Heritage Key was a content-oriented online community aimed at those with an interest in history and culture. It featured both media resources and an interactive experience. Available content included podcasts, streaming videos, news articles, interviews, discussion groups and blogs. The content was often created in conjunction with archaeologists and historians, such as the Egyptologist Dr

Zahi Hawass Zahi Abass Hawass ( ar, زاهي حواس; born May 28, 1947) is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Wes ...

and

John Julius Norwich John Julius Cooper, 2nd Viscount Norwich, (15 September 1929 – 1 June 2018), known as John Julius Norwich, was an English popular historian, travel writer, and television personality. Background Norwich was born at the Alfred House Nursing ...

. Heritage Key combined this content with an online 3D virtual experience, or

virtual world A virtual world (also called a virtual space) is a computer-simulated environment which may be populated by many users who can create a personal avatar, and simultaneously and independently explore the virtual world, participate in its activities ...

, that recreated artifacts and archaeological sites.

The Virtual Experience

The Heritage Key Virtual Experience (VX) allowed users to explore virtual reconstructions of historical sites from around the world. Users navigated through these virtual worlds by creating avatars, enabling them to interact with each other and to explore in groups. All artefacts and historical sites were reproduced in

3D modelling In 3D computer graphics, 3D modeling is the process of developing a mathematical coordinate-based representation of any surface (mathematics), surface of an object (inanimate or living) in Three-dimensional space, three dimensions via 3D comput ...

applications using measurements and photographs of the actual sites and artefacts. Digital content creation was handled by Rezzable, a London-based team of digital artists.

Open source approach

Heritage Key used a range of open source software, including content management system,

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwide ...

, and online 3D simulation software,

OpenSimulator OpenSimulator is an open-source server platform originally launched in 2007 for hosting virtual worlds and metaverse environments. It is largely compatible with the virtual world ''Second Life'' but full compatibility is not a design goal. Fe ...

Content delivery

Heritage Key used a variety of existing social media platforms for sharing and viewing content, including

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

Flickr Flickr ( ; ) is an American image hosting and video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was a popular way for amateur and professional ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

and

RSS feeds RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

User-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...

was also accepted through the sharing of photos via Flickr, posting blog entries or helping to create some of the digital items in the VX.

Potential in education

Heritage Key also acted as a

Virtual Learning Environment A virtual learning environment (VLE) in educational technology is a web-based platform for the digital aspects of courses of study, usually within educational institutions. They present resources, activities, and interactions within a course stru ...

. Educational institutions could use Heritage Key to develop experiences for their students inside the virtual world. Teachers could select content and choose how to deliver it in the most appropriate way. The Heritage Key VX supported real-time communication through messaging and live conversations via

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

Virtual tourism

Three-dimensional virtual tourism A virtual tour is a simulation of an existing location, usually composed of a sequence of videos, still images or 360-degree images. It may also use other multimedia elements such as sound effects, music, narration, text and floor map. It is dis ...

allows travellers to see and explore

virtual reality Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), educ ...

environments for the purpose of experiencing physical places in space and time without physically traveling there. Heritage Key’s VX provided an environment where travelers could explore historic sites, meet and interact online and share advice or recommendations for potential destinations.

References

{{Reflist

External links

*https://www.youtube.com/user/heritagekeymedia/videos History websites of the United Kingdom