This item involves how the game will evolve over time and what is
the envisaged player experience.
The designers can follow the order of the items if they have a rough idea of what might be the game in order
to elaborate on its details. The same items can be addressed in random order as triggers for brainstorming
drawing ideas from known- successful games and then they can try to relate the items between them in order
to converge and support a main game idea. This game design process is intended to take place in the context of

Interactive Technologies for Informal Learning in Museums Through Games and Stories
31
group work (more than one group is involved in designing a game). In this process groups work on the game
components in two rounds, at the end of the first round each group presents their design and the other groups
comment and make suggestions. During the second round groups integrate in their design comments and ideas
presented by the other groups and re-present their new game at the end of this round.
References
Akkerman, S., Admiraal, W., & Huizenga, J. (2009). Storification in History education: A mobile game in and about medieval
Amsterdam, Computers& Education, 52 (2009), pp. 449–459
Avouris N., Yiannoutsou, N., (2012). A review of mobile location-based games for learning across physical and virtual spaces, Journal
of Universal Computer Science, vol. 18 (15), Special issue on Technology for learning across physical and virtual spaces (pp 2120-
2142)
Beale, K. (ed.), (2011). Museums at play: Games interaction and learning. Edinburg/Boston: MuseumsEtc.
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp.
241–258). New York, Greenwood: Wiley Online Library
Costabile, M. F., De Angeli, A., Lanzilotti, R., Ardito, C., Buono, P. & Pederson, T. (2008). Explore! Possibilities and Challenges of Mobile
Learning. CHI’08 Conf. on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 145–154). Florence, Italy: ACM.
Falk, J., H., & Dierking, L., D. (2000). Learning from museums: Visitor experiences and the making of meaning. Altamira Press.
Gould, J. D. & Lewis, C. (1985). Design for usability: Key principles and what designers think. Communications of the ACM, vol. 28 no.
3, 360-411.
Hein, G. (1998). Learning in the Museum. New York: Routledge.
Hein, H., S. (2006). Public Art: Thinking museums differently. Altamira Press
Huizenga, J., Admiraal, W., Akkerman, S., & Dam, G. T., Mobile game-based learning in secondary education: engagement, motivation
and learning in a mobile city game. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, Vol. 25, (4), 2009, pp. 332-344.
Klopfer, E., Perry, J., Squire, K., Jan, M. F. & Steinkuehler, C. (2005). Mystery at the museum: a collaborative game for museum
education. Proceedings of the 2005 conference on Computer support for collaborative learning: the next 10 years (pp. 316–320).
International Society of the Learning Sciences.
Nielsen, J. (1994). Heuristic evaluation. In Nielsen, J., and Mack, R.L. (Eds.), Usability Inspection Methods, John Wiley & Sons, New
York.
Norman, D. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books.
Oomen, J., and L. Aroyo. (2011). Crowdsourcing in the Cultural Heritage Domain: Opportunities and Challenges. In Proceedings of
the 5th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, 138–149, 2011. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2103373.
Paay, J., Kjeldskov, J., Christensen, A., Ibsen, A., Jensen, D., Nielsen, G., et al. (2008). Location-based storytelling in the urban
environment. In Proceedings OZCHI 2008, pp. 122- 130, ACM Press.
Proctor, N. (2009). The Museum as Agora: What is collaboration in museums 2.0., WebWise Conference, Washington D.C.
Raessens, J. (2007). “Playing History. Reflections on Mobile and Location-based Learning.” Didactics of Micro-learning: Concepts,
Discourses, and Examples, Ed. Theo Hug 200–217.
Sintoris,C., Yiannoutsou N., Demetriou S., Avouris N., (2013). Discovering the invisible city: Location-based games for learning in
smart cities. In Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal, 16, Special Issue on Smart City Learning - Visions and practical
Implementations: toward Horizon 2020, pp. 47-64
Sintoris C., Stoica A., Papadimitriou I., Yiannoutsou N., Komis V., Avouris N. (2010). MuseumScrabble: Design of a mobile gam e for
children's interaction with a digitally augmented cultural space. International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction,
2(2), 53-71, April-June 2010.
Sintoris (2014). Tools for designing location based games that support informal learning. Unpublished doctoral thesis. The University
of Patras.
Yiannoutsou, N., Avouris, N., (2012a). Mobile games in Museums: from learning through game play to learning through game design,
ICOM Education, vol. 23, pp 79- 86 (also available in http://ceca.icom.museum/node/203)
Yiannoutsou N., Avouris N. (2012b). From information consuming to participating: game-design supporting learning experiences in
museums. In C. Karagiannidis, P. Politis & I. Karasavvidis (eds.), Proceedings of the 8th Pan-Hellenic Conference with International
Participation «ICT in Education» University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece, 28-30 September 2012
Yiannoutsou, N., Avouris, N., (2010). Reflections on use of location-based playful narratives for learning. In Proceedings of the
International Conference for Mobile Learning, Porto, Portugal, 19 - 21 March, pp 149-157

