WebExhibits is a
virtual museum
A virtual museum is a digital entity that draws on the characteristics of a museum, in order to complement, enhance, or augment the museum experience through personalization, interactivity, and richness of content. Virtual museums can perform as t ...
of science, humanities, and culture that uses information, virtual experiments, and hands-on activities that prompt visitors to think, to formulate questions, and to explore topics from a variety of angles.
Exhibits
There are nine main exhibits. They are:
* "Causes of Color,"
* "Color Vision & Art,"
[Pipes, Alan. "Foundations of art + design." Laurence King Publishing, 2003. page 264. ]
* "Pigments through the Ages,"
* "Investigating Bellini’s Feast of the Gods,"
* "Van Gogh’s Letters,"
* "Poetry through the Ages,"
* "Calendars through the Ages,"
* "Daylight Saving Time."
* "Butter,"
History
It was founded in 1999 by Michael Douma at
IDEA
In common usage and in philosophy, ideas are the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophers have considered ideas to be a fundamental ontological category of being ...
, and was one of the first virtual museums of its kind.
The site launched with two exhibits on Calendars and Daylight Saving Time, as a complement to www.time.gov. This was the anchor that started the museum. Subsequent exhibits were multidisciplinary, looking at the nexus between science and art. The largest sources of funding have been from contracts and grants from
NIST
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
, the
U.S. Dept of Ed., and the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...
.
The first version of WebExhibits in 1999 included a directory of cultural and scientific offerings at other sites. At the time, the major search engines were doing a poor job of directing web users to exhibits at Library of Congress, PBS, Discovery Channel and other sites. This directory was discontinued in 2003 once search engines became powerful; and it was no longer feasible to include all major online exhibits.
The museum is widely cited in academic, student, professional, and general writing.
WebExhibits was the first testbed of interactive concept maps using the
SpicyNodes presentation approach.
Research
IDEA has published research on exhibit design and usability, and advocated for the format as an effective approach to draw in visitors to complex, multidisciplinary topics.
References
External links
* {{Official, http://www.webexhibits.org/
Virtual museums
Museums established in 1999
Science museums
1999 establishments in the United States