The Virtual Teaching Collection (VTC) project at the

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge The Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, also known as MAA, at the University of Cambridge houses the university's collections of local antiquities, together with archaeological and ethnographic artefacts from around the world. The museum ...

within the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

, led by Dr Robin Boast, ran from 1994 to 1997 and was part of the Teaching and Learning Technology Project funded by the

Higher Education Funding Council for England The Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) was a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom, which was responsible for the distribution of funding for higher education to universities and further education colleges in Engl ...

. The VTC was an early innovative social computing project that developed a software program, Cabinet, which ran on

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ances ...

Macs and allowed users to create, develop, manage and comment on

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 ...

collections. The project anticipated many of the current features of the

social web The social web is a set of social relations that link people through the World Wide Web. The social web encompasses how websites and software are designed and developed in order to support and foster social interaction. These online social int ...

and

social computing Social computing is an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and tech ...

. The VTC was concerned with virtual objects. It was a collection of digital representations that may be used as a collection. The images did not pretend to be the objects, but were objects in their own right and, therefore, able to constitute a collection in their own right. The goals of the VTC were twofold. First, to explore the range and potential of producing and using digital representations in their various forms; images, texts, hypertexts, video, sound, 3-D images and illustrations. Second, to construct a working digital museum that was meaningful to the way we work with collections. The collections that were developed included about 4,000 images and other representations of objects, along with the related catalogue information. Within the

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts ...

Collection, these objects span the

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several part ...

to the

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

period in Britain. The

History of Science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

Collection drew on the collections of the

Whipple Museum Whipple may refer to: People *Whipple (surname) (including a list of people with the surname) *Whip Jones (1909–2001), American ski industry pioneer, founder, developer and original operator of the Aspen Highlands ski area in Aspen, Colorado * W ...

at the

and the

Collection at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

. As well as directly related information, these Collections also included text, video, and display resources, as well as bibliographies and glossaries. Included in the collections were a variety of what were called " narratives". These were works using the collections in a variety of forms from traditional documents to hyper-documents to display spaces, but these are seen, much as any work, as the view of an author. This was central to the way that Cabinet collections work. They are not fixed ‘textbooks’ but flexible resources that teachers and students may work with to create meaningful works. It was in this way that the collections do not form an end in themselves, but a means of working. They are the very flexible resource that students and researchers use to think with.

Cabinet

Cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filing ...

'' was a software application developed as part of the VTC and was designed to be an easy to use and well presented suite of software tools that were intuitive. Using these tools, the user could create their own collection, and could search, retrieve, display and browse the existing collections. The presentation tools allowed the user to compare different objects, to identify and display significant details, to create links to related images, video and text, and to embed representations in their own authored texts or other presentations, whether these be straightforward documents or more complex hyper-documents. Cabinet was not simply a multimedia authoring tool. It was designed to be under the control not only of the author, but also of the reader. The collections were not interactive in the conventional sense, but were interactive in the sense that the reader could also modify or even re-author what had been produced. This kind of flexibility of presentation tools freed the user from the rigidity of traditional presentations and gave access to the full potential of contextualising information. There was an increased variety of narrative forms, but, primarily, it was an environment within which students and researchers could construct and explore new ways of thinking about material objects and their history.

Project participants

;Lead institution *

Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

University ;Consortium members * The

, Cambridge University * The

Museum of the History of Science The History of Science Museum in Broad Street, Oxford, England, holds a leading collection of scientific instruments from Middle Ages to the 19th century. The museum building is also known as the Old Ashmolean Building to distinguish it from th ...

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

* The Department of Archaeology,

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

* The Lansdown Centre for Electronic Arts,

Middlesex University Middlesex University London (legally Middlesex University and abbreviated MDX) is a public research university in Hendon, northwest London, England. The name of the university is taken from its location within the historic county boundaries o ...

* The

Centre for Metropolitan History The Centre for Metropolitan History (or CMH) is an educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the Institute of Historical Research in the School of Advanced Study of the University of Londo ...

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

The Centre for Metropolitan History

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

, UK.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Virtual Teaching Collection 1994 establishments in England 1997 disestablishments in England Archaeological databases Archaeological collections Collaborative projects Virtual museums Museum education Collections of museums in the United Kingdom History of the University of Cambridge