Nikoleta Yiannoutsou, Nikolaos Avouris and Christos Sintoris
32
NIKOLETA YIANNOUTSOU, NIKOLAOS AVOURIS AND CHRISTOS SINTORIS
Designing Mobile Games for
Learning in Sites of Cultural Heritage
Teaching Resource Material
In this section we present how we involved students in designing a game for a specific cultural heritage site. The
design session followed a lecture and discussion on the following issues: a) the learning dimension of the cultural
experience (Dodd 2009; Falk & Dierking 2000; Hein 1998) b)the role of technology in re-considering the
characteristics of this experience c) a presentation of exemplary games some of which were designed (Museum
Scrabble, Benaki Scrabble Invisible City,) and evaluated by the HCI group (University of Patras) and d) analysis of
the learning dimension of the cultural experience based on data collected during the evaluation of the games
presented earlier (Yiannoutsou & Avouris 2012).
The game design is suggested to evolve against a theoretical background like the one presented above
because it relates the process of game design to the role of the museum visitor and to the type of cultural –
learning experience pursued. Games with a learning value for cultural heritage sites require a good acquaintance
with the content of the site. Determining what content and in what form it is going to be included or approached
by the game is a process related to the envisaged learning trajectories, to the special characteristics of the site
(type of exhibits, indoor-outdoor) and to the type of cultural experience the game intends to support (e.g.
gathering factual information, crafting connections between player experience and cultural objects etc.). It is
thus important for the designers to take into account the content of the site, as well as its spatial characteristics.
The example we implemented during the Erasmus course involved the archaeological site Pompeii where
selected sites, learning material in the form of concept cards and a map of the archaeological site were provided
to the designers (the material is created by C. Sintoris and it is provided in
http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/).
The game design process starts with, and is structured around the following question: What are the
components of a game? A good way to address this question is through an example. This question aims at
grounding the design process in the deconstruction of existing games and to start thinking about a game in terms
of its main components. To further illustrate this we discuss the example of the scrabble game the basic elements
of which are: the tiles with the letters, the number of letters, the points for each letter according to its rarity, the
board, the randomness of the tiles, the rules etc. This discussion aims to function as a brainstorming phase where
game characteristics are brought to the table in order to be used as a resource for the more systematic design
process that is going to follow.
Our approach in supporting the game design process is based on unpacking mobile games into their
components, each of which is addressed separately but also in relation to the other components. This approach
is grounded on a framework of design principles defined by Sintoris et al (2010) and it is further developed and
elaborated to support game design workshops by C. Sintoris in http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/). We
draw from this material to present these game - components and to explain how they can be used in order to
guide the design process.
Game components
 The title of the game. The title can be something funny, curious, strange and/or representative of
what the game is about
 The goal of the game: The goal of the game involves what the players need to do in order to win.
Examples of such goals can be the accumulation of points and scoring higher than the opponents,
first to reach a specific place, collecting all or the most clues etc.
 The rules of the game: The rules delineate the behaviour of the players and define the way they can
interact with the objects of the game, with their co-players or with their opponents. Examples: if you

Designing Mobile Games for Learning in Sites of Cultural Heritage
33
pick up a clue for an object and you won’t use it in the next five minutes then that clue becomes
available to your opponents. Or in order to visit a site (e.g. the house of the Faun) you need
permission which might mean holding a minimum number of points.
 Use of technological means and tools: Mobile games employ technology in various ways: as
information screens, as communication media, as barcode scanners, as GPS, as map displays etc.
 Mechanisms: The mechanisms of the game involve mainly the pacing of the game and the type of
interaction between players. Will the game be competitive or collaborative (i.e. in order for the game
to proceed to the next stage all players need to collaborate in order to collect the required amount
of evidence or clues). Are the players allowed to communicate between themselves? Are players
aware of the actions of their opponents or co-players?
 Location and real world objects: This item involves how space and the real world objects are
integrated into the game. Is space just the background for player action? Are real-world objects part
of the game? How players will interact with them?
 Behaviors and aesthetic result: This item involves how the game will evolve over time and what is
the envisaged player experience.
The designers can follow the order of the items if they have a rough idea of what might be the game in order
to elaborate on its details. The same items can be addressed in random order, as triggers for brainstorming,
drawing ideas from known- successful games and then they can try to relate the items between them in order
to converge and support a main game idea. This game design process is intended to take place in the context of
group work (more than one group is involved in designing a game). In this process groups work on the game
components in two rounds, at the end of the first round each group presents their design and the other groups
comment and make suggestions. During the second round groups integrate into their design comments and ideas
presented by the other groups and re-present their new game at the end of this round.
References
Dodd, J. 2009. The Generic Learning Outcomes: A Conceptual Framework for Researching Learning in Informal Learning
Environments, in Vavoula, G., Pachler, N., and Kukulska-Hulme, A. (eds.) Researching Mobile Learning: Frameworks,
methods and research designs. Peter Lang, Oxford
Falk, J., Howard, & Dierking, L., Diane. (2000). Learning from museums: Visitor experiences and the making of meaning. Altamira
Press.
Hein, G. (1998). Learning in the Museum. New York: Routledge.
Sintoris C., Stoica A., Papadimitriou I., Yiannoutsou N., Komis V., Avouris N. (2010). MuseumScrabble: Design of a mobile game for
children's interaction with a digitally augmented cultural space, International Journal of Mobile Human Computer Interaction,
2(2), 53-71, April-June 2010.
Yiannoutsou, N., Avouris, N., (2012). Mobile games in Museums: from learning through game play to learning through game design,
ICOM Education, vol. 23, pp 79- 86 (also available in http://ceca.icom.museum/node/203)
Internet Resources
Design workshop material and concept: http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/pompeiigame/). Last accessed June 27, 2013
MuseumScrabble http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/museumscrabble/ Last accessed June 27,2013
BenakiScrabble http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/bms/?lang=en Last accessed June 27,2013
Invisible City http://www.invisiblecity.gr/ Last accessed June 27,2013

Balázs Vendler
34
BALÁZS VENDLER
Gamification – Beyond the Buzzword
Using game elements, tools and dynamics in a non-game environment e.g. in education, at work or in the
field of marketing. This is the simplest definition of the buzzword: gamification. There is a very wide range
of its use. Many examples demonstrate that the implementation of games in different environments can
drive engagement, creativity, production, performance and behavior change among players who can be
customers, students, fans or employees. Each and every game mechanism (points, levels, leaderboards, etc.)
is connected directly to game dynamics (rewards, statuses, competitions, etc.) which are human desires or
basic needs (like the desire to achieve, the desire to get promotion at our workplace). These dynamics are
universal and can be found across different generations, cultures and genders. Here, the difference between
mechanisms and dynamisms is that the first one is more about actions, behaviors and control mechanisms that
create together an engaging user experience while the second one, dynamism is more the result of our desires
and motivations. (PwC, 2011)
Mechanics
Dynamics
Points
Reward
Levels
Status
challenges
Achievement
Virtual goods and spaces
Self-expression
Leaderboards
Competition
Gifts and charity
Altruism
If we just take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, besides the basic physiological and safety levels there
are three more kinds of needs which are connected with our social life. These are „love and belonging”, „self-
esteem” and „self-actualization”. The first one is the need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance in our
social groups. The second is self-esteem, which presents the desire to be accepted and valued by others. And the
last one, self-actualization, refers to a person’s full potential and its realization. With gamification, these levels
of needs and desires can be easily satisfied by continuous feedback to the player’s performance, achievable
points, badges, statuses, competitions, the opportunity to be the best and by many more aspects of games.
(Cherry, K. N.d.)
Some gamification experts make a difference between gamification 1.0 and 2.0. The perfect example for the
first one is Foursquare. With the application users can achieve points, badges, statuses after their check-ins to
different places but that is nearly all. In the 2.0 version all the game elements mentioned above are implemented
into a real business environment, used to solve real business problems and to help real business processes like
recruitment, employee trainings, branding or customer engagement. (Kuo,I 2013)
The Millennials and the relevance of the technology
Analyzing the Millennial generation is important, because they are a very significant part of the labour and
consumer market as well. In order to satisfy their needs, desires and leverage their potential we have to know
their motivations, expectations and based on the results provide them with personalised solutions.
MTV’s study called „No Collar Workers” from 2011 focuses on the differences between the perspectives of
the Millennials’ (20-, early 30-year olds) and Baby Boomers’ (who were born between 1946 and 1964)
expectations towards work and working environment but of course we can get some conclusions about their
basic behaviours also. The results of the study enhance the relevance of using gamification in business processes.
The key finding of the study is that Millennials are going to reshape the workplace as well as the consumer and
media market. Millennials have come with the age of text messages and social media usage. Because of these

