Overview

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have partnered with the Museum to gain a better understanding of visitor behaviour patterns in exhibitions through museum settings. In particular, this study aims to analyze the following aspects of museum visitor interactions:

1. What is the progression of visitors through the exhibition?
2. How much time do visitors spend interacting with a museum display on average?
3. What are the effects of using different types of museum labels (digital, paper based etc.) at each display regarding visitor engagement with that specific display? The amount of time spent at each display by a visitor and the way visitors interact with each display plays a vital role in curation-related decision making. Further, as Museums move towards digitizing various aspects of the museum experience, we are interested in understanding if digitization, specifically of the museum labels, has a more positive impact on a visitor’s museum experience.To help us achieve our objectives, the Rolling Stones exhibit will be monitored through the use of a camera which will be placed high up to get a bird’s eye view of the room. This camera uses privacy aware software to collect statistical information about the movement patterns of museum visitors in the room. In other words, no identifying information will be collected about museum visitors. Observing the patterns allows us to determine how much time each visitor spends at each display. This then helps us to provide feedback to the Museum regarding how popular certain exhibits are.

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What does participation involve?

Participation in this study is assumed when the participants enter the space with signage. The participants do not need to do anything specific, we wish to simply observe as they move across the space.

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Your rights as a participant

Your participation in this study is voluntary. You may decline to participate by coming back at any point other than the time periods specified. For the sake of clarity, these times are 11 AM to 2 PM, Tuesdays and Thursdays only. No recording is conducted at any other time. You may decide to stop any time and leave the hall if you feel uncomfortable.

Benefits of the study: Participation in this study will not provide any direct benefit to you, however study results will be used to better understand museum visitors’ movement patterns through an exhibit. This is important for assisting museum management with estimating viewership patterns and the popularity of specific exhibits. There are no known or anticipated risks associated with participation in this study. If you would like to know more about the results of the study, please feel free to get in touch with the researchers one year from now.

Confidentiality: As noted above, no identifying information about museum visitors will be collected during this study. The camera will not store images of participants’ faces or bodies. Rather, the software used by the research team will detect the area in which a person was standing or moving in. This information will be translated into coordinates that will make up the dataset to be analyzed by the research team. Collected data will be securely stored for a minimum of 7 years on a password-protected lab server accessible only to members of the research team. Because data is anonymized, please note that it will not be possible to withdraw data once it is collected. The anonymized data may be shared publicly (e.g., in data repositories). Sharing the data allows other researchers to verify results and avoid duplicating research.

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Questions, comments, or concerns

Ethics clearance: This study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance through a University of Waterloo Research Ethics Board (REB #43272). If you have questions for the Board, contact the Office of Research Ethics at 1-519-888-4567 ext. 36005 or reb@uwaterloo.ca Contact Information: If you have any questions regarding this study, or would like additional information about your participation, please contact us by email at omabdulh@uwaterloo.ca. Furthermore, you may also contact the Principal Investigator, Steven Bednarski, at steven.bednarski@uwaterloo.ca

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Consent

Please note that consent to participate in this research study is implied by entering the exhibition space on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 11:00AM to 2:00PM. As noted above, if you do not wish to participate, you may visit the Exhibition at any other time.

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