Moritz Stefaner

MACE - enriching architectural learning objects for experience multiplication

Education in architecture requires access to a broad range of learning materials to develop flexibility and creativity in design. The learning material is compromised of textual and visual media including images, videos, description of architectural concepts or projects, i.e. digital artifacts on different aggregation levels. The repositories storing such information are not interrelated and do not provide unified access so that retrieval of architectural learning objects is cumbersome and time consuming. In this paper, we describe how an infrastructure of federated architectural learning repositories will provide unique, integrated access facilities for high quality architectural content. The integration of various types of content, usage, social and contextual metadata enables users to develop multiple perspectives and navigation paths that support experience multiplication for the user. A standards-based, service-oriented software architecture, and flexible user interface design solutions, based on embeddable widgets, ensure easy integration and re-combinability of contents, metadata and functionalities.

Elastic Lists for Facet Browsing and Resource Analysis in the Enterprise

Information management and content governance in large corporations is an ongoing challenge. As a case study, we present the adaptation of the elastic lists facet browser for browsing and analysing large resource collections in an intranet of a large telecommunication corporation. The application allows users to explore resource aggregations over multiple classification schemata in parallel, enabling not only personalized information access, but also improved understanding of content distributions, as well as trend analysis and target tracking. We further present empirical usability results of a first prototype from questionnaires and eye tracking studies.

mæve --- An Interactive Tabletop Installation for Exploring Background Information in Exhibitions

This paper introduces the installation maeve: a novel approach to present background information in exhibitions in a highly interactive, tangible and sociable manner. Visitors can collect paper cards representing the exhibits and put them on an interactive surface to display associated concepts and relations to other works. As a result, users can explore both the unifying themes of the exhibition as well as individual characteristics of exhibits. On basis of metadata schemata developed in the MACE (Metadata for Architectural Contents in Europe) project, the system has been put to use the Architecture Biennale to display the entries to the Everyville student competition.

Supporting architecture education using the MACE system

Today, digital learning resources in architecture are spread over a growing number of repositories world-wide. Students of architecture face increasing problems finding and being aware of appropriate learning resources they need within their collaborative and/or exploratory learning scenarios. The Metadata for Architectural Contents in Europe (MACE) system addresses these issues by intelligently aggregating and linking information about learning resources from various repositories. We show how, by establishing explicit relations between the learning resources and by adding community features, students are supported in their learning activities. First experiments indicate that the chosen approach improves the results students can achieve in their studies.

Design of an Interface for Technology Supported Collaborative Learning – The RAFT Approach

In the Remote Accessible Field Trips (RAFT) project described in this paper, we aim to support high school students’ field trips with mobile technology and to enable real-time remote collaboration with the classroom. therefore we look at the pedagogical issues and consequences for the interface design and propose a role-centred interface design approach, aiming at the development of dedicated tools and interfaces.