Gamification – Beyond the Buzzword
35
they are „hyper-connected”, they want to receive quick and immediate, nonstop feedback any time, they are
very impatient. They need feedback about their work more often than the Baby Boomers do. They don’t separate
their personal and professional life strictly, that’s why they prefer casual attire. They want flexible working hours,
they think that more working hours don’t mean higher performance. They would „rather have no job than a job
they hate”. They would like to have a fun and social workplace, transparency is important for them. That’s why
they want to know details about e.g. the company’s strategy. The traditional and strict hierarchy is just simply
not for them. (Hillhouse, A. 2012)
Gamified business solutions can provide continuous and immediate feedback for the Millennials. They can
help to decrease the lack of engagement which this generation exhibits. With gamification and its tools, work
can be more interesting and fun for them. All these things are going to increase the performance of the
Millennials at work as well.
This study is specifically important in order to understand the Millennials’ motivations but gamification is a
solution for every generation based on the desire we all have in common: to play games.
Foreign examples
To demonstrate the efficiency and the results of the implementation of gamification techniques in different
areas, let’s see some successful examples from abroad.
Foursquare is a wide-known, location based social networking website, launched in 2009 and at the moment,
it has more than 33 million users. It allows users to check in places and connect with friends. The check -ins are
awarded by points. Users who checked in a place on more days than anyone else in the past 60 days will get
mayor status. Users can earn badges for checking in at various venues. Scoring is very complex, there are more
than 100 means by which to earn points. Some examples from the scoring: checking in a new place: 3 points,
becoming the Mayor: 5 points and so on. These simple game mechanisms such as points, badges and statuses
led Foursquare to huge success, engaged millions of people and affected their behaviour - all while raising $50
million. (Zichermann, G. 2011)
Deloitte Leadership Academy, an online training program, transforms training sessions from boring must-dos
into exciting and useful free time activities. In 2013 it was awarded the „Greatest impact in Gamification” award.
Right now it has more than 20,000 executive users and since the integration of gamification the number of users
returning to the site each week has increased by 37%. There are badges, leaderboards and missions embedded
into a user-friendly platform, and with video lectures, in-depth courses, tests and quizzes users get more engaged
and more likely to complete training. Deloitte Leadership Academy proves that gamification has its relevance in
the field of training and development. (Heong Weng Mak 2013)
The second example is from the field of HR, employee engagement and a little bit of finance. It is NextJump’s
initiative. Keeping fit is the CEO’s, Charlie Kim’s personal goal and he believes his employees should value it also
as a tool to improve their lives, to reduce the company’s insurance costs, and to prevent employee absenteeism.
The company installed gyms in their offices, employees could check in to workouts, and see their performances
on leaderboards. The top performances were rewarded with a cash prize. Later, Kim retooled the game and
created a team sport. From that time on there were regionally based teams, competitions and of course
leaderboards. Here, gamification helped to create a happier and healthier working environment with more
engaged employees - and last but not least it significantly reduced (by millions of dollars) insurance and work
attendance costs. (Zichermann, G. 2011)
An example for engaging citizens with games to be more involved in the American democratic process is
MTV’s Fantasy Election, a game from 2012. The idea came from Fantasy Football games where the user has to
draft a team out of real football players and based on their real time performance the user can gain or lose points.
In Fantasy election, the team players were candidates running for presidency and congressional seats of the
United States. The candidates were evaluated by 5 categories: honesty, transparency, civility, public opinion and
constituent engagement. These evaluations were sourced from independent, non-partisan organisations and
channelled to the game. For instance the candidate who held a public speech or led any campaign event got 300
engagement points, those who exhibited uncivil behaviour (language of violence, demeaning language) lost 500

