Assessment of the NEOTHEMI virtual museum project – An on-line survey

The NEOTHEMI Comenius 3 network focused on cultural heritage and aimed to produce a virtual museum of cultural heritage from ten countries in Europe, including Hungary, which joined the EU in 2004, and Norway, an associated country, to encourage users to develop an understanding of the cultural heritage of other European countries and to feel more European. This paper assesses the effectiveness of the project in reaching its target audience.Most of the questionnaire respondents were students in large (secondary) schools, primarily in suburban areas. Adult users were mostly teachers, including senior staff; half were in smaller (under 500) and nearly a third in rural schools, suggesting NEOTHEMI was reaching its target of making cultural heritage available to those who could not readily access it in the real world for geographical reasons and helping them to understand others.NEOTHEMI had been most used in language work and had helped students understand both their own and other cultures better, and to understand different points of view and difficult issues.Factor analysis showed teachers’ views were more differentiated than those of students; teachers simultaneously emphasized problems and benefits, in a differentiated and subject-related way. Rural students were significantly more positive about the educational use of the Internet, though their cultural attitudes were more parochial than those of urban students.