Virtual Exhibits Investment Program – Program Guidelines: VMC Investment Specifications

A ceiling of $400,000, including GST/HST, has been identified for Virtual Exhibits Investment Program productions. Productions are evaluated on the merits of all components (exhibit/ interactive resource, learning object collection and lesson plan) and in the context of other proposals.

All museums that receive financial benefit through a contract must be CHIN members.

Certain technical specifications have been defined for VMC products. These are an integral part of the contract for a successful proposal and will affect the cost of developing a VMC production.

Eligible Costs

In calculating proposed VMC investment in content development productions, member organizations may include costs related to the following areas:

• research and preparation to develop and present content;
• educational expertise costs (salary or contract costs);
• coordination costs;
• salary or contract costs directly associated with the creation of content specifically for the VMC;
• evaluation(s) involving identified target audiences;
• digitization expenses including rights clearance and documentation;
• multi-media development costs;
• development costs for compliance with W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (salary or contract costs);
• payments to artists or other copyright holders for the use of their works;
• translation of content into the other official language and/or verification of translations (see Annex B for guidance on estimating translation costs);
• translation into additional languages may be eligible depending on the project;
• software or hardware (e.g., digital scanners) that is directly related to the production of content for the VMC;
• training or skills development that is directly related to the production of content for the VMC and that will provide longer-term benefit to the organization;
• up-front costs to cover the establishment of moderation functionalities within a proposed production as directly relates to social technologies (such as blogs and wikis) which are used to enhance the visitor experience with the content of the proposed production;
• travel costs where these are shown to be essential to the realization of the project;
• costs incurred by other organizations who partner with member museums in content proposals may be eligible where the costs are shown to be directly related to the development of content for the VMC.

Other proposed costs are considered on their merits in the context of specific proposals. The primary criterion is whether costs are directly related and essential to the on-line production.

Non-eligible Costs

The VMC does not invest in costs related to the following areas:

• digitization projects without contextualization of material;
• establishing websites. Note: CHIN will offer hosting services to museums unable to host their own content (Hosting / Internet Service Provider);
• automating collections management records;
• computers, external hard drives, memory cards and servers;
• printers;
• CD-Burner;
• ancillary materials (e.g. CDs, DVDs);
• ongoing costs to maintain moderation of social technologies (such as blogs and wikis) in products following their launch;
• marketing and promotional expenses (including: Communications personnel);
• printed materials such as complementary educational materials (e.g. Teacher's kits);
• contingency, unexplained miscellaneous or overhead costs;
• Intellectual Property credit;
• creation of new artwork (not including Web graphics);
• office space rental;
• website maintenance;
• Internet connection (since CHIN provides this to members);
• search engine registration;
• domain name registration.

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