Balázs Vendler
36
civility points. The players could gain bonus points when they involved themselves in the election, for example if
they read relevant articles about the candidates or answered daily questions. The prizes were very motivational
and the game was so engaging that nearly 20,000 players managed to undertake more than 500,000 real civic
actions during 2 months and the game’s website received nearly 140,000 individual visitors. But the biggest
achievement of Fantasy Election was that with gamification they reached and engaged thousands of a very
disenchanted target audience, American youth. (Heong Weng Mak 2013)
These examples were enough to prove the usage, relevance and success of gamification in very diverse fields.
In the followings there will be two examples of the application of gamification in marketing, recruitment and
image-building. Both of them were designed by MarkCon.
Uniface – University reality
(Uniface Case Study (2013) MarkCon Group)
About the game
MarkCon has worked for the University of Pécs since 2006. From that time we have organised altogether 4 online
campaigns for the University, Our simulation started in the fall of 2011 and was expanded first to regional level,
and later we also involved the University of Szeged. The biggest advantage of this higher education solution is
that we can address youth through games in order to build the image of the university, to create interactive
communication and moreover, to build a stable fan community. The concept was born in order to raise the
university’s position in today’s increasing competition, to set up a new and unique communication channel which
introduces the values of the university in a very credible and distinguishable way.
Evolution
The simulation game creates a virtual world which gives important and useful information to high school students
before they decide about their university application. In addition, the game gives real university experience to
the players. After a successful application students can continue their studies in a state-financed or self-paid way.
They can live in dormitories or in flats and of course they can decide about their leisure-time activities too. They
can choose professional career development during their studies but turning their energies to build up their
personal network is also possible. There is an important question in the game just as in real life: how to cope
with finance. For outstanding marks they can get scholarships, by sacrificing their free time they can earn some
money or there is the opportunity to apply for a student loan.
The personal attributes and the decisions together make the virtual semester exciting and full of experience
during the game. Players have to make many decisions in the virtual class, choose many paths and while doing
these they have to keep in mind their efficiency which is defined by the amount of knowledge they have gained
during the university years. Nevertheless the player’s role in communities and the development of their network
have a strong influence in their future life.
From originally comprising simple quizzes, the game has evolved into a real simulation of the university life
with the help of various scenes of the university experience, 3D locations, navigation map, photographs, videos
and many interactive functions. A crucial advantage of the game is the „You’re right there!” feeling which involves
the player in the real life of the university.
For those who are starting their career by choosing the right university, the internet is the prime source of
information not to mention Facebook. With this game communication with the target group is straight and
unique. Thanks to Facebook, the game related posts, comments news and likes are viral and that makes us sure
to reach our target group.
Measure of successes
After continuous game development and the wider range of the communicated values, the next steps were
changes in the name of the game and the increasing number of the users. In 2011/2012 3,450 users played with

Gamification – Beyond the Buzzword
37
Uniface and 12,015 people followed the actions on Facebook. The results of the survey filled out by the users
liste the following:
 the concept of the game is an exceptionally great idea, they’re satisfied with the game,
 the professional questions helped the players to prepare for the preliminary procedure,
 they got a lot of new and useful information about the university because of the university related
questions,
 thanks to the city related questions the environment becaqme more attractive,
 visits have become common at the university, on the Facebook page of the game and in the game
itself,
 the impressions about the university have changed for the positive,
 90% of the users will apply to the University of Pécs.
Multipoly – Innovation in recruitment, worklike reality
(Multipoly Case Study (2013) MarkCon Group)
About the game
PwC Multipoly is an innovative online recruitment game which introduces life at the Hungarian office of the well-
known consulting firm, PwC and at the same time gives an opportunity to its users to simulate real working
environment. The game demonstrates the values of the company and its expectations of young fresh graduates.
„Worklike reality”, this is how PwC named the game which lets the players simulate a one year long internship
program at the company in a time period of 12 days. The game replaces traditional case studies which are a little
bit old-fashioned nowadays. However, the game allows the company to get a clear overview of the competencies
and knowledge of potential applicants interested in working at PwC. The game has proven to be more efficient
compared to traditional employer branding tools.
How the game worked
The game had two rounds. The first round was the online 12 days long simulation. After that the best performing
players were personally interviewed by PwC professionals. in addition, the virtual experience players were
competing for valuable prizes. In 2013 the grand prize was a trip to the USA for two, the second prize was an
iPhone and the third an iPad. For Facebook activities small prizes were drawn (mugs, pens, earphones). Besides
the big prizes, these small gifts helped to motivate the players.
After registration players could create an account and then by filling out a preliminary examination they could
apply to PwC. Before the examination the players had to watch a video and then – based on the video – they got
6 multiple choice questions on 3 different topics. After that there were logical and basic literacy tasks. Based on
the results of the exam the players got their starting attribute points. Everyone could get into the game no matter
how this exam ended up but these attribute points played important roles later on and they defined the players
starting position in the game.
The navigation platform was an office designed as a real one. Objects marked with red dots had roles in the
game. For instance with the computer the players could check their e-mails and one click on the mock-up of the
PwC Hall led the players into the game room. The game room simulated the real PwC Hall’s offices and from this
place the users could navigate wherever they wanted to. The most important part of the navigation platform
was the elevator which gave an opportunity to go to different floors. On the floors players could choose from
certain locations and after choosing the right one there were many situations waiting for a solution.
Every day started with a question with two given answers. There were no right or wrong answers, they only
had an effect on the attribute points. There were required tasks on each working day just like random situations
and optional elements too. The required tasks’ location was always marked with yellow. Every day started at the
Club Lounge Corner with checking the e-mails and solving the current required tasks. One quarter in the game

Balázs Vendler
38
was equal to 3 days in real life and because of this each and every action had a serious impact on the final result.
Players had to take that factor into account.
Each quarterly pereiod started with a meeting with the player’s personal Coach who informed the player
about the goals of the upcoming three months in a video message and in written form and also evaluated the
previous three months’ results. Achieving the goals let the players enter into a new and higher position. Every
quarter had a key goal, these were:
 1st quarter: Getting to know the environment, colleagues, tasks
 2nd quarter: Training
 3rd: Affiliation, joining a community
 4th: Client-related tasks
The players had the opportunity to create a maximum of 10 characters under their profile but more
characters didn’t mean better chances or any advantages for a character. Each character had 20 action points
per day and the required tasks needed 5 of them so the users had to keep this limit in mind and manage their
tasks well. Based on these factors, the opportunity to create more characters was in-built for those who wanted
to spend more time playing the game but were prevented from doing so because the action point limit wouldn’t
allow them.
Results in numbers
In 2013 altogether 1120 people played from 292 different cities. 257 users created at least 2 characters just to
be able to spend more time playing. The goal of reaching the target group was absolutely successful, most of the
players were university students with economics or related studies, speaking business English at least to an
intermediate level. The performances were satisfying, 78% of the players answered the questions correctly. The
survey which was made after the end of the game shows that 77% of the respondents had a positive attitude
change towards PwC. Some statistics from marketing side:
 624 special tasks solved,
 11,000 game days started,
 113,000 actions,
 659 Facebook permissions,
 17,820 visitors,
 4,667 individual visitors.
Summary
It’s the world of web 2.0, the Millennials are very mobile and have very specific needs. The traditional employer
branding tools should be replaced by means that are more closely adjusted to the demands and attitudes of
younger generations. These facts raise the competition among employers from national to international level to
find the best recruitment solutions and to engage with talented youth.
With Multipoly we tried to satisfy the contracting parties’ needs in a multi-staged system. Basically, games
like this have mainly short-term marketing values for the contracting party and the measure of success is the
number of applicants. But in the long-run, Multipoly helps the recruitment and selection processes too. The large
number of players provides PwC with a great opportunity to create a pool of talented and quality players who
are potential applicants. Besides these factors, building loyalty is also a long-term effect of the game: Multipoly
players are more likely to imagine their career at PwC than at any other companies and the company has an
opportunity to build loyalty at a very early stage.
Multipoly is a high-quality employer branding tool for big companies which helps them to communicate
corporate values while the users have the opportunity to experience company life and gain information about
the company, straight from the company. Thanks to the game environment, personal involvement is very strong
and users are more likely to remember all the information than by employing any other communication channel.

