Open Exhibits will develop a library of extensible multitouch-enabled software modules for all major platforms that exhibit developers can configure in almost unlimited ways. Built using the popular Adobe Flash and Flex authoring tools, museum professionals will be able to creative innovative floor and web-based exhibits easily and inexpensively.
Project Partners
Open Exhibits is a collaboration between Ideum and the Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI). This planned project also has three museum partners: The Don Harrington Discovery Center, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. Research and evaluation will be conducted by Institute for Learning Innovation (ILI) and Rockman et. al.
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What is Open Source?
"Open source is a development method for software that harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process. The promise of open source is better quality, higher reliability, more flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in."
Modules and Templates
The heart of Open Exhibits is professionally-designed modules that will act as building blocks for creating new exhibits. Templates will allow novices to create their own floor or web exhibits, while universal modules will allow more advanced developers to connect to online collections and web application, play multimedia, read RSS feeds, and more. Modules and templates will be touch- and multitouch-enabled.
Practical and open
Since most developers of computer-based interactive exhibits use Adobe Flash, Open Exhibits does too. All modules are authored in Flash, while templates will use Adobe’s open source Flex framework.
Multi-Platform
Open Exhibits will be available for Mac OSX, Windows and Linux. This flexibility expands the number of potential developers and ensures museums have a wide range of choices when it comes to choosing exhibit hardware.
A Community of Practice
Support and community of Open Exhibits users is planned using this site, pending funding. OpenExhibits.org will be a resource for developers, with screencasts, wiki documentation, research findings, forums, and the software itself.
Applied Research
Understanding the most effective practices in interactive exhibit design is essential to the success of Open Exhibits. We’ve planned a series of rapid prototyping sessions and evaluations and will be publishing the results here.
Plays Well with Others
Open Exhibits is part of a larger open source movement in the museum field. We’ve sought out advisors from the other museum open source initiatives (Collective Access, Omeka, and Pachyderm) to help make all of these tools more interoperable and more effective.