The cultural heritage sector has often acted as catalyst in allowing groups to coexist harmonically by investing in intercultural dialogue. Nonetheless, the vast majority of cultural experiences offered by cultural institutions rarely take provisions to make such experiences inclusive for groups with diverse sociocultural characteristics. In this context, this study explores the hypothesis that the adoption of Web 2.0 design patterns could enhance the public’s participation and inclusion by making visitors co-creators of the offered cultural experience, and help museums transform into more inclusive spaces by enhancing knowledge sharing and social learning. A self-guided tour tool with augmented reality and social features is proposed to facilitate the creation of an online learning community for museum staff and visitors, and to enable information sharing and interactions. Initially, the paper’s theoretical background is presented, focusing on the analysis of social educational theories. Next, a state-of-the-art analysis is conducted. The two aforementioned analyses provide both direction and impetus to the design process and research inquiry. Following this, the key functionalities of the proposed application are presented. A preliminary small-scale experiment conducted in an art exhibition showed that its use could be efficient, as positive feedback was obtained.

People with Intellectual Disability (ID) encounter several problems in their daily living regarding their needs, activities, interrelationships, and communication. In this paper, an interactive platform is proposed, aiming to provide personalized recommendations for information and entertainment, including creative and educational activities, tailored to the special user needs of this population. Furthermore, the proposed platform integrates capabilities for the automatic recognition of health-related emergencies, such as fever, oxygen saturation decline, and tachycardia, as well as location tracking and detection of wandering behavior based on smartwatch/smartphone sensors, while providing appropriate notifications to caregivers and automated assistance to people with ID through voice instructions and interaction with a virtual assistant. A short-scale pilot study has been carried out, where a group of end-users participated in the testing of the integrated platform, verifying its effectiveness concerning the recommended services. The experimental results indicate the potential value of the proposed system in providing routine health measurements, identifying and managing emergency cases, and supporting a creative and qualitative daily life for people with disabilities.

Rural areas encompass an abundance of cultural and natural heritage that offers great potential for attracting tourism. Nevertheless, many of these regions are neglected and deserted, facing many hard problems like limited job opportunities, poverty, low literacy rates, and a lack of basic infrastructures. In order to deal with these problems, we need to boost sustainable development by promoting participatory methodologies, engaging all interested stakeholders (public authorities, tourism organizations, cultural and creative industries, local communities, marginalised social groups, etc.) in novel co-creation of new touristic products and services (including real, digital or hybrid experiences). Using effective local and remote stakeholder engagement strategies as well as by adopting modern ICT technologies for developing high added—social, educational or economic-value products and services is a key element for boosting cultural tourism in such areas. In this paper, we first review recent state of the art practices and methodologies for Sustainable Cultural Tourism (SCT) in rural areas based on participatory approaches and modern ICT technologies. The proposed methodology first brings together all relevant key stakeholders to form hybrid (both real and online) communities (“SCT Innovation Hubs, SCTIHs”). We then formulate a concept for the establishment of a multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral co-creation ecosystem for SCTIHs, based on (a) a participatory platform for consultation, decision-making and business model canvas creation, (b) a set of easy-to-use advanced smart apps/configurators to facilitate co-creation of new engaging hybrid cultural tourism products and services and (c) a digital marketplace to distribute these products, ensuring a fair distribution of profits for the co-creators and facilitating evaluation and identification of best practices. The main contribution of this study is to identify current challenges for SCT in rural areas and attempt to meet them by proposing a bottom-up and inclusive ICT-based methodology for co-design and co-creation.

People with Intellectual Disability (ID) encounter several problems in their daily living regarding their needs, activities, interrelationships, and communication. On this concept, an interactive platform is proposed, aiming to provide personalized recommendations for information and entertainment, including creative and educational activities, tailored to the special users’ needs of this population. Furthermore, the proposed platform integrates capabilities of automatic recognition of health related emergencies, such as fever, oxygen saturation decline and tachycardia, as well as location tracking and detection of wandering behavior based on smartwatch/smartphone sensors, while providing automated assistance and appropriate alerts and notifications to the caregivers.