Gamification – Beyond the Buzzword
39
General summary
After getting a clear picture about gamification and the opportunities it provides, we can say that this tool has
strong relevance in the market, especially if we want to engage members of the Millennial generation. Of course
every trend has its ups and downs, there are always big successes and failures as well but gamification is
something we have to take into account when examining our opportunities.
Bibliography
Cherry, K. (N.d.). Hierarchy of Needs: The Five Levels of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Downloaded: about.com,
http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm 17th September 2013.
Heong Weng Mak (2013). Deloitte Leadership Academy Leads with the Gamification of Training. Downloaded: gamification.co,
http://www.gamification.co/2013/01/11/deloitte-leadership-academy-leads-with-the-gamification-of-training/ 17th September
2013.
Heong Weng Mak (2013). MTV Fantasy Election: Key Findings and Lessons for All. Downloaded: gamification.co,
http://www.gamification.co/2013/03/19/mtv-fantasy-election-key-lessons/ 17th September 2013.
Hillhouse, A. (2012). Consumer Insights: MTV’s ’No Collar Workers’. Downloaded: blog.viacom.com,
http://blog.viacom.com/2012/10/consumer-insights-mtvs-no-collar-workers/ 17th September 2013.
Kuo, I. (2013). Moving Beyond Points and Badges: Gamification 2.0, Downloaded: gamification.co,
http://www.gamification.co/2013/04/03/moving-beyond-points-and-badges-gamification-2-0/ 17th September 2013.
Multipoly Case Study (2013) Markcon Group
PwC (2011). EMC Power Series: The Gamification of Everything. Downloaded:
https://emarketing.pwc.com/ReAction/images/NYM/EMC%20Power%20Series_Gamification%20of%20Everything_8.11.2011_F
INAL%20DISTRIBUTE.pdf 17th September 2013.
Uniface Case Study (2013) MarkCon Group
Zichermann, G. (2011). 7 Winning Examples of Game Mechanics in Action. Downloaded: mashable.com,
http://mashable.com/2011/07/06/7-winning-examples-of-game-mechanics-in-action/ 17th September 2013.

Balázs Vendler
40
Chapter 2.
City Mapping and Perception of the City
Reading the city and generating a new city image
A guide to a layered multicultural mapping

INFOCITY: New Cities Reading & Promotion System
41
PANAYOTIS PANGALOS – VASSILIKI PETRIDOU
INFOCITY: New Cities Reading & Promotion System

The current way of understanding and knowing cities is characterized by speed of travel, interest in new
destinations, the aging of older centers of interest and the appearance of more modern sites. In the near future
the development process of the EU Member States is committed to building a new flexible entrepreneurship
adapted to the characteristics and possibilities of freedom of movement and citizens’ access. In this direction, it
is important to understand the critical role that the concept of STRUCTURED INFORMATION plays in an
environment of competitiveness and innovation, both at national and at European level. Young citizens, either
as permanent residents or as moving populations (work, tourism, recreation, health) increasingly feel the lack of
methodical, reliable and immediate guidance and information on elements which they may choose from, through
multiple options that a place offers in the modern era. Local governments’ modern strategies should invest in
enhancing the quality of products and services in the region with a simultaneous assimilation of an operational
value-oriented system of innovation, adaptation to specialized knowledge, effective use of local wealth and in
creativity and harnessing opportunities emerging from technological progress.
Consequently, the introduction of methods of Research, Identification, Registration, Evaluation and
Promotion of the specific features of cities is to determine the growth and competitiveness in economic terms
(Evans 2005). Once the cities of developed countries are prepared to offer their space even through virtual
reality, in Greece reading and viewing local features of an area is still based on traditional methods, resulting in
the field of city tourism and cultural marketing not being as competitive as in other countries.
Investigating the above in real time, we have constructed and propose a new methodological enhancement
tool of the multicultural identity of cities by repositioning their destinations. The proposed system is the creation
of a CITY IDENTITY WORKSHOP (CIW), which will be undertaking the construction of a renewed and competitive
image of a city, using a new way of reading and presentation with emphasis on linking local data with those of
other international areas.
There are Urban Study Workshops in many universities around the world as well as independent
organizations such as: IPCity (research consortium partly funded by EU Sixth Framework Programme - Integrated
project on Interaction and Presence in Urban Environments); the Foundation Gramsci Emilia-Romagna (Italy);
the International Laboratory of Civil planning Villard (Italy); the organization SPUR [San Francisco Planning and
Urban Research Association] (USA; the international organization PanUrban Intelligence; the Urban Institute
(Washington, USA); CPANDA [Cultural Policy & the Arts National Data Archive] (U.S.); the UCRC [Urban-Culture
Research Center] (Osaka, Japan); the GHAMU [Groupe Histoire Architecture Mentalités Urbaines] (Paris, France);
the CPSCC [Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities] (Vancouver, Canada) etc.
Unlike other countries (De Carlo et al. 2008), in Greece the study of urban phenomena is restricted to either
university laboratories of Urban and Regional Planning, or in the field of academic courses of Urban and Town
Planning programs for undergraduate and graduate studies. The implementation of a multicultural and economic
reading of cities in Greece in combination with an integrated repositioning system of their image as thematic
tourism destinations and use of the material generated to highlight and promote cities in socio-economic status
has not yet become possible even at high level.
Development of the methodology of the proposal
This paper presents a proposal for the design, organization and operation of a cutting-edge City Identity
Workshop (CIW), which will produce material to be used in highlighting & promoting cities at a socio-economic
 Earlier version of the study has been published as: Old cities as a new destination: promotion and development of the
multicultural identity of the city Patras – Greece, in the Proceedings of the 3rd National Conference on Urban Planning and
Regional Development, Volos, 27-30 September 2012, ISBN 978-960-9439-13-8, 978-960-6865-52-7

