ICT and Cultural Heritage in Greece and Cyprus: A critical overview of current postgraduate curricula

Abstract

One of the most fundamental shifts in the cultural heritage sector, is to be found at the intersection established over the past years, between heritage management and the rapidly growing field of digital technology. In the wake of these developments, the striking majority of professionals in the heritage sector are faced with the challenge of integrating ICT technologies in various workings, functions and purposes of their field (i.e. preservation, restoration, recording, analysis, interpretation, publication, exhibition). At the same time, digital technologies are becoming an integral part of cultural management (project management, event management, collection management etc) but also of cultural communication and public outreach. The analytical significance of this project stems mainly from the fact that it constitutes the first systematized attempt to chart (both quantitatively and qualitatively) all postgraduate programs of study on cultural heritage that are available at present across Departments and Universities in both Greece and Cyprus. The combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis of heritage studies curricula in both countriesalso provides us with an elaborated and refined picture of the professional skills promoted by different academic curricula as regards ICT skills and their implementation in heritage studies. As such, this mapping enterprise can be a useful tool for analytically appreciating the connection between curriculum content andjob requirements and by extension, act as a starting point for creating a sustainable model of synergy between heritage studies and ICT in Greece and Cyprus for the next decades.