Michael Greenhalgh
Australian National University, Canberra

The Classroom of the Future

Keywords: teaching and learning, Art History, digital media

Introduction: maturity of the web as a learning medium

Since the beginnings of the web’s rise to prominence in late 1993, we have seen its browsers develop into the best (because most standardised) way of delivering multimedia across the network, and the gradual decline of standalone machines. HTML is now the favoured vehicle for presenting materials to students, offered by web servers such as Apache. There is still a lot of hype, of course – but then that is computing. And if the software has developed in flexibility and reach, the quantity of available contents has boomed, so that whereas in 1994 there were perhaps 20 sites offering art historical images, there are now a great number, and even search engines especially for locating images (http://images.google.com/, http://www.altavista.com/cgi-bin/query?mmdo=1stype=simage) . But what about quality? If anxious parents wish to filter out inadvisable content from the eyes of their children, anxious lecturers cannot do the same for their students, since the anarchy of the web ensures that anyone can mount anything. If a university library is a filter for quality, then a similar function is fulfilled by those sites that offer selections of the best of the web in various disciplines. Web projects such as Maritime Art Greenwich (discussed below), also help to instill confidence that such powerful technologies can be put to constructive use.

Have the hype and concerns about quality also infected the way in which computer funding for universities has been handled since Alvey nearly a generation ago? Certainly, successive governments have seen computerisation as a way of saving money rather than improving quality; but this has benefited organizations such as The Computers in Teaching Initiative Centre for History Archaeology Art History, which has now developed into the LTSN Subject Centre for History, Classics and Archaeology. Apparently Art History has been left out of the new equation: if so, is this because of its special needs image-wise? ^{[ed. note]}

We must, of course, believe the declaration of the new LTSN that it is a venture intended to promote high quality learning and teaching in subject communities. No doubt the funding depended to some extent on track record: a tabular reckoning year by year of the numbers of students learning and being taught hour by hour via such government-funded initiatives in all disciplines might be a measure of their efficacy and efficiency, and hence an argument for funding the infrastructure needed for mounting complete web-based courses. If we try to match the expenditure against the achievement from anecdotal accounts, however, it is not immediately obvious that we are now in a new age where the web and digital imagery will conquer older methods of study or art historical dissemination. Perhaps we were too optimistic about the speed of progress; perhaps insufficient attention was paid to the costs of infrastructure. Certainly there has been less cooperation than would have been either efficient or healthy: people still re-invent the wheel on their own – and this ironically in the age of the greatest cooperative vehicle yet seen, namely the web. I, for one, would have expected at least some CD-ROMs and complete art historical web learning packages of a high standard to be appearing by now; but both are much scarcer than in 'standard' history, or many of the sciences.

Be that as it may, with the qualities of the web, how might the network and browser delivery system be used for teaching art history?

Tools for teaching using the web

In the use of the web we must distinguish between the user-directed search for materials, and the presentation of such materials by a lecturer. In a discipline such as Art History, software tools are needed to prepare the digital images for the class, and perhaps also to allow the student to manipulate them for essays, seminar presentations, etc. I have commissioned and developed several web-based tools which I believe are important, the functionality of which I cannot find elsewhere, even as commercial packages. The tasks I require (and which I assume anyone in a similar situation would need) in various stages of the preparation of lectures are as follows:

1. To lay out the computer directories in a uniform fashion, and provide tools for renaming files, creating thumbnails, and writing HTML index files. Without directory uniformity, programs which offer batch processing (i.e. accessing more than one directory or suite of directories) cannot locate the images they need – which is why all my image filenames are numerical. (But such details are at the level of housekeeping, so will not be dealt with below.)
2. To write a database file for directories of existing images. i.e. we start with what we have, namely the images. This is considerably less time-consuming than writing the database file, and then fitting images to them, because this will undoubtedly generate errors;
3. To enable interrogation of such web databases via required fields dumped into scrolling lists so the user can choose any combination;
4. To develop a way of handling text-rich databases and indexing not only the catalogued items but also all the text (the computer/web version of the standard art historical catalogue of an artist's works);
5. To allow the lecturer to select image materials from web-based databases and regiment them into pairs (or whatever) for class presentation; and to store them so they can be recalled;
6. To provide students with a way of testing themselves using the same web databases.