Panayotis Pangalos – Vassiliki Petridou
42
level. The proposed method includes RESEARCH and MAPPING of cities with major reading axes such as
architecture, art, religion, collective memory, museums, archives, public places, cultural events, economic and
productive functions of civilization. The city of Patras is defined as the scope used in this proposal.
The working method of the City Identity Workshop (CIW) will be based on two main components:
Α) On an Integrated ANALYSIS System of the city and its special features, which combines the advantages of
modern technological methods, reading, organizing. And classifying information will lead to a comprehensive
Historical Research (Identification, Registration, Documentation) of archaeological sites, architectural works
(buildings and settlements), museums, archives, design of public space, recording facts and elements of collective
memory, tracking, recording and study of events in the city, recording of the generated experience, identifying,
recording and study of production areas and availability of local produce, track and research points of special
tourist interest, etc. Such a system can read images of the city, which until now have remained on the sidelines
or not yet emerged (Parkerson, B. and Saunders J. 2005).
Β) On an Integrated PROJECTION System of the city and its particular characteristics. Using online viewing
media may produce a renewed image of the city with a full update on the features, products and services
available in the city. A series of new maps of the city are considered important to design: a. Archaeological, b.
Artistic, c. Architectural, d. Religious, e. Memory & experience, f. Archives & museums, g. Public property, h.
Cultural happenings, i. Economic & business, with multiple paths and information to create new images of the
city.
Feasibility, importance and contribution of the proposal
The main objectives of the proposal are:
1) to elevate the city as a new tourist destination (internal & external)
2) to project the potentials of the city to welcome new investments and thus increase the economic mobility
of the city,
3) to create a new perception for the inhabitants of their town by presenting a renewed image of its
components
An important element of this proposal is the intention of proceeding this investigation from the theoretical-
analytical part in practical scope through to efficiency in economic terms. Specific objectives include:
 The analysis and photographic mapping of production sites and distribution of local products.
 The labelling of key and critical elements would be desirable to distinguish a broad economic map
based on financial products and markets.
 Mapping in full detail the economic cultural products (agricultural, livestock, craft and industrial
production), so that they become available through modern means of access.
 The formulation of detailed communication proposals and special communications equipment to all
potential visitors, after comparative analysis and synthesis of all the above with a focus on the
advantages - disadvantages, strengths - weaknesses and possibilities for their implementation.
The case of the city of Patras- Greece
The existing literature on the Greek cities, among which the city of Patras is limited to historical content texts
fails to present a modern dynamic and comprehensive view of the modern city. The tourist or professional city
guides feature fragmentary material of low quality and financial information unrelated to other features of the
city. The organization and movements within the immediate surroundings is not intended to update nor to
facilitate displaced residents and visitors. Therefore, the manufacturing and disposal of such information requires
a comprehensive analytical procedure using new technologies that will yield a set of coordinated data (cultural,
historical, economic, etc.) on the current urban reality.

INFOCITY: New Cities Reading & Promotion System
43
Special mapping of Patras
The new mapping of a city aims to collect information which may fuel the renewed image of the city. The reading
of the city is expanded beyond the conventional conceptions. For example, among the Greek, Roman and
industrial ruins, as far as their definition is concerned, there is no substantial difference. As carriers of memory,
ruins are still considered to be industrial buildings of the 20th century, buildings that in the near past constituted
the dynamic elements of the city. Each era is historically evaluated by its ruins. Also a city is not only what it
appears to be on its surface, a great treasure of knowledge is hidden underneath its soil. For example, the history
of networks (water supply and sanitation, electricity, telecommunications) and other infrastructure, form the
structure of an organization, which quietly supports the operation of the city but also represents an important
part of its life. The emergence of this secret part of the urban reality is a new unknown element that can enrich
the city's image. Analyzing the various networks over time, we can also gain a new wealth of information about
the historical development of the urban fabric in relation to policy choices. Finally, the main economic products
of the region are not only a monetary input, but can be seen as a cultural factor that can link Patras with other
production centers, resulting in creating a visibility network of the city through new common features. For
example, the wine business of Patras can be connected to other similar Mediterranean cities. That way Patras
and its history will show a new multicultural identity that will strengthen its ties with other international centers.
TOPIC
FIELD
PROJECT
PRODUCT
1.
THE PRESENT OF HISTORY
Archaeological sites,
excavations and ruins by the
end of the 20th
Historical Research
(Identification, Inventory, Design,
Documentation)
ARCHAEOLOGICAL MAP
2.
ARCHITECTURE AND THE
CITY
Buildings and Settlements
from antiquity to the
present
Historical Research
(Identification, Inventory, Planning,
Documentation and Classification
of Buildings)
ARCHITECTURAL MAP
3.
MULTICULTURAL PATRAS
Religious Buildings,
Cemeteries, Monuments
and Urban Art
Historical Research
(Identification, Inventory, Design)
RELIGIOUS - ARTISTIC MAP
4.
CITY & COLLECTIVE
MEMORY
Landmarks of urban life and
collective memory elements
Historical Research, Locating sites
and Event Recording
COLLECTIVE MEMORY MAP
5.
TRACES AND THEIR
FUTURE
Archives, Museums,
Monuments, networks
Research, Identification and Study
files (photos, private collections,
etc.) and monuments
FILING AND CONSERVATION
MAP
6.
COLLECTIVITIES OF THE
CITY
Public spaces (squares,
parks), public buildings
(Administration, Security,
Justice, Education,
Healthcare, Recreation)
Roads
Research, Identification and
Recording of Public Areas and
Buildings
PUBLIC PROPERTY MAP
7.
THE CITY AND THE WORLD
Cultural events (Carnival,
Agios Andreas, Film Festival,
etc.)
Identification, Registration and
Study of the main festivals and
events in the city
CULTURAL EVENTS TIME-
MAP
8.
ECONOMIC DYNAMICS OF
THE CITY
Key financial products
(agricultural, livestock, craft,
industrial production) and
markets
Identification, Registration and
Study of production sites and
distribution of local products
FINANCIAL MAP
9.
COMMUNICATION AND
PROJECTION OF NEW
IMAGE OF PATRAS
Marketing, promotion and
communication of all
modules
Identify competitive advantages
and generated experience
INTEGRATED PROMOTION
AND COMMUNICATION
PROGRAM WEB PORTAL

