Smithsonian Open Access allows users to download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian's images without asking permission. There are nearly 3 million 2D and 3D digital items from the collections with more to come. This includes images and data from the Smithsonian's 19 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
Since the Smithsonian’s founding in 1846, its mission has been clear: “the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” They want to empower people everywhere to participate in that mission with us in new and innovative ways for the 21st century. pen access is a unique opportunity to bring Smithsonian collections to people in new ways, to engage with the public, and provide important context for challenging 21st-century issues. With Smithsonian Open Access, they have increased the public’s ability to use and remix millions of digital assets—2D and 3D images and data.
Target Student Population:
Grade School, Middle School, High School, College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional, Pre-K
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
None.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
The quality of the primary sources covering so many subjects is vast and includes images, text, video, audio, and 3D models. The content is cross-curricular and encourages exploration through art, culture, sceince, and history and beyond. The site also includes featured remixes that have been developed by individuals and other organizations. These offer one way to begin exploring the site and then assigning students to complete something new with the materials they discover on the site.
Smithsonian artifacts can be used for any curricular content area. Models of remix provide examples of ideas for new users.
Concerns:
None.
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
Since the Smithsonian Open Access site is a huge collection of resources, educators can use the Smithsonian Learning Lab content to develop creative assignments , cross-curricular lessons, research projects, and inspiring independent study tasks. Students can use the content to transform and remix the sources from the collections to successfully explore and complete the tasks. This site is for the curious.
Users can easily research a topic in any content area, download artifacts, and create own remix to demonstrate grasp of a topic or own interpretation.
Concerns:
None.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
The site is very current in its intuitive design allowing users to immediately "jump in" and begin exploring. Across the top of the site, users will find links to FAQs, Values of the site, usage statistics and updates. If users have an idea of what they want to research or explore, they can do a detailed search to find resources. Or, if users wish to begin by browsing, there is a list of featured resources with engaging visuals to get them started. The site provides examples of remixes done by organizations and individuals which can be helpful to users. Users can narrow broad search results from the drop down menu of type, place, date, topic, museum, and/or group.
Since this site is so vast and connects with so many different collections, searching it may not be great for some. However, it does a good job with all the many connections it makes.
Concerns:
None.
Creative Commons:
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