Open Communities is a not-for-profit organisation based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, established with support from UnLtd.org.uk, we are developing a project to assist people who wish to develop audio tour guides to their community. 

In order to reach a wider audience on the net we have also registered the www.audiotours.net domain name.

Any Audio Guide requires content. Therefore the first project for Open Communities (aka www.audiotours.net ) is to publish a handbook (sometimes known as a 101) on How to Design, Build and Publish an Audio Tour Guide (see Documentation Wiki). This will be made freely available under a Creative Commons licence and will enable people and communities to develop good quality material that will inform, interest and involve people.

(Download the latest version 0.5 of the guide as an Adobe PDF document or OpenOffice text document or as a Microsoft Word Document.) 

We are also working with specialist technical experts to develop Micro Transmitter FM technology that can be Solar Powered and can provide on site audio guides. 

An audio guide is an audio recording that provides people with information and directions about the place they are visiting. It can also include pictures that give information and help people find their way. The guides can be played on an MP3 player or even on a CD in a car for an auto tour.

The site is called Open Communities because it is based on the same principle as open source software. People from a community co-operate together to produce an audio tour, which can then be downloaded from the internet by visitors to the area. Under the Creative Commons licence system, the copyright to the tour remains with the authors.

For more information, please see the Frequently Asked Questions.