Panayotis Pangalos – Vassiliki Petridou
44
Utilization of the results
The aim is to draw conclusions on the most popular means of communication for the successful promotion of
the city as a new destination: tourism, investment, scientific cooperation The key assumption underlying the
research is that the features and general profile of the places of production and marketing of local products
should be transformed into powerful and useful information. In this way a new economic map of the city of
Patras can be created. Multicultural records of the status quo will lead to export direct conclusions on issues of
critical importance. Some of the applications of log analysis and enhancement of sites, areas and points, social,
economic, cultural, historical, religious and scientific interest, may provide answers to very critical issues that
require decisions, such as:
 On social interactions within the urban area.
 On Thematic Tourism development planning (Religious Tourism, Ecotourism, Caving Tourism,
Cycling Tourism, Climbing Tourism, Marine Tourism, Web Tourism, Diving Tourism, Hiking Tourism,
Business Tourism, Health Tourism, Sport Tourism).
 On winter tourism development planning (tourism in Mountaineering, Ski centers).
 In educational programs for training in cultural / tourism.
 On policy towards basic social problems (targeting the disabled, weaker social groups, immigrants,
minorities, etc.).
 On the need for a strategy on issues of environmental protection and sustainable development.
 On the planning and on upcoming infrastructure projects.
 On cultural initiatives and participation in international and domestic cultural institutions.
 On the allocation of state resources to cultural activities.
 On the architectural identity of the area, the parameters and rules for restoration and landscape
regeneration.
 On preservation or change in directions of the public space.
 On unexploited tourist resources.
 On a strategy for the production and distribution of new products.
 On a strategy for the effective promotion of existing products.
 On planning routes and schedules of public transport.
 On economic opportunities.
 On the design principles of the new urban fabric.
Contribution of the proposal
Progress is expected to contribute to the proposed research lines at several levels:
GENERALLY
 Increase the economic mobility of the city through new lines of thematic tourism.
 Presentation, organization and promotion of unknown elements of the city that aim to change the
perception of residents about their city and positive influence on young people (OECD 2009).
 Highlighting elements that will lead to improved quality of life and safer living (e.g measuring social
elements that will involve decisions by local authorities).
 Developmental progress of the city by creating a new competitive image internationally and
projection of the capabilities of Patras in order to receive new investments.
SPECIFICALLY
 The interdisciplinary nature of the research will promote interdisciplinary and inter-institutional
cooperation in general, and grounded pockets of interface will be created between researchers from
different scientific fields, but in every scientific field separately, the proposed research will
contribute to the advancement of knowledge in all themes included in the project. Therefore, in a
sense, the progress achieved with the proposed research will have both horizontal (interdisciplinary

INFOCITY: New Cities Reading & Promotion System
45
and inter-institutional foreshortening) and vertical (deepening and specialization of knowledge
within each scientific field).
 The proposed project and the resulting scientific research will enhance the progress of Greek
academic research and its competitiveness abroad.
Conclusion
The proposal is a methodological tool, focused on the city of Patras, but with extensive use, relating to increased
economic mobility of the city through new lines of thematic tourism, presentation, organization and promotion
of unknown elements of the city that aims to change the perception of residents about their city and positively
impact on young people, highlighting elements that will lead to improved quality of life and safer living (e.g.
measuring social elements that will involve decisions by local authorities), and developmental progressive city
by creating a new competitive image internationally and projection of the capabilities in order to encourage
new investments. The usefulness of this research is clearly crossing the boundaries of many, completely different
disciplines, such as history, archeology, art, architecture, marketing, advertising, psychology, information
technology, etc. Thus creating a City Identity Workshop promotes interdisciplinary foreshortening and
cooperation as it may become a magnet for scholars and researchers from different scientific fields. Moreover,
the existence of a City Identity Workshop is the first step in producing applied research, the results of which,
because of their innovativeness, will both enhance the competitiveness of the Greek academic community at an
international level and the other, will be channeled to other the Greek cities, thereby enhancing the capabilities
of local governments to absorb and generate new knowledge to solve economic, social, cultural, technological
problems and to innovate.
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Álvaro Campelo
46
ÁLVARO CAMPELO
Metropolises. New spaces of Urban Heritage
Introduction
We propose here to examine the processes of metropolisation and how it is influencing the concepts of city and
the consequent concept of urban heritage. The practices of Western Cities define what we mean by urban
heritage today. Both the question of spatiality, as well as the city's relationship with the surrounding territory
and its specificity compared to the countryside were important for the emergence of urban institutions and
architectural, politics, religious, cultural, military and housing shapes that composed them. The urban
organization itself sets the historical epochs of the city, since the ruins of classical antiquity until the industrial
revolution and modern urbanism, including the medieval times. The whole urban web is often seen as a feature
of its own, which defines a cultural identity. Therefore, many cities, due to their history and "urban identity"
were classified by UNESCO as a World Heritage Sites, as is the case of the city of Porto and Guimarães, right next
to us.
When we look at the city metropolis of our days, mostly arising from an integration by phagocytosis of their
neighbouring towns and villages, or by the appropriation of the surrounding rural areas, we find it difficult to
discern their urban coherence. Whatever in historical cities was achieved in the course of several centuries, now
happens in modern cities in a matter of few decades and with much more significant dimensions. Can this process
of constitution of the metropolitan centres define the cultural heritage of contemporary societies? And can it
transforming itself in a patrimonial legacy for future generations? What are the problems and the possibilities of
the metropolisation process that we are witnessing, and what consequences does it have for the historical
experience of the city?
We want to analyze the difficulty in establishing definitively the boundary between the world of the
countryside and that of the city, both at the level of physical reality – taking into consideration the locus in which
our research is based – and at the level of its theoretical and operational classification with regard to the future
of urbanism. And it is precisely on that difficulty – that could be the source of “a problem” – that this reflection
will fall, making of it an “opportunity” for both theory and process. The conceptual delimiting of spaces,
territories and socioeconomic practices associated with the terms “rural” and “urban” has always been based on
the hegemony of one over the other, in this case, of the urban over the rural. The purported ease with which
these two worlds were distinguished, always viewed within a simplifying dichotomy, reveals the history of the
so-called western process of civilization, where the city occupies the end goal or the reference for defining that
civilizing ideal (civitas – civilization).
Within a structuralist logic, positive values were attributed to the city and negative ones to the rural.
However, there is a paradoxical conception in this rural-urban relationship. At one point, having been
contextualized in a logic of dependence, the rural is allocated positive concepts, such as “rural landscape”
(synonymous with a bucolic environment and a naturalist aesthetic, close to the Garden of Eden), “healthy
environment” (with all the approaches of ecological enjoyment and consumption); “proximity relations” (where
social relations are founded on strategies of community life, conditioned by shared knowledge), etc. All this as
opposed to the city!
At another point, when wishing to classify some of the problems of the city, rural and country terms are used,
of which “urban jungle” is the most widely known, (with manifold meanings, including urban disorder and social
conflict). Similarly, if originally the term “landscape” was associated with rural spaces
1
, it too has been
appropriated by narratives about the city, with reference being made to the urban landscape, and this
1
The root word in “landscape is “land”, which is linked with concepts of region, the soil and homeland. The term arose in
the Renaissance to designate a kind of painting depicting nature and country life.

