We wanted to achieve the following objectives: A) Engage Stakeholders of European HEIs to Elicit Requirements related to the creation of virtual exhibitions for art students. B) Design, Develop, and Evaluate a Framework and Open-source Tools for the creation of a virtual exhibition for art students. CREAMS aimed to enrich digital capabilities and readiness of HEIs through the design, development, and evaluation of a state-of-the-art framework and tools for virtual exhibition creation designed to meet art students' needs. C) Implement and Evaluate Educational Material for HEIs Stakeholders and Implement LTTAs. CREAMS aimed to implement digital educational material in the form of PowerPoint presentations and webinars, hands-on exercises available in five European languages (Greek, German, Norwegian, Hebrew, and English), and performed three LTTAs at the partner HEIs. D) Dissemination and Sustainability. CREAMS aimed to disseminate and exploit the project results to different target audiences and stakeholders through joint publications, engagement in accredited conferences, showcase events, multiplier events, engagement in social media, and deploying the framework in real-world HEI settings.
When we applied for this project one key issue and need of European HEIs was the absence of unified frameworks and tools that address state-of-the-art challenges related to solutions that provide the opportunity for art students to present their work in a creative and educational way on the basis of XR technologies. The recent literature revealed that the information concerning virtual exhibition creation was fragmentary and entails several weaknesses with regard to the special requirements of art students. From an educational perspective, there was a need to develop easy-to-use technologies for the creation of virtual exhibitions as a means to educate and train stakeholders in HEIs. This embraces the design and development of courses and training material, hands-on practical tutorials, and webinars with regard to best practices of solutions for virtual exhibition creation. Through the implementation of CREAMS, we attempted to address the aforementioned multi-disciplinary challenges and intrinsic needs of participating HEIs for exploiting the educational potential of Extended Reality technologies and creating awareness among various stakeholders regarding scaffolding the creativity of art students.