Defining, editing and interrogating web databases: rdbweb

Why use the web for defining and editing databases? Not only because if the web is the medium for delivery it might as well be that for creation as well, but because the scripts allow the actual cataloguing to proceed via a web browser and, in addition, the images can reside on any machine as long as the cataloguer can see them in the web browser – and the cataloguer might be in Canberra or Toronto, or wherever.

rdbweb is a set of bolt-together perl scripts, each of which performs a specific task. These allow the user to define the database parameters in the usual way (and to change them as required); relations are allowed (hence the package's name; but we keep things simple flat file), and the definition of how the data are to be entered – type-in box, pull-down list, or both. Latency may be used: since images often go in series, the parameters can be repeated from one record to the next, or the usual changes made (e.g. "take the last number, and add one"). Most importantly, the cataloguer always sees the context of the suite of images, with thumbnails of the last five catalogued at the top of the page, the current target in the middle, and the next four in line along the bottom of the browser window. Clicking on any thumbnail brings up the full-size image. When a record is stored, the target image moves to the top of the page, the top left image disappears, the bottom right image becomes the target, and a new image appears bottom right – which makes it easy to see why the program used to be called bus queue or image queue. The database can be interrogated from the data entry screen; the records can be updated or edited as required; and the datafile can be written to disk with whatever field separators prove useful. This datafile then becomes the input for the following program.

The originality of rdbweb lies in the context it gives image-wise, and in its ability to catalogue via a web browser. This means that neophytes can safely be allowed to try their hand at cataloguing: not only can their work be revised, but the neophytic datarecords are not then inextricably tied up with the images – for the images remain wherever you want them to be on disk. Indeed, it is perfectly possible to envisage two different databases feeding from the same images (as could easily happen – two people don't necessarily need the same data from any one set of images).

Interrogating web databases: imageserve

This program (perl scripts again) takes any specified database fields, orders them alphabetically, and writes them into scrolling lists on the browser page. The user selects the parameters required, and the software goes off, retrieves the records that fit, and displays them as thumbnails (click for the fullsize image) with the database record underneath. The scripts are called "imageserve" because they do indeed serve up the images to the user of the web browser. Since imageserve is one of the building blocks of light-table, its functionality will be illustrated below.

Selecting databases images for lecturing: Light-Table

The imageserve scripts described above give us a database that can be interrogated, and show us retrieved records as thumbnails with datafields underneath. We now need a program to select and order what we need for our lecture, which might come from one or several databases. This program is Light-Table, named after the illuminated tables on which a lecturer would shuffle around, reselect, regiment, throw out and re-order 35mm slides. It allows all the same processes from within a web browser and, in addition, allows the lecturer or student to store the resultant lectures on disk, for recall when the lecture is given; and even to bundle up the images and records and transmit them across the web to somewhere else, or onto a CD-ROM or whatever for those who do not wish to rely on the network providing access when it is required.

How Light-Table Works

1. First of all, select a database, and mark the tick boxes for the image required;
2. Go back to the database for more images if required;
3. Tick the boxes of the required images;
4. Sort the images by any of the fields in the database (or do a custom sort);
5. Finally, format the images with their data records into discrete HTML pages, which may be used over the web in a lecture, stored on disk, or printed out.

NB although primarily intended as a tool for the lecturer, students could easily use the storage and download facility for private study and for seminar presentations. Indeed, the download facility recreates the exact structure and layout of the original on the new disk, and has two further useful features: (1) it will work in its new location with only a browser (i.e. no server required); and (2) all the original links and connections are still hot – so the user can also go back to the original server and interrogate the database(s) further.

Student self-testing: Image-Quiz

Finally, we need a program to allow the student to reinforce what has been learned on a unit, or in the area of a particular database. Image-Quiz allows the student to control the level of difficulty of the quiz, and the software puts up a series of images in the area selected by the students, together with multiple choice scrolling boxes. It then tells the student how many (and also which fields) are correct, and which are not. This quiz works completely without lecturer intervention: the images for each run are chosen by a random number generator, and NOT set up by the lecturer. Obviously, the larger the database, the richer the quizzing experience is likely to be.

How Image-Quiz Works

1. Choose the parameters of the database you wish to address (perhaps artist, title);
2. Examine the images (clicking on the thumbnail brings up the large JPEG);
2. Highlight what you think are the correct responses;
3. Submit your answers, and the program tells you which of the selected fields are in/correct.

Learning packages

The use of the web for private study is important, and there are sites which gather together sets of links to point students in the right direction (such as http://www.chart.ac.uk/vlib/index.html and http://www.humboldt.edu/~arthist/index2.htm). Some universities have made collections of lecture images available; others have provided lecture notes; but most hide their glories behind password protection (perhaps for reasons of copyright for text and images, or the desire to recoup somehow the considerable setup costs). In the United Kingdom, the Computers in Teaching Initiative (Centre for History Archaeology Art History, at http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/CTICH/) has ended, replaced by a Subject Centre for History Classics and Archaeology (http://hca.ltsn.ac.uk) – although neither seems to offer packages of any kind for learning Art History. The National Inventory of European painting 1200-1900 (http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/collection/inventory.htm) will be useful for our students – but not as useful as sets of high-quality essays on artworks (which, of course, are not necessarily in British collections). Indeed, excluding dictionaries (such as the excellent Grove’s (and its companions: http://www.grovereference.com/TDA/online/Index.htm), online exhibitions (samples linked from http://www.ilpi.com/artsource/exhibitions.html) and the full-text articles from journals (usually only from the last few years), there are remarkably few sites which offer high-quality essays and images with multimedia features and indexes, focused on a single art historical topic – i.e., which can rival the range of a high-quality textbook – because we are currently in the penumbra between all-print and all-web, which is perhaps why there are no high-quality productions entitled something like The Web History of Art. A perusal of Chris Witcombe’s excellent site (http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html) will show the (im)balance between images and essays.

