{"id":1592,"date":"2012-06-08T11:15:09","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T11:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsletter.alt.ac.uk\/?p=1592"},"modified":"2012-06-08T11:15:09","modified_gmt":"2012-06-08T11:15:09","slug":"the-scarlet-project-marrying-augmented-reality-and-special-collections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2012\/06\/the-scarlet-project-marrying-augmented-reality-and-special-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"The SCARLET Project: Marrying Augmented Reality and Special Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The following feature on the SCARLET (Special Collections using Augmented Reality to Enhance Learning and Teaching) project discusses its creation and development, as well as its use of Augmented Reality (AR) in education, including content development, evaluative processes, and the implemented technology.\u00a0 Pedagogy has driven the project and its use of AR, not the other way around; however, this article focuses more directly on the technological side of things, in part, because of the audience of the newsletter, namely those who are a part of the learning technologies community. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Background<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Augmented Realityis an interesting and powerful application of a cutting-edge technology, which is increasingly making inroads into many different contexts, including education, and is poised to have a significant influence over existing and developing pedagogical practice. \u00a0Prior to this move, it was most often applied to sports programming and gaming: systems which allow us to share in the experience from the perspective of the person in the sport or from within the game.\u00a0 Charles Arthur, Technology Editor for The Observer<\/em> explains AR as: \u201ctak[ing] a real-life scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add[ing] some sort of explanatory data to it so that you can better understand what’s going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where you want to go\u201d (21 Mar 2010).\u00a0 However, Arthur also explains that AR has actually been around since the 1970s, with \u201cart installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual \u2026 in particular the work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger\u201d (ibid).\u00a0 The explosion, so to speak, with its potential is that the means of getting AR to people have become much easier and cheaper, which is turn has meant \u201cthe technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of people, often in the palms of their hands\u201d (ibid).\u00a0 Relatedly, The Horizon Report<\/em> (2011) pointed out that AR was a technology to watch over the next 3 years.\u00a0 Because of its ability to \u201cintersect with practices in mainstream popular culture, [it will be a] significant tool for education for many years \u2026\u201d (5).<\/p>\n

The SCARLET Project\u2019s Aims<\/strong><\/h2>\n

With this educational context in mind, in 2011 Mimas, the JISC-funded data centre at the University of Manchester, applied for and were awarded funding under JISC\u2019s Learning and Teaching Innovation Grants programme to develop an AR application for Special Collections. This resulted in the SCARLET project (, which addresses one of the principal obstacles to the use of Special Collections in teaching and learning \u2013 the fact that students must consult rare books, manuscripts and archives within the controlled conditions of the John Rylands Library reading rooms at Deansgate. The material is also isolated from much of the secondary, supporting materials and the growing mass of related digital assets. More often than not, this is an unfamiliar and frustrating experience for students accustomed to an information-rich, connected wireless world, and consequently is a barrier to their use of Special Collections.<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a>
\nFigure 1: Screenshot from the user journey video<\/a> showing how the app is used<\/strong><\/p>\n

The SCARLET project is addressing these issues directly, bringing Special Collections into the age of the app. AR enables students to experience the best of both worlds: to enjoy the sensory delights of seeing and handling original materials, while enhancing the learning experience by \u2018surrounding\u2019 the object with digital images, online learning resources and information on the items before them and on related objects held in the library and elsewhere. AR makes the sessions more interactive, moving towards an enquiry-based learning model, where students are set real questions to solve, through a combination of close study of the original material and by downloading metadata, images and secondary reading, to help them interrogate and interpret the material. One of the benefits of the project is that it makes it more feasible to host \u2018taster\u2019 sessions for first and second years, enabling them to engage with Special Collections materials without requiring extensive handling of the original books and manuscripts, and thus addressing conservation concerns about the over-exposure of fragile objects. It will also help more advanced students across that difficult transition from mediated learning to independent research. Students are being encouraged to use the SCARLET app in the Library\u2019s Reading Room, while they are undertaking detailed research on a particular object or group of items from the collections. The app is not intended to spoon-feed them with information in order to answer research questions; rather, it can prompt lines of enquiry and help students to contextualise the objects in front of them and to compare them with related material elsewhere in the world.<\/p>\n

