CLIO
Overview
With the increasing prevalence and availability of open-source technologies, museums have been provided with a plethora of low-cost tools to enhance exhibitions and educational programming at their institutions[1]. While there are tools developed to tackle the digital interactive needs of museums, they often require extensive knowledge of coding and technology to fully utilize. We aim to rectify this with CLIO, an open-source web application for GLAM institutions.
CLIO is a pair of two web application graphical user interfaces that work together to manage your institution's Interactives. CLIO can be used to create and manage Activities, define their Audience, organize them into Programs, and then export them into an CLIO Interactive package file. This package file can then be used to update the content available, both on-line and in-person, through CLIO Exhibit. Package files can be archived to keep a running institutional record of the activities used within your interactives.
Each CLIO Interactive can contain multiple Programs and all the required data is stored within the web application directory, decreasing the strain on your institution's internet network when using offline kiosk systems. Entirely different sets of interactive activities can be loaded on-the-fly without internet access, even while away from your institution, making it easier to create pop-up exhibitions. Activities can be sorted into Audiences, allowing facilitators to tailor their live educational experience more closely to their current environment. [illustration needed]
Activities can be just about anything you can imagine. They are created through easily customizable activity templates, called Activity Types, specifically for use in an informal education or exhibit context. You can make your own, or utilize the ones that are provided. The default Activity Types included with CLIO range in complexity and customization options. There are simple interactive activities with very little customization, as well as more complex activities that can be extensively customized to assist in the creation of a narrative. Simple interactive games like quizzes, flashcards, and tile matching are included for younger audiences, while other activities like timelines enable older audiences to have a more in-depth informational experience.
Once these Activities are created for the CLIO web application, they can be used in different contexts. They can be used to create online exhibits of interactive activities; integrated into blog-based lesson plans; interacted with during live facilitated events; or displayed on an interactive kiosk in your building.
Web Applications
CLIO Create
CLIO Create is a web application graphical user interface that can be used to create and manage Activities, define their Audience, organize them into Programs, and then export an Interactive to a package file. Developers can create new Activity Types, designers can create Themes and educators can create Activities.
CLIO Exhibit
CLIO Exhibit is a web application graphical user interface that can be used to facilitate and display Activities in different ways. It can be utilized through three different modes: Facilitator Mode, Exhibit Mode and Activity Mode. “Facilitator Mode” allows program facilitators to curate which Activities to display as part of their live or pop-up exhibition. “Exhibit Mode” displays a curated selection of interactive activities for an audience. “Activity Mode” is used to display individual Activities. These modes are used together to create different interaction experiences.
Terminology
Activity
An Activity is a single instance of an interactive experience that uses data within a user-defined configuration file to populate an Activity Type template. For example, we can make two Activities: one named "Sol" and the other named "Alpha Centauri". Our new "Sol" and "Alpha Centauri" Activities can have their own unique name, description and theme that is used only by that activity. We can configure both Activities to use the "Video Playback" Activity Types, which will playback a video and provide the user with playback controls. Each Activity with the same Activity Type will require the same media and Activity Type configuration.
Activity Type
An Activity Type is a type of CLIO extension that contains code, styles, markup and data structures that allow CLIO to quickly produce new Activities without re-using code through templating.
Exhibit
An Exhibit is a specialized Activity Type that allows multiple individual Activities to be combined together to create a single Activity. This provides ways for Activities to be contextualized together or woven into a narrative. You can also use the same Activity in multiple Exhibits, allowing them to be grouped together differently for different Audiences.
Program
A Program is a selection of Activities within the same group, exhibit or educational program. Programs can be used to group Activities for pop-up exhibition tables, rooms, galleries, or just by subject.
Interactive
An Interactive refers to single instance of a digital interactive activity experience, such as an individual kiosk or web exhibition. Interactives can contain multiple Programs, allowing them to be used in different exhibitions even while away from your institution.
Audience
An Audience is a type of categorization provided to Activities meant to assist facilitators with selecting activities to fit their current needs and environments. Audiences are defined through CLIO Create and can be anything you want. They could be age groups, such as children and teenagers; groups based on familiarity with certain subjects, such as geology novices and trained geologists; or just specific keywords. This allows educators to tailor the experience on the spot to a variety of factors, such as set-up location, audience, event size or unusual exhibit configurations.
