Introducing Open Exhibits

open exhibits dashboard designOn September 21st, I announced that we received funding for Open Exhibits from the National Science Foundation.  It is great to be able to announce today, just two months later, that Open Exhibits core software and a new community site are now available at OpenExhibits.org.

We are, by just about any measure, off to a very fast start.  While Open Exhibits is a three-year exhibit software initiative, we know how hard it is to develop a community of practice and we understand that it takes time. Quickly releasing software and developing a site that allows our community to take root is the first step.

On the Open Exhibis site, you’ll find Open Exhibits Core software, which includes support for multitouch gestures within Adobe Flash and Flex. Along with the core, the first open source templates and modules are also available. These templates and modules will allow developers to easily create interactive exhibits. All of this software is free for museums, nonprofits, universities, students, and other educational organizations. (Commercial users of GestureWorks can also use the templates and modules and are encouraged to contribute.)

The Open Exhibits site allows for software downloads and uploads and there is a community blog that any member can contribute to. In addition, the site has personal profiles, tutorials, support, and documentation. New features will be rolled out over the next few weeks.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fantastic team at Ideum that helped put all this together. Chad Person is the Open Exhibits project manager and helped design and oversee the site. Danillo Stern-Sapad is the main site developer (we built the site in Drupal). Erin Rose is a content developer and social media outreach specialist and helped with the tutorials and blog. James “Glass” Cartwright was the CSS master for the site, while James Kassemi helped with database and Javascript implementation. Open Exhibits software developers Matt Valverde and Paul Lacey put together all of the modules and templates. They also worked with Chris Gerber to put Open Exhibits Core together, implementing the new module and gesture support, as well as an extensive set of documentation.

We encourage you to check out Open Exhibits and join us. We are just getting started.

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