ExhibitFiles
Professional Development
ExhibitFiles is a community website for people who design and develop museum exhibitions. A project of the Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), the site was designed by multimedia company Ideum with the advice of exhibition designer Kathleen McLean and funding from the National Science Foundation (#0540261). The project's goal was to enable science exhibition developers to more readily learn from the work of others and to encourage them to open their own work to critical review.
The concept is simple: Anyone interested in exhibition development can join ExhibitFiles. Members can create profiles, post case studies of exhibitions they have helped to develop and reviews of exhibitions they have visited, comment on others' posts, tag and "favorite" posts, and contact others through the site.
Behind the site's simple concept are principles and strategies that have encouraged participation at a level well beyond the project's initial targets. Between late April 2007, when the site opened, and May 2009, membership in ExhibitFiles has grown to more than 1,200, with members coming from around the world. Together, they have created 96 case studies and 89 reviews (more than 20 of them of NSF-funded exhibitions or exhibits). There were more than 91,000 unique visits to the site over the last year. The result is a user-created resource, grounded in the "wisdom of practice," which makes available to others materials, memories, and practical knowledge found nowhere else. Case studies include verbal descriptions, photographs, and evaluation reports connecting decision-making based on both practical expertise and empirical findings. In recognition of its contribution, the site won the 2008 Museums & the Web award for Best Museum Professionals Site.
Among the principles and strategies that have contributed to the site's success so far:
- Templates for posting case studies and reviews that were developed and tested by exhibition practitioners and grounded in the language and culture of exhibition practice
- Simplicity, openness, and trust—from the disclosure of plans in a "development blog" during the early phases of design to the unmoderated, immediate posting of new contributions
- A devoted core group of widely respected users (including active members of NAME, the National Association for Museum Exhibitions) who advised on site design, contributed initial content, and helped spread the word
- Initial posts, created by the core group, that enabled others to see value in contributing and provided models for how to do it
- Occasional opportunities to meet face to face at conferences and meetings
- Optimized visibility of the site through a variety of techniques, including feeds on the CAISE website
Based on analysis of web statistics in July 2008 and a survey at an ExhibitFiles social gathering, evaluator Carey Tisdal has found that members have used the site mainly for networking and to learn about others’ work. They see potential in the site for disseminating their own work, developing new projects, and deciding what exhibitions to see in person. Initially, most of the case studies were posted by the core group, but a tipping point was reached toward the end of the first year, and now more contributions come from outside this initial user group. Professional community sites like this need time to grow and develop, Tisdal concludes. The summative evaluation, now underway, will look next at how this type of knowledge, gleaned from “the wisdom of practice,” is being applied to members’ work.
Web site:
http://ExhibitFiles.org