Project Description
Our research project aims to develop innovative approaches for the sustainable transfer of cultural heritage knowledge within educational contexts, while fully leveraging the potential of digital media and digitized cultural assets. At the heart of our investigation lies the question: How can cultural heritage sites be designed digitally, interactively, and sustainably to engage diverse audiences — especially young people and those from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds?
Using examples of cultural heritage sites from different countries, we will identify existing digitization efforts, assess their effectiveness in achieving social sustainability, and develop and implement concepts for socially sustainable knowledge transfer. Throughout this process, we are guided by the questions: What forms of digital valorization are being generated, and are they made accessible to the general public? Our focus is on evaluating the social sustainability of knowledge transfer, understood as the active participation of young people and those with limited access to education. The core objective is to explore how the sustainable digital mediation of cultural assets can be successfully integrated into school education for children and adolescents.
In addition, the project aims to develop an experimental teaching concept for teacher training programs in Latin, History, Social Sciences, and Educational Sciences — and to implement these concepts directly in schools. We plan to further advance the use of serious gaming for this purpose. To this end, we are designing a prototype app related to the cultural world heritage of Roman architecture in various countries, which will be developed and refined collaboratively with university students.
This research project builds on the experiences and preliminary results of a pilot study entitled “Transforming Cultural Heritage in 3D”, which focused on the digitalization of the Barbara Baths in Trier. This project produced high-resolution 3D models created through a combination of photogrammetry and Lidar scanning, enabling the creation of realistic, detailed representations of this cultural monument.
Sustainable Knowledge Transfer
Cultural participation has become a mass phenomenon in modern societies. With the transformation of mass media, the radically different principles of the digital economy, and the widespread integration of artificial intelligence as a tool in cultural production, the nature of cultural participation is undergoing profound change.
Creative Commons licenses — which initially promoted free access to the digital world and cultural heritage — have also evolved into a mass phenomenon and are now culturally normalized. This broad generalization of cultural participation represents a new form of democratization, enabling digital access to a society’s cultural heritage in unprecedented ways, making it available to everyone.
The use of digital media and AI-supported tools for everyday tasks is increasing rapidly, especially among young people. Around 62% of young people use artificial intelligence daily, particularly for homework, information searches, and leisure activities.
This development contrasts sharply with state-run educational and cultural institutions, which currently engage only to a limited extent with this ongoing, digitally driven, and highly effective process of creating new knowledge and new forms of knowledge and cultural transfer. As a result, the field of cultivating young minds is increasingly left to the structures of the digital economy, while the teaching and learning methods practiced in schools are becoming progressively disconnected from students’ everyday realities. Reducing this "decoupling dynamic" is a key aim of the project.
Heidelberg Research Group for Organization Studies – Prof. Dr. Markus Pohlmann. heiGOS.
Source: Creative Commons
Research director
Prof. Dr. Markus Pohlmann
Researcher
Kim Kettner
Leoni Kotwan
Project duration
2023 - laufend