Metropolises. New spaces of Urban Heritage
47
subsequently came to be expressed in landscape architecture (Telles 1994; 2006; Shane 2006; Silva 2006). The
rural, urban and metropolitan landscape share meanings and constraints, but each employs various reference
elements, like points and lines that draw and outline it: spaces of continuity and discontinuity, of relation and
closure - in other words, its identity! Meanings betraying the memories (Certeau 1975; Marot 2003) and
experiences of social actors should be related to this transmutation, as well as the search for an interpretation
of the complexity of the two spaces (the rural and the urban): each, more than designating itself, designates the
relation it establishes with the other!
How can the notion of “landscape” be introduced in another form in the urban context, especially in the
urban metropolis? Nowadays, the rural is imagined as a place that sustains consumption and leisure
(Hadjimichalis 2003). But the rural landscape, as an asset to be preserved and a space enshrining the
transformation and experiencing of the space, can include the most surprising, and even problematic elements
at the level of utilitarian use and effectiveness. Can the same be said of the urban landscape? In other words, to
what point does the urban landscape have to be effective and have a constant operative functionality? To what
point should not the city embrace and integrate those spaces that are “meaningless” or useless in terms of
effectiveness, but which nevertheless reveal other reasons, such as ecological sustainability, beauty amidst
chaos, planned and assumed “forbidden places”, like places of magic? How can the different and (apparently)
contradictory metropolitan landscape be integrated? The problem lies in that legacy from the civilizing process
of which the city is one of the prime exponents, together with its rules for use and planning. Can one plan
disorder? Might disorder and the “empty” space that forms an integral part of the mental imagery be useful?
Will we have to propose a new rationality for a type of space that relates the urban with the rural, in order to
have meaning in our metropolises? Following the “natural form” inspiration in architecture and design, based on
biological organisms, why not inspiration for urban planning from the “natural” space and the symbiosis of the
ecosystem? Under what conditions and within what relationships could the different users' memories and
experiences of the space (Campelo 2010) play a role in the metropolises? We would probably find it difficult to
move on to this paradigm, having been trained in that fundamental distinction between the rural and the urban.
Yet, if the urban has spread its forms, social strategies and values into the rural space, why should there not be
an inverse movement? We know that ethnographic research has discovered this in corners of the city, in
marginalized spaces and lifestyles. Could not this be the chance for those lifestyles and those spaces to escape
from the marginal position imposed on them and become, in themselves, spaces for modern discussion of the
metropolis?
Hence, there is nothing to dictate a logic of dichotomy or hegemony as the basis of this relationship, since
such a logic has always had its moments of heterodoxy. The history of urbanism and the rural world is not linear.
The latter is not necessarily a consequence of the former. At some moments of western history, the growth of
great cities and urban economies has been followed by periods consolidating rural life and the values of peasant
communities. The reasons for these events may be religious and political, or due to epidemiological factors and
ecological/energy sustainability (Rapport 1998).
In situating my reflection in the field of anthropology, I have noted that, in the history of anth ropological
research, there has been a process of selecting the object of study which has been informed by the emergence
of a supposedly more complex corpus, which has to some extent revolutionized the field. Thus, the study of the
so-called primitive societies led on to that of urban societies, via the peasants (the departments of
“Mediterranean anthropology” in the Anglo-Saxon universities are a good example of peasant studies). In order
to study the peasant and rural world (the terms do not signify the same reality, as we know) the variables of the
market economy and central political power had to be introduced, which was not the case with the previously
studied societies. However, from the outset, a logic of belittling the peasant and the rural assumed t he
establishment of “reserves” (communitarian-type peasant societies; desertified spaces) whose characterizing
elements prevailed, evading the great transformations being undergone by European rural societies in the 20th
century. City values and industrialization (informed by technological progress and the complexification of the
market) were to put an end to a supposed “uniformity” of the peasant/rural world, thereby diversifying the
lifestyles and identities of those inhabiting the rural space, together with the rural landscape.

Álvaro Campelo
48
The relationship between the urban and the rural began to encourage social thinkers and land use planners
to build interaction models, of dominion or imposition. Hence, we can find an extremist proposal for complete
urbanization (Lefebvre 2002), and another advocating a rural renaissance (Kayser 1990). But one cannot, today,
think about the urban and the rural using the previous logics, since we are experiencing, in our western global
societies, a profound mutation of these two realities. One