Mobile Apps for Libraries

Transcription

1 50 Advisor Reports from the Field / The Charleston Advisor / January ADVISOR REPORTS FROM THE FIELD Mobile Apps for Libraries Exploring Aurasma Studio 2.0 doi: /chara By Jolanda-Pieta (Joey) van Arnhem (Instructor & Instructional Design Librarian, College of Charleston) <vanarnhemj@cofc.edu> Abstract This column explores Aurasma, an app for viewing and creating augmented reality (AR) and interactive print. Aurasma has both in-app and Web interfaces for creating and publishing AR elements. The app is a reader for augmented content and also allows users to follow other users, which unlike other AR apps is a required part of recognizing a particular target or trigger image. Aurasma is not quite as feature rich as some of its competitors, but it is capable and offers detailed help. As a free option for AR, Aurasma may be particularly useful to educators. The AR Landscape What is Aurasma? Aurasma < is both an app and a Web interface for viewing and creating augmented reality and interactive print. Aurasma is similar to Layar < which I reviewed in January, If you are new to augmented reality (AR) and the wealth of opportunities interactive print affords for instruction, digital projects, and outreach activities, a quick read of Checking out Interactive Print can help you get started. 1 A year after the initial review of Layar, a few changes have happened in the AR landscape. In 2014, Blippar < purchased Layar 2 and began to soft launch its educational program, officially inviting educators and cultural institutions to participate for free in September of The new Blippar education program includes a creation tool, educator dashboard, and access to a network of Blippar users. 4 About the same time that Blippar purchased Layar, Aurasma released a new version of its Web studio creation tool. Existing users were asked to migrate to the new platform and as of January 2016, Aurasma will no longer support the previous version. 5 Aurasma s creation tools are also free. Pricing and ease of use for augmented reality projects in an educational setting is an important consideration if the technology is going to be widely adopted. I have been working with AR since and have seen many pricing models, apps, and creation interfaces. In the past, many of my AR projects have required outside funding to make them come to fruition. One example is an interactive art zine that my undergraduate introductory sculpture students put together as a group conceptual project. Last year I created the zine using Layar with educational pricing and grant funding. This year, I was interested in making the technology freely accessible for my students outside of the class in the hopes that they would continue using augmented reality in their work. I was also interested in find a way to keep augmented pages from expiring. I opted to use Aurasma, which has been widely adopted in education. In the future, I will review the features for Blippar s new educational interface in the context of the same zine project for comparison. The Aurasma App Interface The Aurasma app uses the camera viewfinder on your mobile device to interact with content that has been augmented to a target image, object, or location by a user. Augmentations can be created in the Aurasma Web-based studio interface and within the app itself. Aurasma refers to these augmentations as Auras. To view the auras, users download the free app, available from the App Store for ios devices or from Google Play for Android devices, and sign up for an account. Signing up for an account also provides users with free access to the Web-based Aurasma Studio interface. The Web interface provides more robust features for creating auras than the mobile version. 7 To view the aura associated with the target or, as Aurasma refers to them, trigger images users must search for the creator s channel and follow it. Channel content will show up on the Explore screen of the app (Figure 1). Users can then use their device camera to scan the target and view the augmentation. This may seem a little unusual at first, since augmented triggers can t be used until the user follows the creator s channel. The benefit of this approach is that allows different creators to use the same or similar trigger images for augmentation without a conflict. Overall the app interface is simple and intuitive for users. It comes with a tutorial that is easy to follow and quickly gets users started. App screens include Explore, where you can find channels and auras to follow, Create, where users can create their own image, animation or 3D overlays, a Search feature for finding Auras and Channels, and a user Channel information screen that shows private and public aura information and provides various sharing options from your mobile device. The Aurasma Studio Interface The new Aurasma Studio < interface is simple and well-suited for educators who are interested in adopting augmented reality projects in the classroom. Aurasma provides a very helpful FAQ, provided by support maven Zendesk, to streamline the process of getting started and clearly outlines a few key details that might throw a monkey wrench in the works. Of specific interest to me for the zine project were best practices for using Aurasma Studio to make auras available to multiple devices, a brief overview of the difference between auras created on devices and in the Studio interface, and procedural recommendations for using the same login credentials for Aurasma Studio and app to link the two accounts together for testing purposes. The Educator FAQ page also offered easy to follow explanations of single user studio account account features and limitations,

2 The Charleston Advisor / January FIGURE 1 Screenshots from Aurasma App: Follow, Explore, Experience. The Explore screen app screenshot shows app navigation, which is available at the bottom of the screen. Navigation screens from left to right include: Explore, Create, Viewfinder, Search, and User Channel information and sharing options. FIGURE 2 Aurasma Studio interface overview and Help features. FIGURE 3 Aurasma Studio interface Explore page. file management considerations, explanation of public and private auras, and information on how to share auras privately with others using a share link.8 The Help feature at the top right of the screen provides five easy to use getting started tutorials and a direct link to the Aurasma Community Network and Support features (Figure 2). Aurasma Studio opens to the Explore page, which allows users to search for content and follow other users. Each campaign has an associated thumbnail image that provides users with the option to view the aura associated with the trigger image or to view all the auras in the campaign (Figure 3).9

