Abstract
THIS PAPER provides a history of thePachyderm 2.0 Project, a partnership led by the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMONA), and funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The project brings software development teams and digital library experts from six NMC universities together with counterparts from six major museums to create a new, open-source authoring environment for creators of Web-based and multimedia learning experiences. The new tool is based onPachyderm, the authoring and publishing tool used by SFMOMA to author its successful series, Making Sense of Modern Art (www.sfmoma.org/msoma).
Developed by SFMOMA to make the publication of modular and updateable rich media an easy task,Pachyderm has allowed nonprogrammers to create a variety of engaging resources that draw from, and build on, the collections of SFMOMA. The paper provides an overview of the project's history, a description of the development process and the collaborative processes used, and a discussion of the features that makePachyderm effective as a tool for teaching and learning. A final section describes thePachyderm user community and mentions how interested institutions can become involved.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR Peter S. Samis is Associate Curator, Interpretation at SFMOMA. He served as art historian/content expert for the first CD-ROM on modern art and then spearheaded development of multimedia programs for SFMOMA's new building. Since then, SFMOMA's IET programs have received awards from sources as diverse as the American Association of Museums, the National Educational Media Network, and I.D. Magazine.Points of Departure, the Museum's 2001 exhibition that experimented with the integration of new technologies directly alongside the art in the SFMOMA galleries, was awarded AAM's 2002 Gold Muse Award for best use of new technologies in an art museum setting. Samis holds a BA in Religion from Columbia College in New York and a MA in the History of Art from the University of California, Berkeley. He is Co-Project Lead on thePachyderm 2.0 open source initiative (www.pachyderm.org) and, together with his team, continues to produce innovative content for SFMOMA's galleries, podcasts, Web site, and the Museum's Koret Visitor Education Center.
Laurence F. Johnson is Chief Executive Officer of the New Media Consortium (NMC), an international consortium of more than 200 world-class universities, colleges, museums, research centers, and technology companies dedicated to using new technologies to inspire, energize, stimulate, and support learning and creative expression. He is an acknowledged expert on the effective application of new media in many contexts, and has worked extensively to build common ground among museums and universities across North America and in more than a dozen other countries. He is the author of a number of important books, monographs, and articles exploring emerging trends and issues related to that work.
In his current post, Dr. Johnson brings visionaries and thought leaders from across the globe together to define and explore new ways of thinking about and using technology, and to examine emerging trends and issues. The NMC's annualHorizon Report has become one of the leading tools used by senior executives in universities and museums to set priorities for technology planning. NMC summits and large-scale projects have helped set the agenda for topics such as visual literacy, learning objects, educational gaming, the future of scholarship, and the new Web. Recent examples are the NMC's high-profile experimental campus in the virtual world of Second Life and its leadership role in the MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning.
Having served as president and senior executive at institutions in both the higher education and not-for-profit realms, Dr. Johnson has more than 25 years of experience leading high-profile, high-stakes projects. His educational background includes an MBA in Finance and a PhD in education that focused on research and evaluation. Among many other recognitions, Dr. Johnson has been honored as a Distinguished Graduate by the University of Texas at Austin.
Rachel S. Smith is Director of Special Projects & Publications for the New Media Consortium (NMC). A specialist in project coordination, user interface design, and visual facilitation, Rachel directs thePachyderm Project as well as all NMC internal and external publications. She serves as an interorganizational liaison, bringing together various groups to develop new projects. Formerly of the California State University Center for Distributed Learning, where she was involved with the development of online educational materials including MERLOT (www.merlot.org), Biology Labs On-Line, and Light Bridge, Rachel authors instructional materials, guides, and monographs on the creative and technical aspects of teaching with technology.
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Samis, P.S., Johnson, L.F. & Smith, R.S. Pachyderm: From multimedia to visual stories. J. Comput. High. Educ. 19, 3–25 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03033417
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03033417