Audience Research
Join discussions about museum evaluation and audience research.
Our Bloggers
Lynda Kelly
Manager Online, Editing and Audience Research
Chris Lang
Audience Researcher/Advocate
Michael Hugill
Online Producer @michaelhugill
Irene Rubino
Intern
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Audience Research
- Dec 2011
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Aug 2011
- Notes From the Future: A Reflection on My Internship
- Science in the City: Sparking Interest
- Digital Literacies ... and app development
- Evaluation Twitter feeds to follow
- My Critical Appraisal of Surviving Australia
- Weapons! To battle ... or not to battle?
- Natural history specimens as social media stars: Mr Blobby
- Birds of Paradise Exhibition: Title Testing Results
- Do museum shops need to know about Web 2.0 and social media?
- Kids Teaching Kids - Solutions in the Works
- Ask a curator...1 September 2010
- Value Packaging for Families
- Smithsonian Commons Prototype
- Kids and credibility in the online world
- Twitter as an audience research tool?
- USA Trip 2010: Impressions from a land far far away
- The dinner table
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- Smartphones and open content – emerging trends
- Are we addicted to social media?
- Visitors to the Australian Museum use social media
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Sep 2010
- An introduction to Twitter
- Digital Heritage Students Lecture
- The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers
- Science in the City - The Final Lap!
- Science in the City - the Marathon Begins!
- Science in the City - A Marathon of Heroes
- How to be clever on Facebook
- Museums and the Web Conference 2010
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- Web 2.0 for small and volunteer museums
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Oct 2009
- Innovation in the Art Museum Symposium Taipei Day 2
- Innovation in the Art Museum Symposium Taipei Day 1
- What is the Audience Research Blog?
- Taipei Travels October 2009
- Handheld technology in museums
- Museums on Twitter
- Papers on museums and Web 2.0
- Knowledge Workers
- Crowdsourcing and exhibition development
- Applying and sharing research findings
- Summative Evaluation: Dinosaur Unearthed Exhibition
- Interest in Ancient Cultures
- Climate Change and Museums
- Sep 2009
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- May 2009
Biodiversity Exhibition Evaluations
This question from Georgina Bishop, Natural History Museum, London: Hi Lynda, Hope all is well with you. I am gathering some information on Biodiversity exhibitions as we are in the beginning stages of developing a brief for one that will happen as part of the NHM's masterplanning. I think that you also have a Biodiversity exhibition and I wondered if it would be possible for you to send me any front-end research you did as part of this.
Hi Georgina and I am well thanks! I have chosen to blog my response so others can have access. We did a series of studies for our former Biodiversity: Life Supporting Life exhibition as follows:
- Frontend evaluation report, 1997: concepts, themes, prior understanding and interpretive approaches
- Formative evaluation report 1 1997: concepts, population issues and interpretive strategies
- Formative evaluation report 2, 1998: topics and concepts, merchandise and exhibition title
- Formative evaluation report 3, 1998: text, label and graphics testing
- Summative evaluation, 1998
When reading these reports please keep in mind the time they were conducted (1997-98). I think many of the topics and understandings that we tested at that time would be vastly different now. For example, the issue of climate change was not really even thought about then.
There is also a project called Who Cares about the Environment? run by the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change that has been tracking attitudes to, knowledge of and skills and behaviour of adults regarding the environment over many years and is worth checking out. I'm sure there have been studies of this kind in the UK too. The Pew Internet/Exploratorium report The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science is also relevant as it showed that 20% Americans used the internet to find out information about science, including environment and climate change issues (second only to television at 41%) and this has implications for the conjunction of physical exhibitions and what museums provide on the web I believe.
Good luck.
Dr
Lynda Kelly
, Manager Online, Editing and Audience Research
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