5 Case Study 1 - Leicester Research Archive - University of Leicester

displayed for decades as originals. Museum experts are human beings, who also
make errors. Yet so far, museums have relied upon the judgment of experts to
interpret objects in their care. Now, with the possibility to present collections
online, thereby providing the possibility to open up processes of interpretation of
material culture on a scale previously unknown, the question arises, whether
museums would benefit from the knowledge of the wider online community or
not. The tools to start a debate and to include contributions of users and to make
processes of interpretation more transparent are here now, yet, at the same time,
like in the case of the study by Nature magazine, mentioned above, which
investigated the reliability of entries in Wikipedia, the question comes up, how
the museum can ensure the quality and the reliability of content produced by
non-expert users.
It is proposed that one should take a more differentiated approach to defining
user participation. On one hand, this could mean that users are literally getting
involved in content production. Examples of this have already been mentioned
above. Through drawing upon a number of important examples of museum
websites and literature in the area of study, the author proposes that the concept
of fostering user participation is not restricted to activities, which explicitly invite
the user to create content. Rather, while there may be some projects where this
sort of interaction has proved to be successful, there is also space for other
projects where the content production is driven by the museum. However, the
way this content is chosen and edited aims to motivate the user to get a more
involved, a more immediate and a more intellectually accessible museum
experience.
User participation understood in this way has therefore not got anything to do
with users writing and uploading content. Nor is it related to the idea that online
museums can foster two-way communication between museum and audiences
and among audiences themselves. Rather, it has to do with user-empowerment. It
is based on the idea that a more informed user will automatically make more
sense of the museums’ offerings, which is supported by the research of Falk and
Dierking, who argue that a visitor who feels comfortable in the galleries, who
can easily orientate him/herself around the spaces, and has some sort of idea
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