Opening up collections: free training workshop on crowdsourcing, chatbots and 3D

This two day workshop will introduce you to three core approaches for 'opening up' your collections. Whether you are an archivist, a museum or art gallery curator or a librarian, you will have the opportunity to dive into digitally-enabled methods to co-produce, interpret and enhance the accessibility of heritage resources.

The workshop will cover an introduction to crowdsourcing, and two hands-on session focussing respectively on chatbots and 3D modelling. Chatbots are increasingly popular and used for tasks ranging from customer service to online commerce. But what do these bots have to offer for Storytelling? On the first day of the workshop we'll look at examples from the worlds of news and cultural heritage and explore the potential of chatbots for storytelling. You will use Twine - an open-source tool for writing interactive hypertext stories - to create your own branching narrative, driven by scripted chatbots. The second day will focus on 3D modelling. You will be introduced to principles of photogrammetry, learn photo-taking techniques and how to develop a 3D reproduction with Agisoft Metashape. Finally, you will experiment with uploading the models you created on Sketchfab and with annotating them to provide more personalised and detailed information about the objects.

This workshop is funded through the generous support of Art UK's Sculpture Around You project.

Workshop Schedule

29 August

9.30 Welcome

9.45 Introduction to photogrammetry

10.00 Photo-taking

10.45 Coffee break

11.00 3D modelling

12.30 Lunch

13.00 3D modelling

14.45 Coffee break

15.00 Digital curation and annotation

16.00 Close

30 August

9.30 Welcome 

9.45 Crowdsourcing: a taster

10.45 Coffee break

11.00 Chatbots: an introduction

12.30 Lunch

13.00 Chatbots: develop your own!

14.45 Coffee break

15.00 Chatbots: develop your own!

16.00 Close