# Design and Evaluation of a Web- and Mobile-Based Binaural Audio Platform for Cultural Heritage
## 1 Introduction  
A heritage that is everywhere, and is relevant to everyday life, is one of the preconditions for genuine sustainability [1]. Currently, there are few Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools to support citizens in their everyday activities to shape cultural heritage and be shaped by it. Furthermore, existing applications and repositories for heritage dissemination do not foster the creation of heritage communities (e.g., Google Arts and Culture, and Europeana) [2; 3]. Social platforms certainly offer potential to build networks, but they have not yet been fully exploited for global cultural heritage promotion and integration in people's everyday life [4] and museums and institutions have only recently started to explore the potential of social media and technology for public engagement and co-creation purposes [5]. The PLUGGY project (Pluggable Social Platform for Heritage Awareness and Participation) [6] aims to bridge this gap by providing the necessary tools to allow users to share their local knowledge and everyday experience with others and, together with the contribution of cultural institutions, to build extensive networks around a common area of interest, connecting the past, the present and the future. Within PLUGGY, several tools are being developed (Figure 1): a social platform, curation tools and four \"pluggable\" apps to demonstrate the platform's potential and kick-start applications for the after-project life. The social platform serves both as a repository for all content uploaded (assets) and curated (exhibitions), as well as a place for interaction and collaboration. It has all the typical features of a social platform: profile, private and public content; follow; like; comment; share; notifications; folders to organise bookmarked content;and teams for collective contribution. At the same time, the social platform gives access to the curation tools--which are designed to create basic exhibitions in the form of blog stories or time-lines--and is extended by the \"pluggable\" apps for the curation of augmented exhibitions and engaging experiences. These applications focus on various aspects of digital heritage, which include Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), Geolocation, Gamification and 3D Soundscapes and Sonic Narratives. The latter, called PlugSonic, is the focus of the current paper, which will look in particular at the web- and mobile-based binaural audio features of the application. The PLUGSY social platform gives also access to external repositories like Europeana [7] and Wikipedia and includes an open source application programming interface (API) which allows anyone to develop new applications that access the platform's content and extend its features or curation tools. Any user can request to become a developer and--after adequate evaluation and approval--\"plug\" a new app to the platform for everyone to benefit (Figure 1). The research presented here aims to contribute to both the cultural heritage and spatial audio communities through the development of novel tools for the creation and experience of realistic and interactive 3D soundscapes. We describe the design choices and the key implementation details and we also illustrate the authoring workflow. We show how 3D audio and augmented reality technologies can be exploited to enhance visits to museums and monuments [8]. These could also be adopted to document and preserve the acoustics of an archaeological site [9] or landscape [10] or to document acoustic heritage [11]. By integrating web- and mobile-based applications with a social platform and online repository we show how binaural audio and sonic narratives could be used to encourage cultural heritage dissemination and availability. In this work, special importance has been given to designing applications which allow users with no previous knowledge or experience in 3D audio production or soundscapes curation, to contribute to the popularisation and growth of sonic cultural heritage.