MA
Cultural Heritage Management

Module Overview

The Visitor Economy does not operate in isolation from its external political, economic, social, technological and environmental context – but interacts with it. Numerous contemporary issues (e.g., political instability, global environmental crisis, human rights) shape the Visitor Economy and the Visitor Economy, in return, influences these issues.

This module seeks to analyse contemporary issues and their interrelationship with the Visitor Economy and to critically evaluate stakeholder responses to manage these issues with the aim of developing a comprehensive approach for improvement. Thus, the module focuses strongly on the supply side of the Visitor Economy.

The module provides students with the opportunity to develop deeper critical understanding of the interrelationship between contemporary issues and the Visitor Economy. By equipping students with critical understanding and critical management skills, the module ultimately seeks to develop students as reflective practitioners who have the capacity to transform the Visitor Economy for the better.

Module Overview

This module addresses key challenges in managing cultural heritage sites today, such as how memory institutions react when heritage becomes contested and difficult. We also examine strategies to safeguard heritage at risk from war and climate change. The advantages and costs of 'going digital' are also addressed, and to sum it all up we ask: what does inspirational leadership in the cultural heritage sector look like? The module takes a broad, multicultural approach, providing the opportunity to examine case material from across the world.

Module Overview

This module is designed to address key issues in collections management, with a focus on digital collections. As well as aiming to introduce key theory and concepts, the module contains a strong practical dimension, as students have the opportunity to participate in the production of metadata, the development of a content management system and the application of a content management system to supporting exhibition development.

Module Overview

Vibrant heritage organisations increasingly require the active participation of a range of stakeholders. Engaged stakeholders can help museums, galleries and heritage sites to attract funding, grow audiences and facilitate negotiations around the repatriation of objects and the decolonisation of collections. It is therefore important to understand precisely who they are and the different ways they relate to heritage sites. The module will range over a number of country case studies and students will be encouraged to explore those related to their backgrounds. Students will further be encouraged to reimagine strategies for more effective stakeholder engagement.

Module Overview

The Final Project is the capstone of the Masters programme. This core, 60-credit module, offered in Term 3, incorporates non-assessed but compulsory taught sessions on research design and methods, as well as all the stages towards writing up the final project. The written project itself, which carries the 60 credits, provides students with the opportunity to apply, integrate, and strengthen the knowledge, insights, and skills they have acquired through the whole programme. The focus of the project will be directly relevant to the sphere of cultural heritage and will preferably address a real-world issue. It will be executed in a manner consistent with the core values of the participating Schools of Heritage and Humanities and the International Business School, of inclusivity, diversity and equity, as well as responsible management and sustainability.

Module Overview

Heritage interpretation is far more than information, as this module will demonstrate. Interpretation allows visitors to connect with the significance and uniqueness of heritage assets through storytelling, immersion and other techniques. This module discusses the wide range of interpretation strategies currently employed in the sector and will tutor students towards developing their own interpretation plan for an online exhibition.

Module Overview

The module challenges conservation students to think broadly about the objects that they conserve. This module will encourage students to explore this process of assessing significance which supports institutions in attaining a deeper understanding objects and the values that they might hold for different audiences. This module will help students develop the analytical skills needed to assess the value of an object and how these fit into current professional structures within the heritage industry.

Lectures and workshops will explore different intellectual approaches material culture and how each might contribute to the meaning and significance of an object or collection. The assessments will encourage students to produce professional museological documentation and relate the content of this module to collections management.

Module Overview

The focus of this module is the visitors: who they are and what they hope to gain from their experience of interacting with cultural heritage. It is designed to provide students with an opportunity to develop a critical understanding of current approaches to managing the visitor experience.