Along with the development of the Internet of Things and its related technologies, various industries, especially the service industry, have evolved from being «informatized» to being «intelligentized». This trend has also brought changes to various services offered by museums in Taiwan. Indeed, the Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics have brought museums the opportunity to develop innovative exhibitions, enhance their educational function, and realize their vision statements. In relation to the Intelligent Museum Project, the National Science and Technology Museum launched the Special Exhibition on Exploring the Internet of Things. In the Exhibition, technology education is integrated with research on information and communications technology, as well as daily life, via an interactive narrative on information and communications technology that grows by leaps and bounds. «Online to Onsite visitor behavior system» was also constructed to capture visitors’ behavior in a real-time manner, and to create the Internet of Things within the Special Exhibition of the Internet of Things. The challenges include: determining how to present the «virtual» internet world in the «real» Exhibition, conversion of the content of interactive exhibits, selection of narrative approaches, and construction of a database system.
When the Special Exhibition was launched in the National Science and Technology Museum during 2016-2017, the data were collected via the system constructed in the exhibition hall. An analysis of 14,960 entries of visitors’ behavior found that 98.4% of visitors were highly satisfied with the Exhibition; average time on site per visitor was 92 minutes; general performance of visitors’ behavior was 22.35 points, which falls into «high-level participation»; there was no «low-level participation». Judging from the comments and feedback provided by visitors, most of them are positive about the Exhibition. As such, it can be said that the educational function of the Special Exhibition on Exploring the Internet of Things has been realized.
The National Science and Technology Museum launched the «Explore IOT Exhibition» in 2017. When curating the exhibition, it included the exhibit education activity: «DIY Unmanned Aerial Vehicle» in its planning to respond in a real time manner to the emerging issue of incorporating information, communication and digital technology into the Curriculum Guidelines for the 12-Year Basic Education, displaying the Museum’s function in supporting formal education. Museum has to be innovative in terms of educational activity to meet various groups’ learning needs. Using «DIY Unmanned Aerial Vehicle» activity as an example, this paper discusses the generic learning outcomes (GLOs) of non-formal educational institutions used in said activity to plan further activities and conduct learning evaluations. The objective is to see if it is feasible to practically use GLOs for the Museum’s educational activities. The results of a qualitative and quantitative data analysis show that most participants gave positive feedback to learning effectiveness, attesting to learning goals based on the framework of GLOs set by the organizer. GLOs make it easier for the organizer to focus on the direction of the activity. The findings from this case study suggest that GLOs can serve as a reference for promoting the Museum’s educational activities.
The National Science and Technology Museum creates an “Online to Onsite visitor behavior system”(OOVBS) into ”Explore IoT Exhibition”. The system is installed in all interactive units, through app, beacon technology and program for capturing personal experience during a museum visit. Besides, we adopted Stephen Bitgood’s behavior observation scale: the degree of involvement, the state of operations, the degree of reading, and the content of discussion into this interactive unit as criteria for evaluation. We will be able to retrieve visitors’ data that included basic information, comments and feedback, as well as comprehensive performance of visitor behavior via this system, by starting and operating interactive units with the corresponding identifiers of the applications demonstrated at the exhibition that they download. This article presents an “online to onsite” exhibition mode of intelligent museum to access learning behavior of visitors and build data analysis.Through the actual implementation of a visitor database for the exhibition, audiences’ visiting behavior and learning mode can be documented and evaluated. If the concept of a ‘museum group’ system can be developed in the future to integrate all museum audiences’ information, it will have an impact on the museum’s exhibitions, education, and operations.