This is a lacuna the National Maritime Museum has now begun to address with Maritime Art Greenwich, of which I am General Editor. The NMM has a large collection of paintings that deserve to be far better known, framed (pardon the expression) within the greatest riverside setting in the country, namely Greenwich. Observably, students of Art History in this country usually get taught very little about maritime painting. The Maritime Art Greenwich project (which will be available on the web in 2002) matches the lacuna to the opportunity provided by its riches, and is developing a learning package directed at students in higher education, and at the general public, by providing a searchable database, bibliographies, glossaries, etc., and a series of essays by experts which highlight themes in the collections and link them to the tides of art history in this country and abroad. Since the National Maritime Museum’s collections are indeed owned by the public, then perhaps we might expect other galleries to follow the NMM’s lead, and do for the web what the National Gallery’s MicroGallery did for standalone Macintoshes before the web was developed, providing sophisticated contextual commentary on the works in their collections. Far more people could enjoy "web exhibitions" than can get to visit the physical galleries; and an embarrassing shortage of display space means that such digital exhibitions can fulfil a need that cannot be assuaged by a physical visit.

Beyond its pedagogic aims, this project wishes to provide a demonstration of how its various units – database, images of various kinds, essays, bibliographies, and video – can be melded together to work as a convincing and rich learning package. There is nothing in the least adventurous about the interface, where sobriety rules; frames have been avoided as too tricky to update; and the simple structure has been planned to aid the fitting of Stage Two into the existing layout.

The structure of Maritime Art Greenwich is also intended to facilitate its use in teaching as well as in learning. We have provided the following features to this end:

1. Panoramic views of appropriate sites, such as Greenwich;
2. High-quality digital images of some of the very large canvasses in the NMM, so that users can appreciate in closeup each telling detail;
3. The ability to regiment materials from the database for use in lecturing – a version of the Light-Table program explained above;
4. The ability for students to self-test themselves on all the database or on subsets of it – a version of the Image-Quiz program outlined above;
5. Video clips with voiceovers (e.g. on curatorial and conservation topics) that can be run and further commented and discussed in class;
6. Essay or discussion topics centred on each of the essays, which students may flesh out and pursue by recourse both to the project’s database and to the SearchStation on the main NMM website;
7. Essays which explicitly deal with the important links between works of art and documentation – and with works of art as documentation, so that students may discuss the nature of historical evidence in class.

Conclusion: the classroom of the future

Projects such as Maritime Art Greenwich may be the way of the future, because forward-looking institutions with a modicum of funds are needed to lay down the foundations for teaching Art History digitally. Art history departments in universities tend to lack the infrastructure and funding (but not the will or the expertise) to attempt anything outside a funded research project. Many sceptics look around at the digital world, and ask why there should be over 160 different digital versions of The School of Athens floating around in the ether when a single one would do; and go on to ask the obvious questions (asked since museums sought to exchange database tapes in the 1970s) about collaboration, re-inventing the wheel, saving effort, working for the common good, and so on. If every large museum were to provide a web-based project such as this one, then the digital environment would be considerably richer.

What technologies will be used to deliver such projects (and the materials I have on ArtServe – over 170,000 images)? I believe that the classroom will survive because most people learn best by interacting with their fellows and their tutors; conceivably, students need even more guidance through the web than they did for a library, where a simple booklist and some search techniques would suffice.

But the new classroom should be a little better than the dark room and two projectors. If we are to take advantage of the enhanced quality that the web can offer, then we must seek to display its glories accurately using high-quality video projectors (and, eventually, wall-sized TFT screens), and perhaps video conferencing so that the much-bruited flexible learning can be used to access not just students in distant locations, but perhaps lectures in distant sites, museums or churches. All we need is a suitably cynical attitude toward the inevitable hype (cf. VRML) and the software tools and finance to produce good multimedia presentations. The main criteria for using the web in our discipline are therefore (a) that sufficient tools be available for the materials to be provided and consumed painlessly; (b) that the digital materials be of a high quality, and the menu richer than that available with merely 35mm slides; and (c) that the best lectures, seminars and other classes get stored and preserved so that they enjoy a long life, and thereby recoup the monetary and intellectual costs invested in them.

November 2001

Editor's note: art history now comes under the remit of the LTSN Centre for Art, Design and Communication http://www.brighton.ac.uk/adc-ltsn/.