The Visitor Studies Group

Back to Basics:
Revisiting the Essentials of Visitor Studies and Evaluation

Seminar
Visitor Studies Group & Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales
National Waterfront Museum, Swansea
6th March 2009

'Back to Basics' was a seminar aimed at those either new to evaluation and visitor studies, or those in need of a refresher of the fundamentals.  The morning focused on some background and theory, followed by some case studies. In the afternoon, some more practically based sessions gave delegates an opportunity to put the theory into practice.

Presentations highlighted in bold in the programme are available as downloads at the bottom of this page.

Programme

10:00 Arrival and Tea & Coffee

10:15 Welcome, Introductions & Ice-breaker Activity

10:30 An overview of front-end, formative and summative evaluation (Jenni Fuchs)

10:50 An overview of evaluation methods (Elaine Cabuts)

11:15 Break

11:30 Case Study 1 - Summative Evaluation of Oriel 1 at St Fagans: National History Museum (Beth Thomas)

12:00 Case Study 2 - Observational Mapping at the National Waterfront Museum (Rosalyn Gee)

12:30 Q&A Session

12:45 Lunch

13:30 Introduction to prototyping interactives + practical exercise (Jenni Fuchs)

14:15 Introduction to observation mapping + on-site exercise (Rosalynn Gee)

15:00 Some pointers on interpreting results (Jenni Fuchs)

15:30 Q&A and event wind up

15:45 End of event

The seminar was led by Jenni Fuchs (Visitor Studies Officer for National Museums Scotland, and Visitor Studies Group Chair), Elaine Cabuts (Public Consultation Co-ordinator for Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, and Visitor Studies Group Committee Helper), Rosalyn Gee (Learning Manager for the National Waterfront Museum), and Beth Thomas (Keeper of Social and Cultural History for St Fagans: National History Museum)