Bridging Tradition and Innovation: Transformative Educational Practices in Museums with AI and VR

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper presents research concerning the development of AI and VR technologies integrated into museum environments, with a strong empahsis on immersive experiences and educational outcomes within a folk art context. It presents an ongoing practical prototype of an edugame with an AI agent and a virtual NPC in the context of traditional cyprus folk art, which are the most valuable contributions of the research, although not yet validated in practice.

In terms of form, the paper is well written, with some minor issues regarding repeating numeration in the sections as-is. 

Although the topics are clear and well developed, the paper could benefit from being more concise, particularly in the very large introduction and initial sections. Also, although there are interesting thematic contextualizations in there is no clear state-of-the art that contextualizes the research in current experiments of AI and VR/virtual museums as learning and experience tools.

Also, the current structure should be revised to more clearly separate the introductory discussions from the actual case studies developed (last two paragraphs of chapter 2 onwards), contributing for a stronger and clearer paper.

The large initial section leaves very little room for developing the actual innovative experiences presented in the last sections which could benefit from more detailed accounts, for instance how will these be integrated into the museum space through VR or will they be online only, what type of relation does the user have with the artwork, what type of AI agent is being used, what interactions can the user perform, etc...

Also, three projects are mentioned, but apparently only two are presented in subsequent sections 3 and 4.

Finally, the presented future work is a good addition, adressing an important already identified shortcoming. The conclusions are adequate and importantly mention the next phases regarding practical experimentation and validation of the presented work.

 

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached a revised version of our manuscript, which has been carefully amended in response to the comments provided by both reviewers. In particular, we would like to emphasize that our intention is not to engage in self-citation, but rather to provide the necessary references to contextualize the foundation upon which our work is built—namely, an evolution of over ten years of research. This applies specifically to citations starting from reference 31 onward.
In addition to this aspect, we have, following a thorough internal discussion among all co-authors, implemented several modifications addressing all of your suggestions. Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 In this manuscript, Todino et al. discussed the role of museums as potential learning space for people with various cultural backgrounds and languages, with technology like AI and VR facilitating the incorporation of art and tradition in the active learning paradigm. The authors presented solid theoretical description as well as practical implementations of VR and AI in the form of an NPC that was created as a collaboration work between two universities. It can be envisaged from the manuscript that the implementation would serve the purpose of the authors to transform the museum into an integrated learning stage of tradition, history, and art. While the implementation of the AI based NPC raises interest, I believe the manuscript may be improved by providing a little deeper explanation of the NPC. For example, what kind of language model is trained for the NPC? Is the AI agent learning continuously, even at present? Does this NPC detect and interpret a visitor’s language from microphone and respond both verbally and with texts, as claimed in line 395? Can this agent be reached from virtual tours of the museum in internet at present? Apart from the above, the authors should also discuss some results that demonstrate the effectivity of the AI based tutor. I think a bit in depth discussion on the above topics can be added to the manuscript to make it more interesting to readers.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached a revised version of our manuscript, which has been carefully amended in response to the comments provided by both reviewers. In particular, we would like to emphasize that our intention is not to engage in self-citation, but rather to provide the necessary references to contextualize the foundation upon which our work is built—namely, an evolution of over ten years of research. This applies specifically to citations starting from reference 31 onward.
In addition to this aspect, we have, following a thorough internal discussion among all co-authors, implemented several modifications addressing all of your suggestions. Best regards

Author Response File: Author Response.docx