Example of digital exhibition in anthropology and medical education

Abstract

Technology brings new opportunities in terms of education and research, and global pandemics such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic require online education-style approaches. Visualisation is of great importance in digitised education. In this study, materials that are of interest to the disciplines of anthropology, dentistry and medicine were selected from the skeletal materials and presented in a virtual exhibition. The mandible samples were digitised by photogrammetric method, and the exhibition was made navigable by using the Unity game engine program. In the exhibition, information on dental and bone physiology and palaeopathology, as well as the mandibles of the skeletons obtained from the excavation area, and information on individuals are presented on informative boards. The exhibition can be visited online with the link provided. In this study, the opinions of 30 students, who visited the exhibition from Faculty of Medicine 3^rd–5^th classes, were asked to complete an online questionnaire. Results of this questionnaire show that students would like to see more of such digital education methods. Digitising educational presentations enables these exhibitions to transcend physical boundaries and reach a global audience. In addition, the images can be easily examined by anyone who visits and can be evaluated for educational purposes.

Keywords:

• Anthropology
• digital
• museum
• physiology
• virtual reality

Acknowledgements

The skeletal material of this research was studied with the support of Yüzüncü Yıl University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit, within the scope of the project numbered 1744 ID - 2015-ED-B107. We thank the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for allowing the skeletal material to be studied, and Ahmet Tırpan, retired faculty member of the Archeology Department of Selçuk University, who carried out the excavations at Beybağ location in Muğla between 2007–2008, and the excavation team.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).