MOAC II user evaluation: Making museum content useful

Abstract

Museums and the Online Archive of California II User Evaluation (MOAC II) examines digital museum content for use in education and research. MOAC II is an advancement of MOAC (1998-present), a major collaboration involving integration of collection descriptions and images. The evaluation targets four user constituencies: K-12 teachers, university students, academics in the humanities and social sciences, and museum professionals, librarians and archivists. MOAC II examines why users use digital museum objects, what users need to understand about museum objects as sources of information and evidence, and how digital museum objects might be used to enhance classroom teaching at K-12, undergraduate, and graduate levels. MOAC II collaborators will report on progress made in the first year of this collaborative research project.