3 52 Advisor Reports from the Field / The Charleston Advisor / January FIGURE 4 Aurasma Studio interface Campaigns page. FIGURE 5 Aurasma Studio interface Assets page. The Campaigns page provides information on your channel s Public and Private Auras. Auras can be moved and shared. By default, auras are private in order to design and test and shared publically when complete (Figure 4). The Assets page provides users with the ability to upload single or multiple Trigger and Overlay files. Trigger images are used to activate auras when they are viewed through a mobile device camera. Overlay files can be images files, videos, animations, or 3D models. Auras can have multiple overlays and advanced actions to make them more interactive.10 The Assets page also provides file management options, where you can edit, delete, and folder items (Figure 5). The My Auras page is where your auras are stored (Figure 6). You can click on the Create New Aura button from any page to make new auras or select an existing aura to edit from your My Auras page. To make an aura from scratch, click on Create New Aura to open the aura setup window. Click on Step One Upload Trigger on the top left of the screen and upload an image or retrieve it from your Aurasma Studio Assets folder. Once you have your trigger image loaded, click on Step Two Create Overlays. Overlays can be simple or more complex. The final step to creating and sharing auras is to finalize and share (Figures 6 and 7). Auras are automatically saved privately and are moved from your private campaign to your public campaign when they are shared. You can easily edit this setting if you want a public aura to be private. Conclusion and Lessons Learned The simple but functional interactive print abilities of Aurasma make it a useful instructional tool that to help teachers expand students metaliteracy and teach them to engage critically with modes beyond the textual. The process of creating augmented reality products helps students bridge digital and physical products together and provides hands on active learning activities that promote information literacy.

4 The Charleston Advisor / January FIGURE 6 Aurasma Studio interface My Auras page. FIGURE 7 Aurasma Studio interface My Auras page with Trigger and Overlays (Trigger image art by Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem). Aurasma s relatively simple assets are not as varied or elegant as the slide carousels or API functionality of Layar, but they do work. In the long run, they may provide more of an opportunity to introduce students to more sustainable products for their augmentations, such as their own HTML/CSS/JavaScript content, a PDF, or a linked Google Docs slide presentation. The latter option may be particularly useful if your institution has Google Apps. Additional Resources Interested in exploring interactive print at your institution? I invite you to make use of the instructional guide I ve created while using interactive print and related technologies at my library < It is free to use, shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. More to Come, You Can Help Keep an eye on this spot. In the next column, we ll continue to explore the current state of mobile apps in libraries and unpack more applications to see what they do and which ones do it well. We ll keep looking at things you can do to make sure your library s users can get the full benefit of your services, resources, and collections. We d like your help! If you know of any apps you d like a more indepth look at, or have particular questions about what your library needs to do to better support mobile users, send an to <vanarnhemj@cofc.edu>. Author s References 1. van Arnhem, Jolanda-Pieta. Mobile Apps for Libraries: Checking out Interactive Print. The Charleston Advisor 16, no. 3 (January 1, 2015): Accessed December 1, doi: / chara Lunden, Ingrid. Augmented Reality Augmentation: Blippar Has Bought Layar. TechCrunch. Last modified June 14, Accessed December 3, < augmented-reality-augmentation-blippar-has-bought-layar/>. 3. Blippar Launches Its Education Strategy. Blippar (blog). Entry posted October 15, Accessed December 4, < blippar.com/en/blog/2015/10/15/ blippar-has-launched-its-education-strategy/>.

5 54 Advisor Reports from the Field / The Charleston Advisor / January Blippar for Education. Blippar. Last modified Accessed December 9, < 5. Migrating from Old Studio to the New Aurasma Studio. Aurasma. Accessed December 3, < hc/en-us/articles/ migrating-from-old-studio-to-thenew-aurasma-studio>. 6. van Arnhem, Jolanda-Pieta, and Jerry M. Spiller. Using Augmented Reality (AR) as a Discovery Tool. Proceedings of the Charleston Library Conference, 2013, Accessed December 1, doi: / ; van Arnhem, Jolanda- Pieta, and Jerry Spiller. Augmented Reality (AR) for Discovery and Instruction. Journal of Web Librarianship 8, no. 2 (May 8, 2014): Accessed December 1, doi: / Creating Auras in the Aurasma App. Aurasma. Accessed December 3, < articles/ creating-auras-in-the-aurasma-app>. 8. Are You a Teacher? Guidance for Teachers and Other Educators Getting Started with Aurasma. Aurasma. Accessed December 6, < articles/ are-you-a-teacher-guidance-for-teachersand-other-educators-getting-started-with-aurasma>. 9. Aurasma Studio: The Explore Tab. Aurasma. Accessed December 1, < articles/ aurasma-studio-the-explore-tab>. 10. Overlay Actions Explained. Aurasma. Accessed December 5, < articles/ overlay-actions-explained>. Image Credits 1. OCHA. Opened Envelope. Icon. Flaticon. Accessed November 20, < 2. Slideshow Animated GIF. Image. GIPHY. Accessed November 20, < 3. van Arnhem, Jolanda-Pieta. The Studio Interactive Art Zine. Illustration. Copyright Printed with permission. About the Author Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, Instructional Design Librarian, Digital Scholarship and Services, College of Charleston Libraries, and Instructor for the College of Charleston, obtained her M.F.A. from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2009 and her M.L.I.S. from the University of South Carolina in Jolanda contributes her expertise to the Digital Scholarship and Services Department at the Library, providing instruction for faculty, staff, and students regarding information technology utilization and digital scholarship tools for research and classroom use. She is a member of the American Library Association and will be presenting Interactive Art Zines: Augmenting First Year Experience Sculpture at the Eleventh International Conference on the Arts in Society in August of n Subscribe TO The Charleston Advisor Today! The Charleston Advisor: Critical Reviews of Web Products for Information Professionals 3 YES! Enter my Subscription for One Year. Over 500 Reviews Now Included Libraries pay less than $.60 per review Publishers pay less than $1.00 per review How Much Are You Spending? Web Database and Quarterly Print are now available at the low price of $ for libraries; $ for all others. ORDER YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TODAY. Order on the Web: Name: Title: Organization: Address: City/State/Zip: Phone:Fax: r YES. I am interested in being a Reviewer E. Warren Ave., Denver, CO Phone: (303) Fax: (303)