Introduction

Sifting through information has very little educational value. For users to gain any educational benefit, a logical path through the information - allowing users to navigate logically back and forth through information - is required. A guided path system will allow users to focus on the information in a predefined path without having to aimlessly scroll through the data. The guided path should allow users to navigate easily to the various stops on a particular tour while also allowing users to view the tour with automatic navigation - that is, users may start a tour and it will progress through the stops in a timed manner until the last stop is reached on a tour. Each stop should provide the users with a description of the image being viewed. In this way, the guided tours component focuses the user on the educational aspect of the website while remaining both useful and usable to users who may be either scholars or academics. The data that is currently available does not have a system like this for use by anyone in the department or outside users.

Motivation

The preservation of rock art in South Africa remains an important issue within communities that deal with the preservation of cultural history. The Archaeology Department at the University of Cape Town is one such body of academics. A large database of images existed and was kept in the department, but was not put to any use. Like many who are interested in preserving rock art, the Archaeology Department was attempting to  find new ways to make the database useful and ensure that someone was using it, as opposed to having the data lie dormant within the department. The Archaeology Department specically wanted the data to be used within educational environments. The idea would be to use the data to educate scholars about rock art and to educate them using rock art. The data would also need to be usable and useful to academics in providing this information to scholars and using the data for their own research.

Aim

The research question that the Guided Tours component of the School of Rock Art project seeks to address is:

Is it possible to build a usable and useful guided pathway system to promote learning?