Dear Colleagues,

Digital tools have become critical instruments in preserving and communicating the value of heritage as important cultural expressions of the past. A consequence of digitalisation is the democratisation of heritage institutions, such as museums, which are found to value increasingly new types of content and new profiles of audiences. Digitisation plays a vital role in the alteration of the convictions of the heritage field to ‘materiality’ and ‘actuality.’ It is nowadays more important to understand the development of ‘virtuality’ when people intuitively collaborate for content-making in alternate realities of digital heritage.

Although researchers acknowledge the significance of digital heritage into new ways of expressing ‘authenticity’ and ‘virtuality,’ studies have been confined to heritage activities comprised of digital documentation, representation and dissemination. Previous studies have reported on the role of public engagement in digital heritage, which is criticised as consumptive, passive, guided and descriptive. Instead, the motivation of this Special Issue is to explore a new role that is ‘generative,’ ‘active’ and ‘creative’ for the production of heritage knowledge. In this regard,

We are interested in theoretical and applied research on innovative digital design approaches used for creative and participatory content-making in digital heritage. What are the advantages of inviting people to take part in alternate realities for content production in heritage? The primary research interest for asking this question is to know the impact of immersiveness on creativity and to qualitatively measure the role of creativity for developing a sense of virtuality.

Prof. Dr. Marc Aurel Schnabel
Dr. Serdar Aydin
Guest Editors

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• digital heritage
• alternate realities
• creativity
• participation