AR has never previously been used to enhance the experience of using Special Collections material for teaching and learning. \u00a0It has potential to revolutionise teaching and learning in this field, helping students engage with primary source materials and linking fragile and rare objects with online resources. An additional, unexpected benefit of the SCARLET project is that it is changing perceptions of Special Collections, which are now regarded as being at the leading edge of information technology and pedagogy, setting an example for colleagues in other areas to follow.<\/p>\n

The Pilot Course \u2013 \u201cBeyond the Text: The Book and Its Body\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Dr. Guyda Armstrong\u2019s \u201cBeyond the Text: The Book and Its Body<\/a>\u201d was selected for the pilot course, developing content around 10 key editions of Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy<\/em>.\u00a0 With the aid of Matthew Ramirez, who worked to develop the app, all content came from Dr. Armstrong\u2019s course materials, keeping a clear eye on how the existing resources could be integrated with the technology to ensure cohesiveness.\u00a0 Following on, a different course with 1st year undergraduates is in place, as well as plans for two additional modules: AR with Milton\u2019s Paradise Lost<\/em> and another on the world-renowned oldest fragment of the Gospel of John, dated from the first half of the second century C.E.<\/p>\n

The Dante editions, of which the pilot course only used 10 of the existing 15 in the collection, are each distinct in their own right and range from the 1472 Foligno, the 1487 Brescia, all the way up to the 1555 Venice.\u00a0 Their presence in Special Collections means scholars could make physical comparisons among them; however, Dr. Armstrong is also using AR to do the same thing: make scholarly comparisons of the physical objects and make that work available to the students in the course, indeed allowing them to also make comparisons and draw conclusions about these amazing artefacts!\u00a0 The potential is amazing, and students get the opportunity to do some of the \u201cdirty work\u201d so to speak of looking at the texts directly, while also having a guide to the other materials which can aid in the analytical and interpretative processes essential in the field.<\/p>\n

As SCARLET progresses, we expect that lessons learned from development can be successfully applied to the wider teaching and learning community. The team sees great potential in applying SCARLET principles across a broader range of subject areas, and we are looking for opportunities to exploit this technology further. There\u2019s already interest from disciplines such as Medicine, and we\u2019d like to encourage others to get in touch with us.<\/p>\n

We will make all project outputs available under Creative Commons licences, and we aim to achieve a solution that could be implemented by other libraries, archives and museums with Special Collections material. We have created a simple toolkit, in addition, to assist others in the creation of projects using Augmented Reality in any context, to enable teachers and librarians to construct their own tailored AR applications, without extensive technical expertise or dedicated IT support. \u00a0A methodology that can be easily replicated within other contexts is a key driver in order to benefit others who want to develop AR applications to support teaching and learning.\u00a0 \u00a0Through existing networks of academic and library staff, we will involve a wider community of practitioners in the development of the AR project, inviting them to attend workshops on the application of AR in teaching within the Special Collections environment and involving them in the testing of the project outputs.<\/p>\n

Student Feedback<\/strong><\/h2>\n

We ran focus groups for the pilot course of 3rd years, as well as for three different groups of first year students, who are about to begin the element of their studies using the SCARLET app: Dr. Guyda Armstrong\u2019s \u201cContemporary Italian Culture\u201d, as well as Dr. Roberta Mazza\u2019s \u201cAdvanced Greek 3\u201d and \u201cThe Body and Society: Christianity and the West.\u201d\u00a0 The responses from the students have been overwhelmingly positive.\u00a0 One student, who initially stated that she had no real experience using mobile apps, pointed out to the rest of the group that it took her only 2 minutes to download the app for her android phone.\u00a0 Most felt that the use of AR in an educational context was particularly helpful in the evaluation of key resources, assisting in their research endeavours.<\/p>\n

Students then had an opportunity to use the app for themselves with iPads supplied by the John Rylands Library.\u00a0 While working with the technology and learning about the Dante editions and the fragment of St. John\u2019s Gospel, they said:<\/p>\n